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“I know that. But Talon, I’m fine. Please. We just need to figure out what was going on.”
“What if you hadn’t been able to stop me?” He combed his fingers through his tousled hair and then clasped his head in his hands, unable to meet my gaze.
I wrapped my arms around him, aching to console him.
“You weren’t hurting me, and I did stop you.”
His eyes were rimmed with red. “What if next time you can’t?”
I had been so busy trying to calm Talon down, I hadn’t thought about what would’ve happened if he’d truly been choking me and I hadn’t been able to stop him. The thought made my skin chill. Still, in the innermost chambers of my soul, I was positive he would never do me harm.
He fisted both hands in his mass of black hair. “I can’t be around you anymore, Jade.”
My insides bled a little. The look in his eyes was so tortured. “Has this ever happened to you before?”
He shook his head. “No, but I’ve never slept with anyone…before.”
I jolted forward. “Really? You’ve never spent the night with a woman?”
He shook his head again.
“Why not?”
“I’ve never wanted to before.”
Emotion swirled through me. This man was such a conundrum. In the span of five minutes, he could scare the hell out of me and then make me melt into a big puddle of honey.
“We can’t see each other anymore,” he said again.
Nope. Not an option. “Do you remember anything?” I asked. “Do you remember why you wanted to put your hands on my throat?”
He rubbed at his forehead. “I never wanted to put my hands around your throat, Jade. Please believe that.”
“I do believe that. But do you have
any idea why this happened?”
He sighed. “I dream sometimes.”
“About when you were in the Marines?”
He scoffed, shaking his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Please, I want to understand. I’ve always wanted to. Let me help you.”
“I can’t let you anywhere near me, blue eyes. If I ever did anything to hurt you…” Remorse and fear were etched into his features.
“But you didn’t, Talon. I stopped you.”
“What if you hadn’t been able to stop me?”
I still didn’t think he would’ve done me any harm, but I did have to consider that question. What if I hadn’t been able to stop him? The answer came to me instantly, and in the depth of my soul, I knew it as pure truth. “Then you would’ve stopped yourself.”
“Neither one of us can be sure of that,” he said, putting on his socks and then his boots. He sat on the futon, his neck glistening with perspiration. Sweat dripped from his brow.
He was scared.
I had never seen Talon scared.
