Chapter 11
She let herself take him in that intense gaze, the wit tucked beneath all that brute strength, the sharp edges that sparred so effortlessly with Flash’s humor.
She’d been so wrong about him. Not about the gorgeous part, God, no, but about the rest. He wasn’t just a blunt protector.
He was clever, layered, startlingly insightful.
The full package, and she was weak for him.
The kiss aside, their whole jungle ordeal felt like something torn from a romantic suspense novel. Big, bad SEAL protecting small, fierce redhead while banter blurred into something dangerous and tender.
Her heart seized. No. Not for her. The ugly thought came swift and sharp, dragging her down into a pit she couldn’t name.
Why did she believe she didn’t deserve that?
Why, after all the failed relationships, did her mind whisper the same painful refrain?
You’re the common denominator. Had she chosen the wrong men because, deep down, she thought that’s all she deserved?
She’d stepped away once before. Just a normal, silly, cute conversation with a boy she liked, and Dani had died out there on the pool deck, alone and vulnerable.
The thought gutted her.
Was she still making those unconscious choices, keeping men at arm’s length, punishing herself with distance, because of that one moment?
No… but the evidence was there. Failed relationships.
Emptiness she couldn’t bridge. Intimacy she’d brushed aside, treated like it meant nothing.
Maybe it hadn’t been the men at all. Maybe it had always been her.
The revelation rocked her.
No. That couldn’t be true. It wasn’t. But how could she dismiss the data? She was a scientist. She trusted evidence.
Brawler? He was the outlier. Every dataset had one, the anomaly that broke the pattern. Like Sombra, who had defied the odds and was raising two cubs to adulthood.
She was melting into him, her body betraying her, her mind seduced by the proof of him.
Not just the muscle and iron-bright eyes, but the way he respected her without trying.
She’d seen the way he took care of the guys, the tossed protein bars, the quiet watch he kept on Flash, the way he respected authority even when he chafed against it.
Respect and care disguised as rough edges.
She wanted him. But was he the one exception that proved her whole life of bad data wrong?
She wasn’t bad data, wasn’t some broken variable in her own life.
She’d made her choices, and they were hers.
But the sick twist in her stomach said otherwise.
The part of her that was scientific, rational, unflinching whispered that she was skewing the dataset, and him…
God help her, he might very well be the outlier.
He was making her see what she’d been missing all along.
Not as a test subject, not as an anomaly to study, but as the real thing she had never let herself acknowledge. Never allowed herself to want.
Until now.
She turned to him, wrapped her arms around him, and pressed her face into the hollow of his neck, just resting against him, holding him, the precious man, this outlier, this confounding SEAL and gruff brother.
He stiffened, caught off guard, then his breath shuddered out, uneven. His big hands hovered before he gave in, pulling her in tight, as if he didn’t know how to stop himself.
“Emily,” he said at last, his voice unsteady, scraped raw. “Don’t think I’m letting you deflect me when I just spilled my guts to you. Repeatedly.”
She kept her face buried, safe in the scent of him, in the flexing, ironclad muscle that surrounded her like a fortress. She could tell him here. In his arms. “You have your brother,” she whispered, the words breaking. “I had my sister.”
Her voice snagged on the past, and instantly he gathered her into his lap, locking her deeper into his body.
“Dani,” he murmured. “You mentioned she was blind.” Her throat closed.
Tears threatened. She hated that he remembered, that he prodded.
Loved that he remembered, that he cared .
“Tell me,” he pressed, his tone gentle but aching, “I’m dying to know what causes that darkness, that emptiness I sense sometimes. ”
She stilled. Sensed? Was he…empathic? Sensitive in ways no one would ever expect from a rough-and-tumble warrior? The thought rocked her. That a man like Brawler, scarred, stoic, built of iron, could also feel her shadows. Could want to carry them.
The warmth of him seeped into her, the solid strength of him bleeding courage into her bones. Yes. If anyone deserved to hear it, it was him.
“It was the kind of afternoon that smelled like sunscreen and sliced watermelon,” she began softly, her voice trembling.
