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It’s the first time I notice the pan with the bacon already set in strips. “Trying to distract me, Kitten?”
“No.” Her arms fold over her chest. She’s nervous.
I fucking love that we’re back to this. It’s been two weeks of hell for me, and probably for her too. I’ve kept my distance as much as possible, not wanting to cause her any stress while her body healed. But I’ve missed her.
“Seems like it to me.”
“I hate cooking bacon. It spits.”
I give her a rueful grin, loving when her eyes drop to my mouth and her tongue pokes out to wet her lips. “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you from the big, bad bacon.”
She huffs but surprises me. “You’re a big, strongman. Isn’t that what you’re here for?”
The first bit of the comment has me grinning wide. The second bit—it’s like I’ve been hit by a bucket of ice water. It’s my job to protect her. I promised to protect her, and I failed. Someone hurt her. Fuck, someone nearly killed her.
I don’t know where I go, but it’s far enough that she steps close. Her hand on my arm jolts me out of it, and I blink down to see her frowning in concern up at me.
“Cash?” she asks. “Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere.” My mood went from light and easy to dark and broody in seconds. The climb out of the dark feels momentous.
“Hey.” She steps in closer, pushing her body between mine and the stove I’ve yet to turn on. “Don’t do that. Don’t shut me out.”
“I’m not.”
“I said something to upset you,” she observes. “I just—I don’t know what.”
Her hands are on my chest, and I know she can feel the violent drum of my heart. “It’s my job to protect you. I didn’t.”
Confusion, and then her eyes widen. “You mean—you don’t mean the poisoning?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. If I could get my hands on the little shit that—”
“Cash!” Exasperation is heavy in her voice. “Youcan’t be serious? A girlfriend bought me a latte that some angry kid poisoned. It was random. There’s nothing you could have prevented—nothing for you to protect me from. Sometimes life—it just happens.”
“Wrenlee.” Her hand moves up from my chest to my face when I close my eyes, hating the vision of her body so pale and sick and on the verge of being irrevocably broken on the bathroom floor.
“Cash,” she calls. “Please look at me.”
I open my eyes. I’m not sure I could deny this woman a thing that she asks for. Not a thing.
She speaks again, “It was random. He’s been caught. It’s over.”
“Seeing you like that—” I swallow hard. “It’s going to haunt me.”
Her green eyes search mine for a long moment before she reaches both hands up to loop around the back of my neck. She rises onto her tiptoes as she tugs me down, pressing her warm, soft mouth to my jaw.
Wrapping my arms around the small of her waist, I drag her body into mine as she breathes against my throat, “You’ve already saved me from so much more than you think. And when I was sick, you made me safe. You cared for me. You were a safe place for me to heal. Cash,”
When she says my name, something in me just breaks. Snaps.
It’s been two weeks since I’ve tasted her lips. Twoweeks of hell.
It’s not about desire now as my lips search for and find hers. It’s about connection. I need to connect with her. Need to feel her. Taste her. Breathe her in.
When I find her mouth with mine, she doesn’t shy away from me. She doesn’t hesitate or put up a single barrier. She opens under me, leaving herself beautifully vulnerable for my taking.
I take. When she parts her lips to invite me inside, I take. When she sighs, I deepen the kiss. When she moans, I devour.
