Chapter Eighteen – So Many Summers #2
I pulled the covers up to his chin, took a book out of a backpack of toys we’d brought with us, and started to read it to him.
He was asleep before I even got halfway through it.
I left the bathroom door partially open in lieu of the nightlight I’d forgotten before shutting off the bedroom lights and heading back into the great room.
Fallon had pulled a blanket off the back of the couch, curled up in the corner, and turned on the television.
And just like Theo, she’d already passed out.
She’d taken her braid out when we’d come home, and her blond hair was a mess of curls cascading about a face that had turned soft and relaxed in sleep.
It made her look younger than she normally did—or maybe she actually looked her age when asleep.
She’d changed into a pair of sleep shorts and an oversized T-shirt, and the whole time Theo had been drawing, the damn top had been slipping off her shoulder, taunting me with glimpses of bare skin, reminding me of just how smooth it had been under my fingers while we’d played at the lake.
I looked away from her, eyes catching on the picture she’d left on the coffee table.
Three stick figures in a blue blob that must have been water.
The people had strangely large smiles on their round faces, and Theo had drawn weirdly contorted hearts all around Fallon’s head.
Seeing it, seeing the love Theo had tried to capture, tugged at the fleeting images that had flashed by me this afternoon.
Family. We looked like a goddamn family. An impossible one.
Like a magnet drawn to north, my gaze landed on Fallon once more.
Her exhaustion had taken her under with the same force Theo’s had.
Before I could stop myself, I was twining a silky strand through my fingers.
Her hair had always been deceptive. The thick waves looked like they’d be coarse, but they were actually soft and smooth.
The longer I watched her, the larger the ache in my chest grew, until it was threatening to tumble over the edge with the force of an avalanche .
I’d always thought the person who ended up with Fallon would be the luckiest man on this planet, and I’d been pissed she’d let the loser JJ be that man for too many years.
He hadn’t deserved her. Not once. But maybe the truth was no man would be worthy of her.
This fierce beauty deserved someone who’d climb buildings and soar through the sky for her—a true superhero.
I hated that she’d lost some of that teenage fierceness while living in San Diego. I’d seen it slowly and steadily decline over the last six years, but now, maybe because I hadn’t been around her as much in the last few years, the loss stood out even more.
Coming home to the ranch hadn’t returned it to her like it should have. Not yet. But I’d seen shimmering signs of it today. In her smile. In the dare she’d issued. In the way she’d touched me under the water.
My body grew taut all over again just thinking about it.
Fuck. It was time she went to bed. Time she locked herself in her room and let me shut myself in the one across the hall and forget the words she’d tossed at me.
If I remember, Kermit, it was always you who backed away from the finish line. I had no problem finding my way across it.
My frustration at both of us had me scooping her into my arms with more force than I’d intended. She murmured in her sleep, something soft and incomprehensible, but she didn’t wake. She rolled her head onto my shoulder, lips parting, as I stalked down the hall and kicked open her bedroom door.
A light was on in the bathroom, a single beam streaming across the emerald-green linens. I shifted her so I could pull back the covers and then set her down. When I went to step back, her fingers curled into my shirt, locking me in place, and when I looked at her, sleepy eyes greeted me.
“What are you doing?” she asked, voice low and sexy without even trying.
“Putting you to bed.”
“I’m not four, Parker. I’m not a child.” Her lids fluttered closed as if they were too heavy to keep open. “I’m not sure I ever was.” The words were raw and pained, but they were also the truth. Hadn’t I thought it myself earlier when arguing with Teddy ?
I tried to move away again, but her grip on my shirt tightened. “Let go, Ducky.”
Long lashes opened, and the longing I saw inside those amber eyes almost knocked me off my feet. A craving as strong and alive and as intense as the one that beat in me.
“Chicken,” she said, voice thick with emotions and tangled with lust. “No… Chickens are actually pretty obsessive when they see something they want. They don’t back down. You’re more a cow…meandering away at the first sign of danger.”
“And you’re supposed to be the danger?” The words slipped out before I could call them back, gruff and angry because we both knew the truth. She was dangerous. She’d always been.
She taunted me with a raised brow and eyes that fell to my mouth.
Frustration burned. Didn’t she know how much control it took to hold back?
To not claim her? To refuse every offer she’d sent my way?
I wasn’t a fucking coward. It had taken more effort than it had ever taken me to hold up a boat in BUD/S to push her away each and every time we’d gotten this close.
“I must be pretty dangerous if I can make a SEAL run,” she said breathily.
I wasn’t sure if I’d moved or she’d moved, or if gravity had somehow pulled us together, but our lips ended up so close that if I even replied, our mouths would brush.
Dread filled me. A sinking feeling I’d lost this battle.
That I couldn’t fight it anymore. But I didn’t move.
I didn’t take the last breath that would cause our lips to touch.
I just watched, drowning in the hunger of her eyes, as every fiber in my being told me to sink into them.
Into her. To finally take what was mine.
Except, she wasn’t mine to take.
She wasn’t mine.
She wasn’t mine.
She wasn’t mine.
She closed her eyes again, letting go of my shirt, releasing me, and putting space between us once more. I found myself hating the inches that now existed between our lips when, moments ago, I’d been dreading our closeness.
“Don’t worry, Frogman. I promised myself I’d never give you the chance to reject me again. So don’t consider this an offer. You’re off the hook for good when it comes to me. ”
I hated that almost as much as the space between us. I didn’t want to be off the hook. I wanted to be on it, dangling from a line that only Fallon controlled. I wanted her reeling me in, inch by inch.
I still didn’t move as my body and mind and heart all warred with each other.
Take her. Leave her. Love her.
It was the last thought that had me jerking away.
Love her? Where the fuck had that come from?
I did love her. Like one loved family. Friends. People who were important to you.
And maybe, sometimes, in the dark corners of my mind, I’d thought there could be something more…before promises and honor had stopped me from taking what she’d offered.
The love my parents had, or her dad and Sadie had, wasn’t something I could have with Fallon.
Not only because it was very rare for anyone to have that timeless, all-consuming love, but because I wouldn’t leave a family to fend for themselves while I went off to fight wars no one on this planet knew we were fighting.
I stepped away as I always had, telling myself I was doing the right thing, the brave thing. But as I strode from her room and shut the door, I feared she might have been right. I really was a chicken. A fucking coward.