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Keys down on the table beside the door. I start stripping my gear. My cuffs. My baton. My flashlight. My spare magazines. I slide my weapon from my hip. Lift my pant leg and undo the magazine holster there. Toss my jacket on the ground and leave it in a heap, then undo my shoulder harness and the second pistol I’ve started carrying.
Tonight, I’m not coming to Brennan as the chief of his detail. I’m coming to him as me. Reese, the man who loves him.
He watches my every move, eyes raking over me, head to toe and back again. His gaze is guarded, wary. Iron edged in torment and colored in remembered pain as our stares lock.
“What are you doing here?” His voice grinds, ragged and rough and far too deep.
“I need to talk to you.”
“Hasn’t that time passed? He turns, and his face is lost in shadows. He stares into the dying fire and doesn’t move. “Reese, I came here to force you out of my mind. I was going to give myself one more weekend, and then I was going to bury my feelings for you.”
“Please, don’t.”
“Why not?” He grips the mantel. “You said we were a mistake.”
“I was trying to protect you. If anyone finds out what we’ve done—"
My lips clamp shut. Those are old truths. The truths that should keep us apart. I’ve tilled those worries into the fallow fields of my psyche, harvested centuries of pain for my efforts. There is nothing new there.
The fire sputters as the last of the flames wither away. All that’s left are the coals. His eyes close, and he exhales. “Why are you here?”
I’m doing this wrong, all wrong. “I’m here because… Brennan, something has pulled us together from the moment we met. I don’t understand it, and I never have. I’ve tried to fight it, and I’ve tried to run away from it, but I can’t.”
His jaw works, the muscles clenching. “I felt the same,” he whispers. “The world changed when I looked into your eyes. Now there’s my life before you and my life after you. Anguish twists his face. “I fell so deeply in love with you.”
“I fell in love with you, too.” And I’m still falling. I’m in free fall. Plunging, this time in terror. “I did make a mistake, but it wasn’t us falling in love. It was me walking away. I made the biggest mistake of my life six weeks ago, and if I could rewind time and go back to that night, I would—”
My voice cracks.
“Merde, I can’t stop imagining what we could be together. But… We are bad news, Brennan. I’m bad for you. What am I compared to your whole career? Compared to everything you’ve done and all the good you can accomplish, what am I?”
“You never asked what you were worth to me, Reese. Loving you is bigger than the presidency, or my legacy, or my reputation. I am a man—”
“You are more than just a man. You are a great president.”
“Don’t look at me and only see policy.”
“But you can change the world. You already have.”
In the past six weeks, since I walked out, Brennan’s alliance and his commitment to human rights has saved thousands. Tens, hundreds of thousands of lives. The relocations, the graves being dug, the towns being torched. All of that has been put to an end. Because of Brennan.
It makes me love him even more.
“This world will go on, but I want our world, Reese. I want what we found together. I want you to look at me and think of our love.”
Silence envelops us.
“There are things bigger than ourselves,” he says softly. “Loving you is one.”
He’s so still.
“Brennan… This is…” Fate. Destiny. He’s the love of my life. “I don’t want to sacrifice anymore. I don’t want to compromise. I want to be with you.”
Brutal hope burns from him so fiercely, so intensely. “You need to be sure.” His voice is shaking. No, he’s shaking, every part of him. His hands are clenched at his sides like he’s holding himself back and it’s taking everything inside him to do it. “I cannot survive you walking away from me again.”
Six weeks of sleepless nights, of fitful dreams, of waking up with the ghost of his eyes.
“I’m sure.”
