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Still Duncan said nothing.
“Say something, please. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“You didn’t,” he finally said, and reached out to set his hand on her knee. “And you’re right. I see what you mean. But I want to help.”
“You are. This helps. Having you at my back, making me feel good in the middle of feeling like shit, making me forget for a while, it all helps. Just knowing you’re here helps. Vin and Margot have my back, too, but this is happening to them, too. You, though—you feel like my private, personal thing. It helps.”
“Okay.” She heard the smile in his voice.
What an interesting man Duncan was. He was an outlaw biker, pretty much on par with if not outranking military men for their reputation for hypermasculinity, but he’d taken her refusal of his help and her critique of his lifestyle—no, of his identity, his world—calmly, and had even backed down. It spoke to a confidence so deep-seated it didn’t need to be loud or assertive.
There was a line from a book she’d read once, so far back she wasn’t sure which book, but the line had stuck with her. Something like ‘real power needn’t announce itself.’ Duncan was showing her what that looked like.
And it was incredibly hot. Also, it was comforting. He felt like a safe haven.
She laid her hand over his on her leg. “Thank you, Duncan. Just being here, you’ve made this all feel ... survivable.”
He shifted their hands and enfolded hers. “Happy to help,” he said, that grin chiming through each word. Then he pulled her to him and whispered, “How’d you feel about another round of forgetting your worries?”
Laughing, she settled back on the pillows as he moved on top of her. Now she could see his smile. It made the bandage on his cheek bunch, and she set her fingers lightly on it.
“I wondered if you’d noticed,” he said, still smiling.
“The big band-aid on your cheek? The bruises? Yeah, I noticed. I figured you’d tell me about it if you wanted me to know.”
His head tilted to the side. “You are a unique woman, you know that?”
“What, you don’t know a bunch of brain-damaged vets who run animal rescues?” she tried to joke.
His smile was gone. “It’s not about that. I don’t know anybody else who’s so sure of who they are, so clear about their boundaries—and so respectful of other people’s. That’s unique.”
Phoebe laughed.
“Baby, don’t. I’m being serious.”
“I know. I’m sorry—and I love the compliment. It’s just ... weird that you think I’m sure of who I am. A few years back, I didn’t even remember my own name.”
“Maybe that’s why.”
“Huh?”
“Maybe that’s why you know yourself so well. You had to learn yourself. Not many people have to do that. We’re mostly just a collection of accidents wrapped up in a sausage casing.”
For the first time in a while, Phoebe laughed with true, wholehearted humor. “That image is both hilarious and disgusting.” Settling into quiet again, she added, “But I like the idea that something about what happened to me turned out to be good.”
He brushed her hair from her face. “Everything about who you are is good, and everything that happened made you.”
Oh, she liked this man.
Shifting beneath him until she could feel his cock, hot and ready, pressing against her, she said, “I don’t want to talk anymore.”
His only response was to scoot down on the bed, under the covers, and settle between her legs.
Phoebe closed her eyes and began to forget her problems again.
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~oOo~
