Chapter Fourteen #2
It was heat and relief, anger and want, all rolled into one hot press of lips and tongues and teeth. She kissed him back hungrily, recklessly, as he thought maybe she’d been holding her breath for days too.
Then she tore away on a sharp, terrified inhale. Kayne froze, lungs heaving. Her eyes were wild with panic.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, stumbling to her feet. “I can’t do this.”
Kayne rose slowly, hands raised as if she were a frightened animal he didn’t want to spook. “Chloe.”
“No.” She backed up two steps. “This, whatever that was, we can’t. I can’t need someone, Kayne. I can’t be that girl.”
Her voice cracked on the last word, and it gutted him.
“You think I want you needin’ me?” he shot back before he could swallow it. “Needin’ means losin’, and I’ve lost enough for ten lives.”
She froze at that. So did he.
Around them, the construction crew became deeply invested in paint cans, air quality, and absolutely anything that wasn’t the emotional implosion happening five feet away.
Kayne dragged in a breath and forced the storm inside him back under control. “Chloe, you could’ve died.”
“I know.” Her voice was the smallest he’d ever heard from her. “And needing you afterward felt worse.”
That landed harder than the ladder ever could have.
He stepped close enough for her to feel the heat of him. “Needin’ someone doesn’t make you weak.”
“It makes me breakable.”
“So does livin’,” he murmured. “But I’m here. Whether you want me to be or not.”
She swallowed hard. “You shouldn’t be.”
Too late. Kayne didn’t say it, but it roared through him anyway.
Too damn late.
#
Chloe kept telling herself she was fine. She’d been saying it so often lately, she could practically trademark it. Fine. Her favorite lie. Her safety blanket. She should embroider it on a throw pillow and call it self-care.
Except her hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and fine didn’t explain why her legs were the consistency of cooked pasta or why Kayne’s heartbeat was still thundering against her ear, even though she wasn’t technically in his arms.
Chloe could still feel him, though, as if her nervous system hadn’t gotten the memo that the crisis was over.
She remembered his body covering hers, powerful arms locked around her as if he’d rather be crushed than let her take the hit.
His voice had been steady and low, even when she’d felt the tremor he tried to hide.
He’d moved without hesitation, instinct choosing her before his brain ever weighed the odds. And then that kiss.
God. That kiss.
She pressed a hand to her mouth as if that might erase it. It didn’t. It only honed the memory of the heat, the hunger, the way he’d kissed her as if she wasn’t just someone to protect, but someone he was terrified of losing.
As if fear had finally lost the argument.
“That was close,” she whispered, staring at the mangled ladder on the floor. A few inches or a few more seconds, and she could’ve—nope. Not going there. Not now. She had a strict, newly enacted no-spiraling-before-lunch policy.
She inhaled through her nose. The smell of sawdust was suddenly too cloying. Everything was too loud. Workers were whispering and pretending not to watch her, afraid she might faint or spontaneously combust.
Kayne lingered a few feet away, big and furious and trying very hard not to look frantic. It would have been funny if her stomach weren’t currently trying to crawl into her lungs.
His jaw flexed, his fists opening and closing. He kept glancing at her as if he didn’t trust the air she was breathing. It made something warm bloom deep inside her.
It also terrified her.
She wrapped her arms around herself and stepped back until her shoulders hit the solid wall. Good. She needed something stable right now that wasn’t six-foot-five, Cajun, and capable of kissing the common sense right out of her.
I can’t be that girl again. The one who needs, who relies. The one who leans.
She had built her life on independence and stubborn optimism, and Kayne was a threat to both. A very attractive, extremely competent threat. One she wanted to kiss again. Desperately.
Her breath caught when he finally approached carefully, as if she were made of glass. She hated that. She wasn’t fragile. She refused to be.
“Chloe,” he said, and her name in his voice did reckless things to her insides.
She swallowed. “I’m okay.”
“You’re lying.”
Of course he knew, but she wished he didn’t. Wished she were a better actress, or that he was less devastatingly observant.
“I just need a second.” She pressed a palm to the wall because her balance wasn’t entirely trustworthy. “My adrenaline’s doing things.”
“Yeah,” Kayne murmured, searching her face to read the thoughts she didn’t want him seeing. “Mine too.”
His voice wasn’t teasing now. It was stripped down and honest.
Her heart skittered painfully. “About the kiss—”
He tensed a flicker. Enough to knock her breath into her knees.
“We shouldn’t have,” she whispered.
