11
A n anguished cry pierces the air.
I crack my bedroom door. Listen.
Another shout comes from Davis’s room.
Softly, I pad down the hallway. When I reach the closed door, the whimpered moan that follows has my heart dropping.
After a second, I slip inside.
Davis, twisted in the sheets, cries out. I freeze. The sight’s so familiar to me.
“No,” he groans. Sweat streams down his face. His bare, muscled chest heaves. “Please.”
Keena stands beside him. She whimpers, pawing at the side of the bed. A rumpled blanket lies on the floor.
I tiptoe into the room, aching for him. I know all about his nightmares. The suicide mission that killed Davis’s team. The bullet he took that got him sent home.
One step, and then a second, and I’m by his bed.
Sitting beside him, I sweep a hand over his broad shoulder. Gently, I shake him. “Davis. Davis, wake up.”
Silence. Keena stares daggers as she whirls herself into a frenzy near the open door.
And then Davis jerks so violently, I gasp.
He launches himself out of bed, stumbles, but I catch up with him, grabbing his shoulders. “Hey, Hotshot, hey.”
Davis stands there, dazed, wounded. My heart tugs.
“It’s okay.” I should go. Instead, I wrap my arms around his trim waist. And it’s the best idea I’ve ever had. “It’s okay,” I say, looking up at him.
“Dakota,” he pants, leaning his forehead against mine. His big body heaves as he comes down from the nightmare. Our breath heats the space between us. His bare chest brushes my breasts and my stomach does a slow curl of warmth.
It’s nice being held. Feeling safe.
It’s been such a long time.
Then his massive, muscled body clenches. Davis pulls back, his handsome face twisted in horror. He looks down.
My wrist is locked tight in his grip.
I never even felt it.
He drops it like I’m on fire.
“You were having a nightmare.” Worry clouds my voice. I hate that he still has them.
A ragged breath leaves him. “Christ, Dakota.” His brown gold-flecked gaze burns. “I told you never to wake me up. I could have hurt you.”
Both hands go to his hair as he takes a step backward. Away from me. It stings.
I stare him down. “You would never scare me, Davis. Loud noises, sure. Killer clowns, maybe.” Stepping forward, I rest a hand on his tense chest. His heart rapid-fires. “But not you.”
“Dakota.” He palms my shoulders, and I wait for him to push me away.
“I’m not afraid of you, Davis.” I tilt my chin up. “There is one man I fear in my life, and it’s not you.”
I know what he did overseas. I know who he killed. I know who he lost. And I am not afraid of him.
He swallows, guilt clouding his face.
I reach for him, but Keena intercepts, weaving her way through his legs, until Davis untangles from me to run a big hand over her fur.
“She hates me,” I say as the dog keeps her I-will-kill-you eyes on my face.
“She’s protective,” Davis says, avoiding my gaze. But he snaps his fingers and points at the door. Keena, ears back, slinks into the hall.
I sit on the edge of his bed to take in his room.
Davis is still as organized and as neat as he’s always been.
Nothing out of place. Stacks of records next to a Crosley.
Tomorrow’s clothes laid out on a bench. A police scanner, a Glock, and a CB radio crowd his nightstand.
A small bar with whiskey and scotch against the wall.
Three pairs of leather-worn boots all lined up in a row next to the door.
A small smile tips my lips, and I gesture at the boots. “You ready to run, Hotshot?”
“Sometimes it feels like it.”
“I haven’t unpacked.” The admission’s out before I can stop it. Shame edges my voice. “Just in case…”
With a sigh, Davis sits on the edge of the bed beside me, staring out the front window that overlooks the ranch. My heart breaks. He looks like a lost little boy. Vulnerable. A person I bet no one hardly ever sees. Except me.
“How often do you have nightmares?”
“Every night,” he grunts, scraping a hand over his stubbled jaw.
“About Sully?”
Davis stands, leaving the bed for the bar. I watch how his gray sweatpants slip low on his hips, revealing the top curve of his muscular ass, the dips of his waist. He pours himself a golden finger of whiskey, and I note he didn’t answer my question.
