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“I ran from my father’s house as he was murdering my mother and older brother. I didn’t do a damn thing to help, which I will regret for as long as I live. So protecting others, it’s me trying to make right that first wrong. No matter how impossible it might be.” He heard the note of belligerence in his tone, almost daring her to judge him.
As if she could do it more harshly than he did it himself.
NO MATTER HOW fast she blinked, Haven couldn’t hold off the threatening tears. For Dare. For the boy he’d been. For all he’d lost. For the pain in his voice and that haunted look in his eyes she’d seen time and time again and never understood. Until now. “Oh, Dare.”
“So, yeah. That’s how it came about,” he said, shoving his plate away and crossing his arms over his chest.
Haven didn’t have the right words—assuming any even existed. All she knew was that she couldn’t be so far away from him. Nerves fluttered through her belly, but she pushed through it, got up from her seat, and rounded the table to him. And then she went to her knees on the floor, laid her head against his stomach, and wrapped her arms around his waist as best she could. “I’m so sorry.”
For a long moment, his body was rigid and unyielding, totally unmoved or maybe even put off by her touch. But then his muscles went loose, and it was like he was surrendering to her compassion, maybe even accepting it. A big, calloused hand stroked the hair off the side of her face. “I am, too,” he said in a tight voice.
“You were fifteen,” she said, the horror of his story washing over her. “You were lucky to survive yourself.” She peered up at him. “Imagine all the people who might never have gotten the Ravens’ help if your father had killed you, too.”
His lips pressed into a tight line and his eyes narrowed. He swallowed hard.
“Was Kyle your brother?” she asked. One of the tattoos on his chest included the name.
A tight nod, but nothing more.
Haven wasn’t sure if his silence was regret for telling her or difficulty telling her any more. But he wasn’t pushing her away, and he wasn’t telling her to drop it. So she didn’t. “What was he like?”
Dare’s expression softened, and she felt it deep in her chest. “He was a tough guy with a killer sense of humor who would give you the shirt off his back. He was a terrible student who got away with murder at school because he could charm the hell out of the teachers. And he was loyal and protective of his family and took care of my mom and me when things got bad. Which they did often. He taught me a lot of what I knew about how to be a man, or at least, the right kind of man, despite the fact that we were only two years apart. And he saved my life.”
“He sounds amazing,” she said.
“He was,” Dare said. “Come here.”
Haven rose and let Dare guide her until she straddled his lap. His hands ran up the outsides of her thighs as her arms went around his neck. “At least you’re doing something with your life,” she said. “At least you’re making what Kyle did for you mean something. That’s a form of fighting back, too. You know?” She shook her head. “Unlike me. The crap I let my father get away with for so long. I just took it. And I can’t see how I’ll ever manage to do anything half as meaningful as what you’ve done for so many others. And for me.”
“I’m no hero, Haven,” Dare said, his expression agitated.
“You are, Dare,” she said, meeting his gaze. “You are to me. And I bet you are to Bunny, too, because she adores you.”
Dare’s hands stroked her back, his eyes suddenly softer, unshuttered, uncertain. He pulled her closer until their foreheads touched. “What are you doing to me?” he whispered.
Haven’s heart tripped into a sprint, because the words held so much emotion that it made her heart ache with something a whole lot stronger than affection for him. “I don’t know,” she whispered back. “But you’re doing it to me, too.”
The admissions sparked heat between them until it seemed like the air itself was alive with electricity and desire. Between her legs, he hardened, and it shot a thrill of need through her body so hard and fast that her heart raced and her breathing shallowed and quickened.
“Fuck, Haven,” he rasped, his hands tangling in her hair.
“Yes, please,” she whispered, her whole body throbbing with arousal.
Dare had her shirt off in an instant. And then he was standing her up, stripping her down, and spinning her around. The chair he’d sat in screeched against the floor and his palm fell on her back. “Hands on the table.” Haven had barely complied when he gripped her butt cheeks in his fingers and spread them apart. And then he buried his mouth right where she needed him most.
