Chapter 8 #2
"He does exist," Colby said, his voice going flat and hard in a way she hadn't heard before. "But he's not in this room. He's not in this house. And he's sure as hell not in this bed."
Her breath caught. "No. He isn't."
Her hand was still on his chest. She could feel the words vibrate under her palm, the certainty in them transmitting through skin and bone and muscle. Some of the heat rising in her cheeks now had nothing to do with panic and everything to do with the man sitting next to her in the half-dark.
"I hate that he's still in my head," she said.
"I left him years ago. I thought I was done.
I thought I'd moved past it. But then I see him on a street corner, and I forget who I am for a second.
I become the person he wanted me to be, small and scared and stupid, and I hate it. I hate that he still has that power."
Colby's gaze held hers, dark and intent. "Who are you?"
She blinked. "What?"
"You said you forget who you are. So tell me. Who are you, when he's not in your head?"
She opened her mouth to answer and found nothing there. No ready response, no easy definition. The question seemed too big for the moment, too heavy for the middle of the night.
"I... I don't know anymore," she admitted.
"I used to know. Before him, before the fire.
I was the woman who ran Norman House. I was the granddaughter who kept her family's legacy alive.
I was someone who knew how to take care of people, how to make them feel welcome, how to turn a building into a home.
" Her voice cracked. "Now I don't know what I am. Everything that defined me is gone."
"I know who you are," he said.
She stared at him, her breath suspended somewhere between her lungs and her throat.
"You're the woman who stood on a field full of ash and saw cabins," he said.
"You looked at destruction and imagined something new.
You didn't see an ending. You saw a beginning.
" His voice stayed low and steady, each word landing with deliberate weight.
"You're the one who got people out of a burning building.
Not firefighters, not professionals. You.
In your pajamas, with smoke in your lungs, you got them out. "
She shook her head. "I was terrified. I didn't know what I was doing."
"Doesn't matter," he said. "You did it anyway.
That's the definition of courage. And you're sitting here right now, shaking from a nightmare, and you're still trying to make sure others are safe.
You're still trying to minimize what you're going through, so I won't worry.
" His mouth curved slightly. "That's who you are.
Someone who keeps going even when everything hurts. "
Her eyes stung, tears pressing against the backs of them with sudden, overwhelming force. "You make me sound braver than I feel."
"You don't have to feel brave to be brave," he said. "Feeling brave is for movies. Real courage is doing the thing while your hands shake and your heart pounds and every instinct screams at you to run. You've been doing that for days. Maybe longer."
She let that sink in. It settled somewhere deep and sore, into wounds she'd been carrying so long she'd forgotten they were there.
Without warning, her throat closed up completely, and tears spilled over, hot and fast, tracking down her cheeks before she could stop them. She pressed her lips together, humiliated by the loss of control, by the way her body kept betraying her tonight.
"Hey," he murmured. He shifted closer, closing the last of the distance between them on the bed. "Come here."
She went.
She didn't think about it, didn't weigh the implications, or calculate the risks. She just moved, sliding into the space he'd opened for her, letting gravity and exhaustion and need pull her toward him.
His arm came around her shoulders, strong and careful, pulling her against his chest. She buried her face in the warm cotton of his T-shirt and let her hands clutch at the fabric, fingers digging in like he might disappear if she didn't hold on tight enough.
His other hand smoothed down her back in slow, even strokes. Up and down. Up and down. A rhythm as steady as his heartbeat, as reliable as the breathing exercise he'd guided her through.
"You're okay," he said against her hair. "You're safe. I've got you."
The words shouldn't have made as much of a difference as they did.
They were simple, basic, the kind of thing anyone might say to someone falling apart.
But they threaded through the leftover smoke and fear, through the echoes of Gavin's voice and the phantom screaming of guests she'd already saved, giving her something solid to hang onto in the dark.
Her breath hitched against him, catching on a sob she couldn't quite suppress. "I hate nightmares."
"Me too," he said. "They lie. They take the worst moments and replay them on a loop, and they never show you the parts that came after. The parts where you survived. Where things got better."
