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Because I wanted it.
I wanted him to mark me.
Claim me.
I wanted to know what it would feel like to have this man sliding into me more than anything I’d ever wanted in my life.
It took the little voice echoing from the room down the hall to stop me in my tracks. “Daddy? I need you weawwy bad!”
Ezra choked, and the severity that had cocooned us burst.
His forehead dropped to mine, and he wrapped his hand around my wrist.
To stop me or maybe to stop himself, I didn’t know, but he held me there for the longest time as we wheezed and tried to orient ourselves.
To come back down to Earth when we’d been soaring someplace outside reality.
“Shit,” he grumbled as he edged back another inch. “I’m sorry.”
My head shook as I pressed my lips flat like it could put out the fire, but I should have known better than to think it held a chance at dousing the flames that raged inside.
“It’s probably for the best.”
It was true. It was for the best. That didn’t mean it didn’t make my heart ache. It didn’t mean I didn’t want to reach for him and pull him back to me.
“Daddy?” Owen called again.
“I need to go check on him.”
“I’ll let myself out.”
Ezra peeled himself away.
Reluctantly.
Painfully, even.
I couldn’t move as I watched him lumber across the living room. I felt speared to the spot when the man glanced back at me right before he disappeared down the hall.
Lust carved into every line of his masculine face.
But there was something more beneath it. Something bigger. Something deeper.
And I let myself dream for one second. Of what it might be like to belong. For someone to care about me as much as I cared about them.
Then I gathered my invitation, blocks, and jacket, and I ran out.
TWENTY-FOUR
EZRA
THREE YEARS AGO
Glass shattered from the other side of the house. Ezra had just taken a sip of coffee, and the steaming liquid splashed over the rim of his mug and onto his hand.
“Fuck,” he spat beneath his breath, and the porcelain cup clanked as he basically dropped it to the counter and took off down the hall in the direction where the crash had come from, shaking off the sting of his hand as he went.
“Brianna?” he called as he hit their room. He moved toward the small bathroom.
He stalled when he got to the door, and a rustle of anxious nerves slipped beneath the surface of his skin when he heard the sobs echoing from the other side.
Carefully, he nudged open the door. His heart accelerated the way it always did, never knowing what form of tumult he was going to meet. His pounding heart slicked over in ice for a beat when he saw the mirror had been shattered, splintering out from the single impact point in the middle. The decorative vase that had been slammed against it was in a million splintered pieces on the counter and sink.
And his wife…his wife was on the floor with her back pressed to the wall, tearing at the long tresses of her light-blonde hair that she’d just spent the last half hour ironing into curls.
“Shit, Brianna, what the hell happened?”
“I can’t take it any longer! I can’t take it!”
“What can’t you take?” He begged it.
“All of it. Everyone’s after me. They’re going to get me. They’re going to find me.”
Terror curdled his blood, seizing everything. This was the part that frightened him most.
The delusions.
What had sent him seeking help, getting her scheduled with a psychiatrist and a therapist. Only he found out she hadn’t been going. Her therapist had been concerned and pulled him aside and talked to him. He’d told Ezra that Brianna had missed every appointment for the last two months and she hadn’t gotten her meds refilled. He doubted it was protocol, but Ezra had known him his entire life, so there was a trust there. This town was family, each doing their best to support each other.
It made him feel like he was failing because he didn’t know how to support Brianna, anymore. Not when she kept making these decisions that hurt her. That hurt him. That hurt their family.
Still, he reached for her like he might be able to be a buoy, a safe place in the storm, only she wailed and writhed out from the wall like a demon had rolled through her body.
“Don’t touch me. Don’t fucking touch me!” The screams battered the walls, but not even close to how violently they battered his soul.
His worry for her bashed against the frustration. This constant back and forth that he’d been on his knees praying would change.
Thank God his mother had already swung by to pick up the kids to look after them while he and Brianna were at work. He hated it when they were exposed to it. Even though they were too young to understand what was happening, there was no doubt they could feel it.
