Breathe (Colorado Mountain #4)(145)

I closed my eyes, let his curl go and circled his hip with my other leg so I could hold him tight with everything I had available to me.

“But unfortunately,” he went on, “when you’re way pissed, you lay off the geek references so you make way too much f**kin’ sense.”

That meant I got through.

Thank you, God, I got through.

I opened my eyes and dipped my chin so my lips were at the skin under his ear, the skin of my upper lip tickled by his unruly curls and I whispered, “Chace.”

His head came up and I caught my breath at the look on his face, warmth, regret and something else, something huge, something that made my heart skip.

“I should have told you earlier. I should have trusted you. I should have read all the things you were sayin’ to me with the way you were with me, for me and with Malachi and knew you could handle it. I was wrong, baby, and I f**ked up. But I love you, Faye, and protection going hand in hand with love is all I know,” he admitted quietly.

My chest depressed as my eyes started stinging.

What I saw on his face was love.

He loved me.

Loved me.

“You love me?” I whispered, just to confirm.

“Fell in love with you in a grocery store aisle and you didn’t even know I was there.”

“I probably did,” I confessed and his lips tipped up but it wasn’t teasing and sweet, it was strangely sad.

“Then you did but I didn’t know. You wanted me, I wanted you, I sat on what I wanted and f**ked up my life.”

“You didn’t f**k up your life, Chace.”

“If I moved on you when I wanted to, you’d have been in my bed the last seven years and Misty wouldn’t have seen it. Ty wouldn’t have –”

I squeezed him with all my limbs and whispered harshly, “Stop.”

He shut his mouth.

I went on, “Nothing can change what happened but one thing can change and that’s you feeling that the world is on your shoulders. Another thing that’s all you know since your Mom is ill and has been your whole life is thinking you’re responsible for everything around you, that you can fix it, make it better or at least cushion everyone’s fall. Your Dad, when you were growing up, should have protected you from that too. Proving he’s not only the worst father in the world but also the worst in history, he clearly didn’t.”

“I won’t give him much, honey, but you live with that in your house, it’s impossible to shield a child from it.”

“That’s debatable and you’re right, I didn’t live it but am I right that he didn’t try?”

Chace slid out of me, rolled us to our sides, pulled my hair away from my face but kept his fingers in it before he answered quietly, “You’re right. He didn’t try.”

Both his arms closed around me tight, gathering me closer even as his hand didn’t leave my hair but his legs tangled with mine and he carried on.

“Not to get you riled up again but I get him. It’s different, girls and boys. A man will want his son to step up.”

“Maybe so but I know I’m not wrong when I tell you it’s different also between children and adults. Children aren’t expected to step up until it’s time to teach them to be adults. But before you do that, you have to let them be children. It’s a guess, but you never got that.”

He closed his eyes and tipped his head so our foreheads were touching but not before I saw that raw look wash over his face and I finally got it.

And I hated it.

He opened his eyes, pulled his head back half an inch and confirmed what I just figured out.

“I never got that,” he whispered.

I stared in his beautiful face, feeling his awesome chest hair teasing my br**sts, his powerful arms around me, his heavy legs tangled in mine, his heat seeping into me. I took this all in and instead of it along with the end of our fight, the knowledge of his love, the lingering orgasm soothing me, I got pissed.

And when I say that, I mean, I… got… pissed.

So this was why I informed him, “You know, even Darth Vader had the good grace to ask Luke to join him on the dark side.”

Chace blinked then his arms got tight.

But it was too late.

Way too late.

I was gone.

“I mean, they were fighting to the death and he cut off Luke’s hand but still, he gave him the fraking choice.”

“Faye –” he started, my name trembling with humor but this was lost on me.

Totally.

“But Trane Keaton?” I asked then immediately answered, “Noooooooo. He doesn’t ask. Just drags you right in. No hand extended. No, ‘Chace, I’m your father. Join me on the dark side,’ giving you the opportunity to say, ‘Never!’ Not for him. No. He just shoves you right in!”

“Honey –”

I tore from his arms but only to sit up, smack him in the chest and rant on.

“I mean, seriously? You saw a kinky sex tape he starred in! How can he even look at you much less kiss your girlfriend’s hand? Gross! Darth Vader didn’t have a girlfriend. He gave all his attention to quashing the rebellion! As he should!” I started yelling. “Until this moment, I never would have thought I’d say up with the Empire but, here I am, saying it! Darth had a mission and one had to ask oneself, considering the Emperor was wrinkly and seriously ick, what the frak? But you could see deep inside Darth was struggling. Because deep inside he was Anakin. There’s no Anakin in Trane Keaton!” I shouted then I found myself on my back in the bed with Chace on top of me.