She shifted against him, trying to ease the ache in her chest that had nothing to do with breathing now. In doing so, she slid even closer along his side, her hip pressed against his thigh, her shoulder tucked under his arm like she belonged there.
The heat of him seeped through her thin sleep shirt, steady and unhurried. She felt his breath stir her hair near her temple, warm against her scalp. His beard softly fell against her cheek.
"This feels... different," she said quietly.
"How so?" he asked.
"I've woken up scared a lot," she said. "For years, actually.
Even before the fire. Gavin didn't like being woken up, so I learned to cry quietly.
To shake without making the bed move. To get up and go to the bathroom if I needed to fall apart, so I wouldn't disturb him.
" She swallowed. "I've never had someone sit on the edge of the bed and talk me back into my body.
I didn't know that was something people did. "
His fingers traced one slow line from her shoulder down to her elbow, the touch featherlight and impossibly gentle. "I'm not going anywhere."
The simple certainty of it loosened something deep in her chest, something that had been cinched tight for so long she'd forgotten what it felt like to breathe without the constriction.
She tipped her head back to look up at him.
His face hovered above hers, close enough that she could see the individual strands of his beard along his jaw, the slight furrow between his brows, the way his eyes caught the lamplight and held it.
Concern lived there, genuine and warm. So did something else.
Want.
It hit her like stepping into sunlight after weeks of gray skies. Sudden. Sharp. Unexpectedly gentle, like the warmth was being offered rather than imposed.
Her breath caught audibly in the quiet room. "Colby."
"Yeah."
"I am very aware of you right now," she said, because subtlety had never been her strong suit, and she was too exhausted to pretend otherwise. "More aware than I should probably be, given everything."
His mouth pulled into a hint of a smile, just the corner lifting. "I'm aware of you, too. Have been since I carried you out of Norman House."
She stared at his lips for a moment, then dragged her gaze back to his eyes. "This is probably a bad idea."
"Probably," he agreed. "You've been through hell.
You're vulnerable. You're staying in my house.
There are about fifteen reasons why I should get up and go back to my room right now.
" He paused. "But if you want me to, you have to say it.
Tell me to back off, and I will. No hurt feelings. No weirdness tomorrow."
She heard the promise under the words. No pressure. No pushing. He was handing her all the power and asking nothing in return except honesty.
When was the last time anyone had done that for her?
Her fingers bunched in his shirt again, unconsciously pulling him closer. "I don't want you to back off."
Something in his expression shifted. Wariness giving way to relief, relief giving way to heat. The combination was heady, intoxicating, more powerful than anything she'd felt in years.
"Okay," he said quietly, his voice dropping half an octave. "Then we go slow. You lead. Anything you don't want, we stop. Anything you need, you tell me."
Her heart climbed into her throat, pounding so hard she was sure he could feel it through her palm where it still rested on his chest. "I don't remember how to lead. It's been so long since anyone let me."
"I think you do," he said. "But I'll meet you halfway. We'll figure it out together."
He gave her time to change her mind. He just sat there, arm around her, his palm resting warm and solid at the curve of her waist. Not advancing. Not retreating. Just present.
Her pulse thudded against her ribs, a drumbeat of anticipation and terror and something else, something that felt dangerously close to hope.
She lifted one hand to his face, her thumb brushing the softness of his beard along his jaw. The texture was fascinating, silky-soft against her skin, and she traced its line from his chin to his ear.
His eyes closed for a second, lashes dark against his cheeks, like that simple touch had hit him harder than it should have. Like he'd been waiting for it, maybe, without knowing he was waiting.
"Is this okay?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said, his voice rougher now, catching on the word. "More than okay."
She leaned in. The first brush of her mouth against his was barely there. A test. A question asked in the language of skin and breath and the space between heartbeats.
He answered with a low exhale, warm against her lips.
His lips were warm and patient. He didn't surge forward or take control. He let her press in, let her learn the shape of his mouth in slow, tentative passes. Her hand slid from his jaw to his neck, fingers curling lightly at the back where his hair shortened into soft stubble.