Chapter Ten
He hadn’t meant to kiss her.
But Harvey pulled her toward him, dropped his head and lost himself in that near-constant craving he’d had for her since the night they’d met.
Deeper, harder, more ferociously. His mouth smoothed over Drennan’s as she met him stroke for stroke, like a dance they’d rehearsed a thousand times.
In a matter of seconds, his entire body felt as though he’d been stunned with a Taser.
His heart thudded hard enough from behind his rib cage, he was sure Drennan could feel it trying to escape.
His senses rocketed into overwhelming territory.
Every sweep of his tongue against hers. He couldn’t fight the urge to savor everything he’d convinced himself hadn’t been real all over again.
The slight gasp as he let up, the way her fingernails dug into his shoulders.
How she pressed against him as though unconsciously seeking him out.
His hands and legs prickled with sensation. Heavy as he folded her against him.
This. This was what he’d been missing the past eight weeks. Her touch, her scent, the way her hair slid between his fingers. Sex had always been nothing more than a biological necessity he was happy to get through, but with Drennan… How had his brain minimized this connection between them?
Harvey slid his hands down, over her back end, down to her thighs and lifted her off the floor, securing her legs around his waist. Turning, he pressed her back into the archway.
To get closer. To neutralize this need for her he thought might not ever be satiated.
Years of numbness and avoidance broke under the small moan escaping up her throat.
And Harvey wanted to hear it again. He wanted to hear it every morning and every night.
Every time he touched her. It belonged to him, that sweet little sound.
She’d never make it for any other man. She was his.
Right here, right now. Whatever this was between them just made sense.
The ache in his chest—where a hole had been for years—matched the one building through the rest of his body as he pressed into her.
Only she could soothe it. Just as she had that night.
The night she’d gotten pregnant.
Blood drained from his upper body, too many sensations assaulting him all at once. His baby. She was having his baby. He was going to be a dad. And that…that couldn’t happen. Right?
Pressing his forehead to hers, Harvey broke the kiss, breathing heavy.
Her, too. He’d done that to her. Brought out that woman who’d shot down a college kid trying to get lucky, the one who’d taken his hand without a moment’s hesitation and somehow shattered everything he’d ever known about himself in a single night.
He wrapped her in both arms, holding on to her with everything he had.
He wanted her. More than he’d ever allowed himself to admit to wanting something before.
She squeezed her thighs around him as his thumb traced the waistline of her jeans. Trying to drag him out of his head and back to her. Drennan arched her back to close the distance between them once more. “Harvey.”
That breathy sigh nearly did him in. She skimmed her fingers over his jaw, turning his gaze to her. “Hey. Are you okay?”
It would be easy to haul her back into his bed, to chase that high she was solely responsible for addicting him to, but he’d always want more.
Do whatever it took for the next hit, maybe even override her desires.
And that… He wasn’t that man. He wouldn’t let himself be that man.
Harvey loosened his hold around her rib cage, all too aware of how little pressure it would take to keep her for himself. “I can’t. I can’t do this.”
She unlocked her ankles, sliding down the front of his body with both hands on his shoulders for balance. Lips swollen with the evidence of their kiss, Drennan ran a hand through her hair, still so close he could feel the gallop of her heart rate. “You realize we’ve done this before, right?”
He fought the laugh charging up his throat. Harvey pressed his hand into the archway at her back and shoved off. “Yeah. I’m aware, but this isn’t happening. Not again.”
“You kissed me.” Her expression fell along with the volume of her voice. Almost as though she’d severed some innate part of herself from her emotions. From feeling anything at all. But Drennan was too alive for that, too beautiful for that.
And he hated it more than anything. He hated that she felt the need to protect herself from him, like he was a threat.
But that was what he’d warned her about.
That a switch he couldn’t see inside could be flipped at any moment.
That he could lose control and she would be the one to pay the price.
He’d witnessed that same reaction from his mother too many times to count, that desperation to emotionally—sometimes physically—protect herself from his father.
To detach. Which only added to his belief someone had hurt Drennan.
No matter how much he wanted to push for answers—to have a name to put to the pain he caught in her gaze every once in a while—he wouldn’t force her hand.
He wouldn’t add to her misery. Harvey backed up a few steps. “I made a mistake.”
“You’re not him, Harvey.” She gripped the ends of her sweatshirt in both palms, seemingly unsure what to do with her hands, but not out of nervousness.
“And I’m not a mistake. I’m a choice standing right in front of you.
One you can make without the influence of the person who hurt you.
I understand that sounds easier said than done, but it can be done.