“That why you kissed me back like you were drownin’?” There was no accusation in his tone. Just wonder and something dangerously close to hope.
Heat shot up her neck. “Kayne.”
He dragged a hand through his hair, the motion rough and frustrated. “You almost died, cher.” His voice cracked. Actually cracked. “Forgive me for losin’ my damn mind for a second.”
She didn’t want his mind. She wanted his arms around her again.
Which was the problem.
She turned her head, blinking fast. “I can’t need anyone, Kayne. When I do, they leave. Or they die. Or I end up begging someone to stay who never intended to.”
Kayne went very still, meaning every instinct in him had locked onto a single truth. Then he stepped closer, his presence wrapping around her like heat. Not touching. Never crowding. Just there.
“I’m not leavin’,” he said quietly, his Cajun accent more pronounced than usual. “And I’m not dyin’.”
She shook her head hard. “You can’t promise that.”
“No,” he admitted. “But I can promise I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere just because you’re scared, Chloe. Let me be here.”
For one dizzy second, she wanted to. God, she wanted to. But the fear reared up. “I can’t,” she whispered. “Not like that.”
Kayne stepped back enough to give her space. It was a controlled retreat, not a rejection, and she felt the difference all the way to her bones.
But his eyes stayed locked on hers, steady as a lighthouse.
“Then I’ll wait,” he murmured. “Just don’t push me so far away I can’t reach you when you need me.”
Her pulse stuttered. She didn’t answer, couldn’t, because the one thing that terrified her more than almost being crushed by a falling ladder was needing Kayne Serruto. And losing him.
#
The ladder was still lying there at a crooked, accusatory angle, resembling a crime scene exhibit no one had bothered to chalk yet, when the back doors banged open hard enough to rattle the drywall.
Kayne didn’t need to turn to know who it was. Leo De Luca’s voice carried enough volume and authority to qualify as a federally recognized natural disaster.
“Chloe, Kayne, what the hell happened?”
Anja was right behind him, moving fast and controlled, her posture already shifting into threat assessment mode, one hand drifting toward her weapon as if muscle memory had beaten conscious thought to the punch.
Her eyes swept the scene, taking in the ladder, the foreman, and Chloe pressed against the wall.
Kayne stepped instinctively in front of Chloe, intending simply to settle her with his presence. He moved close enough so she could feel him, and she leaned into his solid frame without realizing she’d done it. She was trembling again; he felt the flutter against his arm, quick and involuntary.
Leo skidded to a stop in front of them, nostrils flaring. “You said you were just checking progress,” he snapped, eyes wild, “not reenacting Final Destination!”
“Leo,” Chloe said quietly, which was never a good sign, “I’m fine.”
Kayne lifted an eyebrow. She was lying again. And poorly at that. Leo didn’t buy it either. His glare could’ve melted steel beams.
Anja drifted closer, scanning the overhead landing with a professional frown. “The ladder fell from up there?”
Kayne nodded once. “Worker lost control.”
“Slipped,” the foreman insisted from somewhere near the wreckage. “It slipped. I swear, we secure everything. I’m so sorry, Miss Giordano.”
Anja crouched, examining the metal, fingertips tracing the scuffed edge. “The angle’s wrong for a clean slip. Someone leaned it too close to the edge,” she said, then glanced up, cool and precise, “or nudged it without realizing.”
Leo was less subtle. “Or someone wanted to flatten my sister into a pancake.”
Chloe flinched.
Kayne shot Leo a look that said dial it down before you make it worse, but Leo was too wound up to read nuance.
“Chloe.” Leo softened despite himself, stepping closer. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” she said quickly. Her voice wobbled at the end, betraying her before she could rein it in.
Leo noticed. His jaw flexed, protective rage simmering just under the surface as his gaze slid toward Kayne, as if this was somehow his fault.
Kayne didn’t bother dodging it. “I got to her in time.”
The words scraped out of him roughly because the idea of not getting to her in time still hadn’t stopped clawing at him.
Leo’s anger cracked for a second, and something like gratitude flickered through it. Then suspicion slid back in. A De Luca specialty.
“Is that all you got to her?” he muttered, eyes narrowing at the space between Kayne and Chloe.
Kayne opened his mouth to shut that down, but Anja beat him to it.
“Leo,” she said lightly, with just enough edge to warn him off, “maybe don’t interrogate the man who kept your sister from being leveled by construction equipment.”
Leo blinked because Anja Johansen defending someone was apparently not on his bingo card for the day.
Kayne would’ve smirked if he weren’t still half-feral with fear.