Page 37 of Taylor’s Warrior

A simple enough question, and the answer was anything but. “Part of me is dreading it, but the other part wants it to be over.”

“Understandable. Tell me what you’re dreading about it. Putting it into words might help.”

Taylor’s stomach churned. “I’m scared I’m going to find a man I don’t know. I believed in him. I believed whatever he was doing, it was for good reasons. I ignored my instincts when he ignored my questions. I pretended to myself there was nothing wrong. That he just needed more time, and I chose to stop counting the time he’d already had.”

“Why don’t you tell me all of it, Tay? Whatever it is, let me share the load. I have broad shoulders, remember?”

The comment about his shoulders lifted her mood a little. They were indeed impressive, and maybe she could lean on them, for a short while at least. “I want the truth about it all. Without truth, what do we have? At the same time, though, I have this dread that won’t go away, that I’m going to find out something that’s going to blow my whole world apart, and it’ll never be the same again.”

“Truth can be painful,” Rhys agreed. “In the end, though, you’re right—it’s all there is. Illusion may be more comfortable, but it has a way of betraying you. Truth lasts.”

At one time, it would have pained her to admit Rhys was right, but not anymore. “I guess I just needed you to help me accept what I already knew.” Taylor sighed. “I’ll be glad once we’re on our way.”

“We’ll be leaving soon enough. And since we need to be up early in the morning, I think it might be a good idea to clean up and go to bed. What do you think?”

Taylor was no fool—he wasn’t really soliciting her opinion at all. Not that she minded. “Sounds good to me.”

She swung her feet off the couch and stood. As she reached for the pizza boxes, her hand collided with his. On impulse, she wrapped her fingers around his and gave them a squeeze. His gaze meshed with hers, and she couldn’t help but smile.

Rhys responded with a smile of his own, the smile that gave her butterflies. “Why don’t you put those in the trash and I’ll wash the glassware?” he said. “That way, you can take the bathroom first.”

As he’d managed to let her do every day. “Thanks.”

Having thrown the boxes in the trash, she dived into the bathroom for the fastest shower of her life. As she made her way back to her bedroom, another quandary popped into her mind—the matter of a goodnight kiss. As she perched on the end of the bed, listening for any signs of movement, she decided to play it by ear.

A soft click told her he was in the bathroom. She tried not to think of him standing in front of the mirror, stripped to the waist, while he prepared for bed. A few minutes later, she heard the door again, and now her imagination pictured him padding silently from there to his bedroom. Almost precisely on cue, the sound of another door closing came from that direction.

This was it. As a grown woman, with her own mind and her own agency, she could go after what she wanted without waiting for permission. And she wanted Rhys.

Taylor made a deal with herself—if there was a light showing under his bedroom door, she’d say goodnight. If not, then she’d go back to bed, stuff her head under the pillow, and count sheep until dawn if she had to.

And… there was a light.

Taylor knocked on the door, and as soon as Rhys gave her permission to enter, her hand was on the handle.

Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of him sitting up in bed, one knee raised beneath sheet that covered him up to his hips. Seeing him in swim trunks by the pool was one thing, but in this setting, seeing that naked muscular chest took it up to a whole different level of intimate.

Then it hit her. This wasn’t just lust, although there was plenty of that pulsing through her veins. This was falling in love.

Before her stalled brain could provide any words, Rhys broke the silence but not the mood.

“Can’t sleep?”

She shook her head.

His gaze locked with hers, and in a flash of mutual understanding, explanation became unnecessary. He flipped back the sheet. “You’d better come to bed, then. I might be able to help.”

He not only knew why she was there, he was okay with it, too. As watershed moments went, it was pretty amazing, if a little surreal. Taylor needed no further invitation. As she drew the sheet over her bare legs, she looked him in the eyes and said, “That’s what I was hoping.”

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He wanted to make love to her more than he wanted to carry on breathing.

Keeping his hands off of her the last couple of days had been a personal ordeal on a par with the most demanding trials in the SAS training manual. And then she’d appeared at the threshold of his bedroom, looking entirely delectable in what some might call a very definitely unsexy lilac cotton, knee-length nightgown and blowing his self-control to kingdom come. He’d only just managed to raise a knee in time to conceal a surging hard-on his briefs could barely contain.

There was no hiding it now that she was right beside him—she’d knocked him sideways and made him face the root cause of his animosity toward her. Not a superficial “fuck and forget” attraction, but one that went deep, the kind that could turn his world upside down.

Rhys tossed the book he’d been about to read onto the nightstand. “If you’d given me some notice, I’d have shaved.”