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My gaze shifts toward the door, finding Alex standing directly below the mistletoe monster dildo, and despite the very sight of him, I can’t even pretend to smile. Taking me in, his brows furrow, and he quickly steps inside the door and closes it behind him. “You good, Mace?”
Shifting my gaze back to the blank TV, I shake my head, not trusting myself to say the words out loud without falling to pieces.
Alex watches me a moment longer before muttering something to himself and quickly crossing my apartment. He welcomes himself onto my couch, lifting the blanket over him before grabbing hold of me and pulling me right into the warmth of his strong arms. “What happened?” he questions, his hand cradling the back of my head and holding me close.
“My . . . my friend was killed last night.”
“Shit,” he mutters, holding me tighter as the tears begin to spill all over again, and yet Alex doesn’t seem to care how they soak into his shirt. He just keeps holding me as though he’ll never let go, and it’s the most welcoming place I’ve ever been. “I’m sorry, Ky.”
I shake my head, wanting to tell him that he has nothing to be sorry for, that this wasn’t his fault, but I can’t find the strength to form the words. Then as the emotional trauma quickly catches up to me, I fall into a fretful sleep right there, sprawled out across his chest as his fingers move back and forth over my hip.
ThememoryofCrew’slifeless body assaults my mind, and I’m jarred awake, gasping for air. A set of strong arms lock around me, holding me in place, and I quickly realize that I’m still lying on the couch, using Alex as my personal pillow. “Shit,” I mutter, cringing as I rub my sore, puffy eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.”
“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” he murmurs into the quiet room, a muted hockey game taking up residence on my TV.
I swallow hard, my mouth dry as I try to find my bearings. “How long was I out?”
“Uhhhh,” he says, his gaze shifting to the armrest as he lights up the screen of his phone. “A little over two hours.”
“Two hours? Shit,” I say again, trying to pull myself off his chest, but Alex tightens his hold on me again, refusing to let me go, and honestly, I’m not disappointed. “I hope I haven’t ruined your plans for the day.”
“It’s all good, Mace,” he says, tipping his chin and pressing a feather-soft kiss to my temple. “I don’t want you worrying about that. Not today.”
I nod, lifting my head to meet his gaze, my brows furrowed as I find myself completely taken by this perfect stranger. He’s been everything over these past few days, and he has somehow kept my mind off the most horrendous things and made me feel as though everything is going to be okay.
The tension burns between us, growing stronger and brighter by the second. His fingers dig into my hip, and then finally, he closes the distance, tipping his head until his lips brush over mine in the sweetest kiss.
My hand slides up his strong chest and around the back of his neck, holding on to him as I scramble to my knees and straddle his lap. As I deepen the kiss, his hands rest at my hips.
It’s everything I thought it would be, but he’s holding back. Despite the way he hardens beneath me, he's keeping it respectful. I know he’d rather take this a lot further, but he doesn’t strike me as the type to push the limits with an emotionally depleted girl.
His lips move over mine just right as his tongue explores my mouth, and as a soft moan rumbles through my chest, his arms tighten around my back. As he pulls me in closer to his chest, I become completely overwhelmed by how damn good he smells.
My fingers knot into his hair, and as the intrusive thoughts about the last guy I kissed in this apartment flash through my mind, I pull back, breathing heavily and tipping my forehead against his. “I’m sorry,” I say, gently shaking my head. “I just—”
His hands fall back to my hips, his thumbs gently brushing back and forth. “Do you wanna tell me about it?”
“I, umm . . . I don’t really know what to say,” I tell him, pulling back just an inch, my hand knotting into his shirt and giving me something to focus on apart from the way his dark eyes seem to penetrate right through to my soul.
“You said it was a friend,” he prompts.
A soft smile pulls at my lips. “He . . . sometimes,” I admit. “Sometimes he was a friend. Sometimes he was more. And sometimes he—” I cut myself off before I admit that sometimes he was the man who taught me how it felt to have someone you love betray you in the worst way.
“He what, Kyah?” Alex pushes. I press my lips into a hard line, not wanting to keep going, when a sadness flashes in his dark gaze. He lifts his fingers to my face and gently skims across the bruise that marks my jaw, and I quickly realize that I never covered it up after washing my face earlier. “Did he give you this?”
Shame fills me, and I drop my gaze, unable to meet his eye as I nod. “We got into a fight yesterday,” I tell him, my eyes filling with tears. “He was drunk and acting like a jerk, like I owed him something simply for existing. We’d gotten together earlier in the week, and since then . . . I don’t know. Everything shifted. He became possessive and angry, and then all of a sudden, people were warning me away from this guy even though he had been one of my closest friends for the past six years. Now that he’s gone, I don’t even know if I ever truly knew him at all.”
“What happened, Mace?”
“We got into a fight. I was yelling at him, just like I’ve done a million times before, but this time was different. He just snapped, and the next thing I knew, I was on the floor,” I tell him, an ugly heaviness resting on my shoulders and weighing me down. “I told him he was dead to me, and ran out of there, but if I knew that was the last time I would ever see him . . . I never would have said that. I wouldn’t have fought with him.”
Alex clenches his jaw, his fingers digging into my hips as he closes his eyes, needing a moment to compose himself. “Why didn’t you come to me, Mace? I hate that you were just across the hall, hurting.”
I shrug my shoulders. “I was so ashamed. I still am,” I admit. “I’ve never wanted to be that girl that people look at with pity—like I’ve already seen people doing today. I couldn’t stand the thought of you looking at me like that too, and if we’re really being honest, I didn’t know if I could come to you. Whatever this is between us is still so new, and I don’t know where we stand. I’m still trying to figure it out.”
“Let me make it clear for you,” Alex rumbles, his arm locking around my waist and pulling me in, our bodies pressed tightly together. I suck in a gasp, that same tension snapping like an elastic band between us, my heart racing. “I’m going to fall in love with you, Kyah. A week from now, a month. I can’t be sure, but it’s happening whether you want it to or not, and I don’t give a shit if that scares the shit out of you.”
I swallow hard, knowing I should be terrified by his admission, only I’ve never felt so at ease. “I’m not an easy person to love,” I warn him.