I wet my lips, trying to stop ogling him. “I have daymares, you know.”
Maybe it’s the darkness that fuels my confession.
Maybe it’s the safety of Davis’s room, the cool rumble of his voice.
“Right in broad daylight. My arm—I can still see it. Feel it. That snap of bone.” I shiver, my voice becomes ethereal.
It’s my turn to be dazed. “I try so hard to get out of that kitchen. It’s like a door I keep stepping through to find the right exit, only it doesn’t lead out.
It keeps leading back into that memory. That dream. ”
Davis sighs. “That’s PTSD.”
“Yeah,” I breathe and rub a chill from my arms. “I know.”
He pauses, towering over me to wrap a quilt around my shoulders.
All it takes is that quilt, the hit of his smell, and the memories come. Me on Davis’s bed. His big fingers tangled in my hair, him swearing, working to unravel the mess, then kissing me, crossing that line, playing with fire, every weekend.
Unable to take the heat from the man hovering over me, I stand. The quilt slips from my shoulders, and I feel Davis’s dark eyes follow me as I cross to the nightstand. I open the drawer, and there it is. Same lotion, same brand.
Then, like I’ve hit rewind, I return and rest a knee on the edge of the bed.
“Sit,” I say.
Something in the night must be making me brave. Or foolish. Or horny.
A crease furrows his brow. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Sit and shut up, Hotshot.”
He does.
I uncap the lotion. Then I touch him. His breath goes jagged as he sucks it in, and his body tenses, as if in the grip of another nightmare.
Under my hand, his muscles become clay. Become mine. I massage his arm. His bullet wound like a small, neat pebble. I can’t stop my pulse from quickening. My eyes from tracking over his golden and muscular body.
Davis sits there, stiff and unmoving, fists resting on his thighs.
“Your scar looks good.” I run my hand along his chiseled bicep, hating how much I love the feel of his solid muscles. “You took care of it.”
He tilts his face up, and our gazes meet. That square jaw of his jumps. “You told me to.”
Pink stains my cheeks and I’m grateful for the dark. “Bossing the boss man.” A small smile ghosts my lips. “Never thought I’d see the day.”
“Five siblings. I gotta be bossy.”
“You ever stop growling and listen to them?”
His chuckle is gruff. “Think they’d die of shock.”
“You listened to me today. Thank you. For grounding me.” His gaze holds mine. “You made me feel like a better version of myself, if only for a few minutes.”
“I don’t know a bad version of you, Dakota,” he says in that soft whiskey-soaked Georgia twang of his.
Angling for a better position, I cross in front of him. His knuckles graze my bare thighs. Just one brush and my entire body sparks.
Lust ignites under my skin like an ember.
I hate myself for how badly I want him. How long I have loved him.
“Did you ever tell Charlie your secret?” I ask, my finger lingering over his scar. “About why you really came home?” I’ve always wondered. It was such a selfless thing he did for his brother.
“No. That’s for me to reckon with. Not Charlie.” He scrubs a hand over his jaw, his expression wary. Determined. “Some things are better left unsaid.”
“Maybe.” Once again, I skim a hand over his arm. Restlessness claws beneath my skin. What would happen if I kissed him? Would he push me away with that stubborn heart of his? Would we go back to wishing on stars?
Stay strong. Don’t you kiss him, Dakota. He let you go, he let you leave. There is nothing there.
Still, hormones and adrenaline have my body shaking.
After everything I’ve been through with Aiden, I still want Davis. All these years and the feeling hasn’t faded. The men are as separate in my mind as apples and oranges. Good touch, bad touch. And it’s been a damn long time since I’ve had good touch.
I wish Davis knew how long I’ve been all alone, missing him.
Tonight, I want to be kissed by a man who feels like home. I want comfort. I want Davis Montgomery.
Forcing away my restless thoughts, I rub in the remainder of the lotion, then flip the cap closed. “Still got it,” I say with a wry smile. “Even one-handed.”
“Your secrets.” Davis’s sudden growl eats up the dark. “I want them, Koty.”
Secrets.
That was our game. How I got him to open up all those years ago when he stomped into Resurrection shot up and scowling.