“Sometimes I can still smell the chlorine. The sunlight sparkled on our patio bricks, casting long golden shadows. It was eight years ago…I was sixteen, and she was thirteen—brave and stubborn as always. She was in a lawn chair at the edge of the pool deck, her white cane leaning like an afterthought.”
She took a painful breath at the image of Dani frozen in time. “She adored me. I got a phone call from Tyler Montgomery—older, popular, gorgeous.” A broken laugh escaped. “So silly.”
His arms tightened around her, anchoring her. “Em,” he whispered, his voice hushed, aching for her.
“Danielle wanted to swim. I was already in my suit, humming some song, sun-warmed and smiling. My phone rang, and it was him, Tyler Mongomery, my crush, way out of my league. I told her not to move until I got back. I just wanted a moment of privacy when I wasn’t her caretaker, just Emily.”
Brawler’s hand stroked her hair, his touch so careful it undid her.
“He said I was a tiny little package of fury, courage, and attitude…and I lit up inside. He saw me. He asked me to prom.” Her chest caved, broken words spilling.
“Dani told me she could swim on her own, that she wasn’t helpless.
I told her I knew she wasn’t.” Her voice fractured.
“But she didn’t listen. She got up…maybe she slipped on water, maybe she tripped on the chair.
I don’t know. But when I came back—” Her breath shattered.
“She was on the deck. Her head was bleeding, and it was too late. We lost her.” Her voice caught on the last sentence.
Brawler gathered her against him, and wrapped in steel and gentleness, he rose and walked back into the cave.
The fire had burned down to embers, but he settled into her tent, keeping her in his arms. Time passed and she drowsed, then his voice came out of the eerie glow of the phosphorescent cave light.
“You didn’t go to the prom?” Brawler asked, his voice low, roughened with curiosity. “Was Tyler crushed?”
Emily blinked up at him. “You remembered his name?”
Brawler’s face softened, his eyes a tender gray. His gaze locked on her. “I like listening to you.” A pause, almost reverent. “So… the prom?”
Her throat tightened. Tears pricked before she could stop them. “No. How could I? I took that phone call and she died.”
He stilled. That look came into his eyes, the one she’d seen more often lately.
The one that said he wanted to touch her, but always held back, as if she were too breakable.
The hesitation burned between them. This time, instead of waiting, she reached for him.
His jaw flexed when she set his hand against her face, anchoring her in his warmth.
“Emily…” His voice was taut, gravel pressed thin. He cupped her cheek, gently caressing her jawline. “You could have been standing two feet from her, and she still would have died.”
She flinched, tried to pull back, but his grip held. Not rough, not forceful, unyielding.
“What are you talking about?” she whispered.
His eyes burned, banked charcoal shot through with fire.
He didn’t blink, didn’t soften. “This wasn’t your fault.
Not then. Not ever.” His voice carried a command that was also a vow.
“It was the blow to her head that killed her. A tragic accident. Not your inattention, not the phone call, not the timing, not the day. Nothing you could have done.”
Her world tilted. For years she’d carried the guilt like shackles, never once daring to consider another explanation.
Her breath broke. The pain welled up from some place so deep it shocked her, and then the sobs came, violent and raw.
She buried her face into the hollow of his neck, ashamed of the sounds tearing out of her, but Brawler didn’t let go.
He squeezed her harder, a steady anchor through the storm.
When the worst of it passed, when her body sagged, wrung out and trembling, he took all her weight. His arms unbreakable bands, his voice a low rumble against her hair.
“Everyone deserves joy, Emily. Especially after their lowest moments. Life moves on. It’s brutal, and it’s goddamn wrenching.
But I believe this.” His breath hitched, then steadied.
“What we do after we hit bottom…that defines us. Not the tragedy. Not the pain. Not grief or guilt. The choice to rise, to make a difference anyway. That’s what makes us human. That’s what makes us strong.”
He lifted her face, cupping it between his big hands, his thumbs brushing away tears. His gaze was fierce, unflinching, the vow in it searing. “You, beautiful…you are both.”
“ Christian ,” she sobbed, “I need you.” Her lips trembled on the words, and the world shifted under her.
He had given her more than solace. He had cracked the chains she’d been dragging for years.
Her grief for Dani would never vanish, but for the first time the weight of it eased, the edges blunted by the unshakable presence of this man.