Risking it All (Crossing the Line, #1)(59)

Two threats against her. Not one. He’d been inside with Wayne, discussing the offer

of

protection

for

a

new

neighborhood business, while she’d been outside exposed to two chances of death. His fists shook in his lap with the need to break something. Not trusting himself to speak, he climbed out of the car. As he walked to her side, he scanned the street for anything unusual before helping her stiff form from the driver’s side. He thought he saw regret in her brown eyes as they looked over his battered face, then decided he’d imagined it.

A minute later, they were locked safely inside his apartment. He watched her from the kitchen as she paced, looking as though she were at a loss how to behave with him now that her identity was out in the open. Finally, she removed her sweatshirt and went into the guest bedroom.

He followed her, terrified he would round the corner to find her packing.

Instead, he found her lying on the bed, staring up at the scales of justice. His body ached with the urge to crawl on top of her, kiss her body all over until she had no choice but to respond. “So what’s the call, Sera? Let me help you or shut me out? I’m not going anywhere, so I’d suggest option two.”

Just when he gave up on getting an answer, her voice broke the deafening silence. “When I was seven years old, about a year before my father died, my brother got to do a ride-along with him.

He was ten at the time.” She cleared the rust from her throat. “That morning, I begged to come along. I cried and pleaded until he finally gave in. I can still remember being so excited, so stunned he actually agreed.” Slowly, she sat up, clasped her hands between her knees. “Then he left me with the dispatchers. All day. While my brother did the ride-along. They braided my hair.”

His heart clenched thinking of her at seven. Left behind. While his childhood had been the exact opposite, he still understood the feeling of not belonging.

“I’m sorry, Ladybug.”

“Are you? I feel the same way right now as I did back then.” She laughed under her breath. “When he came back, I told him I wanted to be a cop. That I would be the best cop. He told me he liked my braid.”

How can I not touch her when she looks so sad? This is killing me.

Everything hurts. “I wish I wasn’t a part of making you feel this way. You have no idea how bad I wish for that. But I can’t pretend I don’t understand that need to protect you.”

“Help me understand.” Her gaze pleaded with him. “Do I come across so helpless?”

“Not helpless, baby.” The right words eluded him, so he just told the truth. “I don’t know how to explain it. I want to walk beside you everywhere and absorb anything bad, so it won’t touch you.

Won’t change you, make you like me.”

He saw moisture in her eyes and wondered if he would ever stop putting it there. When she stood and came toward him, he held his breath, praying she would touch him. Just before their bodies met, she stopped, taking in the injuries to his face. “This isn’t the first time you’ve done this to yourself, is it?”

She reached up to test his eye, but he leaned into her palm instead. “You told me you never lose a fight, so I wondered why you were always banged up. Tell me why you do this.”

Bowen swallowed heavily, afraid if he moved, her touch would go away. “I don’t know. I do it so I don’t feel numb like the rest of them. I do it to feel. I do it not to feel. Take your pick.”

She couldn’t hide her distress. “There are other ways to feel, Bowen.”

“Yeah?” He knew she hadn’t meant it to sound sexual, but he’d never been able to resist going down that road in his mind with her. Especially when she stood so close, worrying about him.

Touching him. Acting on its own, his hand settled on her hip, massaging circles into the sensitive area with his thumb. “You want to help me feel, Sera?”





CHAPTER NINETEEN


Sera’s pulse danced, every muscle below her waist pulling taut. Logic shouted in her ear to step back, away from

this

man.

This

damaged

complication of a man whose world she could never live in. Nor could he ever live in hers. She needed to listen this time. Her body had been making too many decisions lately, and while the need to soothe his pain was a living, breathing demand inside her, she couldn’t give in. Oh, but she desperately wanted to. He could be her lifeboat as the storm of emotions raged around her, through her. Grief for her brother on his birthday, anger at her uncle for not believing

in

her,

tempered

with

embarrassment she hated feeling. Fear of what the night would bring. Bowen would demand all her concentration and for a while, it would be perfect.

Amazing. Until it ended and things were twice as knotted as when they began.

With a near-paralyzing case of reluctance, Sera stepped out of his reach, dislodging the hand on her hip.

“You should go wash off that blood.”

“You should come help me.”

His thickened voice was so full of intention it made her stomach flutter.

“No, Bowen.”

She noticed an immediate change in his demeanor. He went from seductive bad boy to self-assured ladies’ man before she could blink. He’d seen the evidence on her face that she still desired him. The confidence that knowledge provided combined with the sting of her rejection was responsible for his attitude change, she knew that for certain. She felt a frisson of alarm, wondering how he would use the attraction. Right now, he just looked downright irritable, but there was also intention in the hard set of his jaw.