I’m proof of that. We’re going to have a baby together. Isn’t that worth something?”
He couldn’t stop the flinch tensing his entire body. No. She wasn’t a mistake. She was everything he’d ever dreamed about. And he couldn’t have her. Not without breaking her as thoroughly as his mother had been broken. She deserved better than that.
“That’s the thing.” Heat that had nothing to do with the remnants of her taste on his tongue seared through his chest as he backed up another step.
Wrong. This entire conversation on his end felt wrong, but he couldn’t stop.
For her. For the baby. He had to see this through.
“You don’t know me. I’m just some guy you met in a bar. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
“I thought I did, but you’re right. How much do we really know about each other?
” Her throat worked on a deep swallow, and Drennan darted her gaze to her things by the door before heading for them.
He thought he’d seen a hint of silver lining her eyes, but it was gone before she turned back to face him.
She grabbed for her purse, checking her phone briefly before shoving it into her bag.
“It’s been a long day, and I’m tired. Thank you for getting me to the clinic and letting me recover here.
I’m going to call a rideshare and go home. ”
A hit of surprise nearly knocked him off his feet.
She was leaving? Of course, she was leaving.
He’d given her every reason to walk right out that door with the intention of letting her.
He wouldn’t stop her, but that deranged part of him that had been searching for her the past eight weeks wasn’t ready to let go. “I can give you a ride.”
Drennan slung her bag to one shoulder, and a wave of exhaustion played across not just her face but down her entire body. “Why, Harvey? Because you feel obligated to make sure the woman you got pregnant makes it home or because you want to give me a ride?”
He didn’t have an answer for that. At least, not one that would convince her he wasn’t completely out of his mind.
“You asked me who hurt me.” She gripped the strap of her purse hard enough for the whites of her knuckles to show through the delicate skin on the backs of her hands.
“There are people in this world who pride themselves on never putting their hands on someone who doesn’t deserve it while tearing their victims down any way they can.
Sometimes it’s by making promises they never intend to follow through with or building up hope while intentionally planning on how to use their victim’s weaknesses against them.
They belittle, they lie, they exaggerate and turn your words back on you.
Over and over until you’re convinced you’re the bad guy and they’re the victim, but the worse part?
You still want a relationship with that person.
Because, in your mind, one glimpse at the good instantly outweighs all the bad.
You want those moments where you matter to be true more than anything in the world. ”
Every muscle down his spine tightened under battle-ready tension.
And he instinctually knew Drennan was speaking from experience, that someone had strategically torn her apart piece by piece.
Preyed on her affections and used her vulnerabilities against her.
It was an invisible kind of abuse that no one noticed—psychological warfare—and he’d…
Oh, hell. He’d gotten her hopes up with that kiss.
“You said you didn’t want anything to do with this baby. You don’t think you’re fit enough to be a father, and I will believe you if that’s what you want. I will support your decision, and I will never hold it against you.” Drennan shifted her bag farther up her shoulder.
The sincerity in that simple statement nearly crushed him.
His choices had never mattered. Not as a kid and sure as hell not in the military.
There was always someone overriding his free will and making decisions for him.
From what he ate, to how long he slept, to where he was allowed to go and when.
The only real freedom he’d experienced in the past few years was in the middle of nowhere trying to keep hikers from doing dumb things.
Like get themselves killed. But Drennan…
She’d just accepted him as if his decision mattered.
Like he mattered. How? How was it possible that of all the people he’d been with over the years, this woman had the one thing he’d craved for years but was the one person he couldn’t let himself have?
“What I won’t do is let you play with my emotions or use me to test the limits you’ve set for yourself.” Her shoulders rose on a strong inhale as she reached for the front door. “I’ve just stopped being an easy target for someone else. I won’t be one for you.”
Harvey didn’t know what to say to that, what to think. He wanted to know who. Who had dared to convince Drennan she was anything less than the capable, optimistic, indispensable woman standing in front of him? A former boyfriend? A husband? “Drennan.”
He wasn’t sure if he was trying to stop her from leaving or if he just needed to say her name, to have it etched deeper in order to hold on to her a bit longer.
Because she was going to walk out that door, and once she did, every ounce of training he had told him she wasn’t coming back.
That while he’d drawn the line between them, she would uphold it better than he ever could.
Swinging the front door open, she kept her hand on the knob, barely angling her chin over her shoulder, as if she couldn’t even stand to look at him.
And he deserved that. Hell, he deserved worse, and he would take anything she threw at him.
“I don’t need your financial support for the baby, Harvey. I was just hoping for you.”
She stepped out into the night, closing the door behind her.