A game I borrowed from when Fallon and I were kids.
Late at night, we’d lie in bed and tell each other secrets.
Mostly lies, some truths, but we’d come up with the craziest stories.
Sometimes I still don’t know fact from fiction.
“It’s too late for secrets,” I whisper.
He grabs my hand before I can step away. Wide-eyed, I watch as he rises to his feet like some massive sentry. This time, he looks at me dead on. His brown eyes blaze. “Tell me his name, Dakota.”
“No,” I refuse.
Never.
The muscle jerking in his jaw tells me he’s pissed as hell. Still, I dig in my heels.
“He’s a ghost. The day I left town, I forgot his name.”
“Tell me his name,” he demands again.
“No. The memory of him burned up in my bakery.”
Just like my past. I have to salvage what I can from this wrecked life. It’s the only way to explain it. I want to forget and never look back. Never speak his name again so I can shake the hold he has on me. Because it still hurts too much to confess everything.
The shame, the loathing I feel… I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
I flatten a hand over my stomach, stiffening at the foreign gesture. “My baby will never know him. And neither will anyone else. Let’s keep it like that.”
His face darkens.
It’s not what this take-charge cowboy wants, but it’s what he gets.
“Tell me,” he says firmer this time, an order. My hand still in his, he draws me forward. “It’s important. To keep you safe.”
“I’m safe here.” With you.
“You’re my responsibility.”
Responsibility . It sounds so stale. So unwanted. Between Keena and Fallon’s dismissal, it strikes a nerve.
“Stop saying that,” I snap. “You make me feel like a piece of gum stuck to everyone’s shoe that no one wants.”
Davis flinches. “Fuck.”
Hot, angry tears burn the backs of my eyes. Resentment. Regret.
Davis smears a hand down his square jaw, stands tall and exhales. “Let’s get one thing straight. Here and now. You’re no piece of gum. You’re no burden. And you’re not alone. Not anymore.”
Not alone. My body fills with oxygen. Sunlight. For one brief minute, I can breathe again. For one brief moment, I believe.
“You’ll get your life back, Dakota. I promise you.”
A tear slips down my cheek. “It’s easy for you to say that. You have control. You’re not helpless.”
There’s a long silence before he responds. “I’m not as in control as you think I am.”
“Why not?” I close the gap between us. Like that night at Eden, my hopeful heart pounds. “What do you want, Davis?”
He makes a choked sound in the back of his throat. “I want you to be safe, Dakota.”
“I’m afraid.” Another tear streaks down my cheek. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“You’re not alone. You’re with me.” It’s a promise. A daydream. A husky breath that threatens to take me down.
I close my eyes and slide my palm up his bare, muscled chest. Just a touch. An impulse. His big palms mold to my shoulders and I wait for his lips on mine, but Davis presses me back, away from him.
Again.
Davis stares at me, his broad chest heaving in the dim light, his face unreadable.
Embarrassment heats my cheeks.
Stupid, horny, pregnant Dakota.
A summer fling. That’s all we were. He proved his point when he let me go six years ago.
It wasn’t love.
I force a tight smile, my stomach in knots. “I should go.”
Davis’s mouth is a grim line, strain around his eyes. “Koty, wait—”
Before I can lose my nerve, I spin around and rush for the door, refusing to look back.
“Goodnight, Davis.”
And thank you for being a perfect fucking gentleman.
I step into the hallway, my face aflame. Keena prowls near the stairs, and I frown at how unbelievably smug she looks.
When I’m halfway back to my room, I stop.
Fuck Davis Montgomery’s walls.
I’m tired of keeping secrets. Tired of keeping my distance.
Heartbeat in my ears, I turn around and walk back to his room. I lift a hand to knock, but before I can, the door’s ripped open.
“Dakota,” Davis husks, bare chest heaving, muscles rippling.
I wet my lips. “I forgot something.”
His throat works, his eyes running over my face, my body. “What’s that?”
“Another secret.”
“Tell me.”
“I miss you,” I say, right before cupping that handsome, tortured face in my hands and locking my lips to his.