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“Too painful?” I offer, hoping I’m not going too far.
He glances down at me, the corners of his lips twitching as though in gratitude. “Yeah, you could say that.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” I murmur.
“No,” he says, a matter of fact. “I do. Because you’re right. I know your parents. I know your life. But you don’t know anything about me.”
A rebellious note thrums inside of me, and I shake my head. “That’s not true. I’ve heard dozens of stories of how you saved lives and led your men overseas. I know you’re a good businessman and you’ve grown your protection business massively. I know… I know you’re funny and handsome. A bona fide Mr. Hunk.”
And you’re mine, I almost add, but somehow I manage to pull the words back, even amidst the passion.
“Okay, okay,” he says, chuckling. “Maybe I was a bit hasty.”
I giggle. “I’m sorry. I guess I just don’t want you to think you’re a stranger to me.”
I need to calm down. There are only so many times I can talk so passionately about him before he realizes there’s something wrong and I’ve attached myself to him with far more significance than he feels.
And yet, he’s been making comments too, about how he wants to be open with me, share things with me.
Would he feel that way if he just wanted me for sex?
Sex.
The word alone sends sharp sensations cutting through me, taunting me.
“I get that.” He leans down and kisses my cheek softly, making that rumbling just-Bennet sound that tells me he’s on the verge of unleashing his inner beast. “We’re not strangers to each other, Rory. We could never be that.”
We stay like this for a time, his arm wrapped around me, our cheeks touching. I can feel his heart hammering as he hugs me closer, standing to his full height and looking over the water again.
“When I was eleven, some bastards broke into my house and killed my parents.”
I gasp, but Bennet goes on in a cold voice. No, not completely cold… it’s more like he’s trying to beat his emotion down so he doesn’t have to feel the full force of what happened.
“I was hiding in the closet when it happened, too scared to do a damn thing. I was a skinny kid and… Hell, what am I saying? Even if they'd attacked a few years later, after my growth spurt, I probably would’ve been too scared to do anything. Three men broke into my home because…”
He trails off, as though his words are tripping over themselves as he tries to push them out.
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “We’ve got all night.”
“My dad was a criminal, Rory,” Bennet says bitterly. “He worked for the Irish mob in the city. He was a low-level thug. He used to threaten innocent civilians to fund his gambling addiction. He’d hit my mom too, and… and do other things. He’s the reason I’ve always tried to do the right thing. I refuse to be like him.”
His whole body is tense, his words coming out roughly as though he’s imagining what he’d do to his dad if he were here right now.
My imagination doesn’t have to work very hard to figure out what Bennet means by other things.
“Anyway, he’d borrowed money off the wrong people and they were there to collect. They did vicious things to my parents before they shot and killed them. And I did nothing, didn’t even make a noise. I was petrified with fear. I feel like a coward when I look back, but it’s the truth. I couldn’t even move, I was so afraid.”
“That doesn’t make you a coward,” I murmur, blinking as tears slide from my eyes and down my cheeks, stinging in the cool autumn air. I huddle closer to Bennet, for warmth and to offer what comfort I can. “I think that just makes you a kid, Bennet.”
“I know I can’t blame myself. But it’s so damn hard sometimes,” he grits out.
“But it’s not your fault,” I say fiercely. “If you’d shown yourself, those men would’ve killed you too.”
“Yeah, I know that,” Bennet sighs. “After, when the men left… it took me almost an entire day to work up the courage to leave the closet. I wasn’t the person I am today, not back then. I was shy and scared and not at all like a SEAL. But seeing what happened to them, walking past their bodies… changed something in me. Broke something in me, you could say.”
He pauses and I wait for him to go on, even if part of me doesn’t want him to. My heart quakes at the thought of him going through that, suffering so much at such a young age.
“All I cared about then was making sure I was ready next time something like that happened. I started working out. I got a paper route job and started saving for shooting lessons. I cleaned the combat gym in exchange for discounts on classes. I promised myself, from that day on, I’d always be ready.”
