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Cain nodded. “You have my cell?” he asked.
Vincent gave him a nod, though his eyes were back on the phone.
Neither man exchanged any additional words as Cain took my hand in his and led me from the kitchen. It was the second time he’d grabbed onto my hand, the first being just outside the bank right before the cops had shown up. But unlike that time, this time I was actually able to enjoy the sensation of his callused skin against mine. Not to mention that he was holding my hand on purpose, not just as part of some act.
“What now?” I asked.
“It’s not worth flying back to Seattle to wait so we’ll check out the hotel. You okay with that?”
As much as I missed Lucy, the idea of getting to spend a few more days with Cain in complete and utter privacy was a welcome relief and for the first time since we’d left the hotel that morning, I felt my spirits lift. Admittedly, I hadn’t done well after Cain had voiced what I’d already known – that my life was not going to be what I wanted it to be if that phone couldn’t be fixed. I’d felt guilty for coming off as an ungrateful jerk, especially considering how much harder things would have been without Ronan and Cain, but knowing I’d be losing my family all over again, along with the freedom to be the real me, had been devastating.
After we’d checked out of the hotel and gotten some food, Cain had returned the rental car and we’d taken a cab to a different agency and gotten a new rental. They were steps I wouldn’t have even considered taking if I’d been on my own. The drive to West Virginia hadn’t taken long and we’d spent much of it talking about our childhoods. Cain’s had been tough to listen to because there’d been so little joy in his life compared to my more stable upbringing, even after he’d gone to live with his grandmother after getting out of the hospital. He’d admitted that his life with her had been good and that she’d been kind to him, but he’d been unable to connect with her like he would have been able to had the circumstances been different. His aversion to being touched had started even before he’d left the hospital and his grandmother had not been an exception to that. Like the girl who’d tried to kiss him, when his grandmother had gone to hug him for the first time, he’d lashed out at her. While he hadn’t hurt her, he’d known she was afraid of him after that and she’d never again tried to have any kind of physical contact with him.
He’d been sent to a shrink after his stay at the hospital, but his trust issues had made him practically unreachable at that point. Being around other people hadn’t worked either and he’d dropped out of school by the time he was sixteen. He’d gone on to get his GED a year later, but hadn’t had any interest in college so he’d stayed in Indianapolis to be near his grandmother, despite their strained relationship. He’d worked odd jobs over the years, mostly ones where he hadn’t had to interact with a lot of other people. When his grandmother had died just after his twenty-first birthday, he’d left Indiana. He hadn’t told me what he’d done after that, though I did wonder if it was at that point that he’d met Ronan and started working for him.
When we hadn’t been talking on the drive to West Virginia, I’d been thinking about my conversation with him that morning. He’d been so certain that my interest in him was tied to the fact that he was protecting me and helping me finally get away from Eric once and for all. Like I’d told him, feeling safe was just a sliver of what had my feelings for him growing stronger and stronger the more time I spent in his company. I was scared of how quickly I was losing parts of myself to him. It had been a little over two weeks since he’d tackled me in the snow and put a gun to my head, but yet, everything was different.
He was different.
I was too.
But maybe it wasn’t that I was necessarily different…he was just making it okay for me to be the real me. The me I’d wanted to be with Eric, but hadn’t been good enough to be. I kept trying to remind myself to take it slow with Cain because I needed to make sure I really knew him, but then I’d go back to how slow I’d taken things with Eric. I’d spent months getting to know Eric before I’d slept with him and before I’d told him I’d loved him, yet I’d known nothing about him…nothing that was real anyway.
