Chapter 12 #3
He stopped mid-step, uneasy. Natural, perhaps. Intimate—the word made him feel uncomfortable. At ease together. Was that what it meant to feel? To be emotional? He had never been granted the chance to explore kindness, affection, joy … and never, Lord, desire.
He’d been caught up in the thrill of war, the self-satisfaction of being a hero, and had reveled in contributing to the cause.
Yet the downside of so many years spent on the battlefield, and dying there, meant that he’d only ever focused on duty.
He’d never thought about what else he’d missed out on, until now.
He didn’t like it. And he felt guilty even thinking about these soft, inconsequential things…
Men had died. People were still dying. Love and marital pleasure and everything else had to be considered indulgences. If they were not, then all he believed—his very core—would become meaningless.
His last century and a half in this space between worlds might have been wasted. Only duty defined him. It mattered not that he’d only ever be an observer to what were life’s little pleasures: hand holding here, kissing there, more … he couldn’t consider more.
He had served. He had watched. He had endured.
Silas looked up at the blazing window, forced himself to turn and walk back to Solstice Springs, his chest heavy with melancholy. He could handle melancholy, but he hated that it was suddenly tinged with envy.
* * *
Dane’s fingers danced down her spine, and Wren turned her face into his shoulder, dropping a faint kiss onto his hot skin. She felt relaxed, a little floaty, something similar to the way she did after a long dance session, on those days when her routine finally clicked, when it made complete sense.
He made sense. Something in her, a lot of things in her, clicked with him.
Scared at the direction of her thoughts, she turned away, rolling onto her side, his arm under her neck.
Dane rolled with her, his big body spooning hers, his hand on her stomach, holding her into him.
She felt, and heard, his breath deepen, and she knew he was close to sleep.
That was okay. She needed a little silence, some quiet time to sort out her thoughts.
She’d always been attracted to artistic guys, mouthy guys, men who weren’t afraid to talk, and talk, and talk.
But Dane was stoically quiet, someone who listened more than he spoke.
She wasn’t afraid to say anything to him, somehow sensing he wouldn’t judge her.
And his calm, his steadiness, steadied her.
She wanted to keep talking to him, keep soaking in his solidity for as long as … God, for the longest time.
She tensed, and Dane, perfectly in tune with her, tightened his hold. He kissed her head, mumbled a sleepy “Relax,” and his breath evened out. He’d slipped back into sleep.
How could she relax when she was in imminent danger of sliding, maybe not into love, but something a lot more than like?
Wren bit down hard on her bottom lip, thinking she should get up, leave his bed, and walk back to Luna’s.
A late-night walk through H-Town, something she hadn’t done since she was a kid, would relax her, would give her clarity.
While she walked, she could talk herself out of turning one night—it wasn’t even a night yet, it was still an encounter!
—with Dane into something it wasn’t. It was still only a one-time fling.
It might become a summer fling. At best. Nothing more…
She would not make the same mistakes she had with Alex; she would not imagine more than was there.
This was sex—great sex, fabulous sex, potentially best-in-her-life sex—but because he was a reasonable, rational adult, he wouldn’t consider airports or weekend visits or any kind of “what next.” When their time together ended, he’d move on to the next chapter of his life, bright and shiny and waiting for him, and maybe—maybe—he’d occasionally remember the dancer he’d had a fling with.
The one never destined to be anything more.
Then why couldn’t she be rational and reasonable? Why did her heart ache for more? How could she so easily imagine many nights falling asleep in his arms after fabulous sex, waking up to coffee, and Dane’s face being the last image in her brain at the end of a long day?
Wren rolled over and looked at him, so much younger in sleep. She touched his jaw, ran her hand, so gently, through the stubble on his jaw. Counted his thick eyelashes and the freckle just below his ear. The dent in his sexy lower lip.
Just once, just this one time, she wanted to give herself the gift of falling asleep with her face in his neck, her arm around his waist, sharing the same air.
Moving into him, she smiled when he lifted his face to allow her to settle beneath his ear, both arms coming around, so naturally, to pull her into him. He patted her butt.
“Sleep now, I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Thinking that sounded like an excellent plan—she’d corral her rebellious and hopeful heart in the morning—Wren closed her eyes and drifted off.