THIRTEEN
SAM
The rush of blood in my ears is deafening.
Coupled with my heartbeat that won’t slow down, it’s a miracle I can hear anything else.
But I don’t need my hearing to feel the way Devon’s body is quietly shaking.
The last few minutes disappear the moment I touch him; the sudden alert on my computer screen, the sharp worry twisting my insides, the crushing need to make sure he was safe.
It was instinct to come here, to wait for him in his office.
There’s no other place I’ve ever felt safer.
His arms tighten around me, and my heart squeezes, my body curling instinctively over him, protecting him from whatever made him fall to his knees and hold me like this. From whatever is making him shiver on my lap right now.
“Devon?” I can feel his irregular breathing, and I card my fingers through his hair gingerly, trying to soothe him, keeping my touch soft.
He buries his face deeper into my lap, a small sound of distress leaving him when he holds me even tighter, nuzzling my belly with an urgency that makes my chest hurt.
God, what’s—
“Did I make it in time?” It’s the panic in his low-spoken words that devastates me. They’re merely a whisper against my shirt, but the fear in them might as well have been injected into my veins.
He lifts his head, and the look he gives me is even worse. Lost.
His blue-gray eyes look so lost when they meet mine. So open. So vulnerable.
“Did I make it in time to keep you safe?”
The need to comfort him, to reassure him, crashes into me so hard, nothing else matters in this moment.
Nothing else matters than the terror staring back at me that has its claws in this wonderful, strong man for reasons I don’t know.
His breathing is still shallow when I cradle his face in my palms.
He looks up at me as if he’s never seen anything more precious.
“You did,” I murmur softly, caressing his cheeks, his hair, shuffling forward until there isn’t an inch of space between us. “I’m okay, Devon.” I peer into his beautiful eyes. “We’re both okay.”
It’s slow, but I see it—the moment light bleeds through the shadows in his gaze.
It happens gradually, with every shift of my fingers through his dark strands, with every kiss I press on his temple, on his forehead.
I hum when I feel him start to relax, the tension draining from him, my own heartbeat calming along with his as I rock his body with mine.
His eyes burn with unnamed emotion when they meet mine again, when they drop to my lips, and I know what he needs.
I lower my mouth to his, and I know he can taste my relief. I know he breathes in my sigh, just as I let his stuttering exhale fill my lungs.
I kiss him like I love him, and I think he kisses me like that too.
I don’t know what made him react this viscerally, but I know I’ll do anything to make him feel that everything is alright.
“Come on,” I mutter against his lips. “I need you up here with me.”
He’s moving us both in the next instant, gripping my hips and climbing on the couch with me. He gathers me in his arms as we lie on our sides, legs tangled, bodies flush—shirts, slacks, shoes and all.
His eyes roam my face, his gaze much clearer now.
“Thank you, Sam.”
His words clamp down like a vice around my heart, the raw gratitude in them making my eyes sting.
He doesn’t have to thank me about anything. All I want is for him to be okay.
I shush him with another brush of my lips on his, and I swear, I feel his entire body sigh against mine.
Devon cups my nape, and I burrow against my favorite spot—the hollow of his throat—while his calm, steady breaths ruffle my hair.
His voice is a rough whisper when he speaks.
“I never made it on time, Sam.”
My chest constricts viciously at the meaning behind his words. But I say nothing. I don’t want to interrupt him. I just press tighter against him, letting him feel me, letting him feel safe enough to tell me anything he wants.
“My little brother needed me, and I never made it on time.”
His pain feels like a living thing, slumbering just beneath the surface, but it was ready to sink its teeth into him the moment he let his guard down.
I can feel it as clearly as if it were mine.
“What happened, Devon?”
He swallows heavily, but his body remains relaxed, his heart beating steadily under my palm.
“I made a mistake. In my first year after starting the company, I was approached by all sorts of people interested in my services. I was new, but I was good, and I was making a name for myself.” The hard edge in his voice sends a shiver through me.
“One day, the wrong people came knocking on my door, and I wanted nothing to do with them. They wanted me to provide protection, and I politely declined. This was just business, after all, so I thought—” He lets out a rough, humorless laugh that makes my stomach tighten.
“I thought that was going to be the end of it.”
He spews the last words out as if they’re poison, and I pull back, needing to look at him.
Deep-seated hurt and anger swim in his lovely eyes, eyes that have never looked at me with anything else than warmth.
“I underestimated the grudge dangerous people can hold when they don’t get their way.”
“Devon…” I whisper, and his arms tighten around me.
“A few days later, I got a call. No one was speaking, but I could hear kids’ voices in the background.
Angel’s voice.” His voice cracks on his brother’s name, and my heart aches for him.
“It could have been nothing. I could have been overreacting. But my gut told me I wasn’t.
So I ran like hell to him, almost crashed my car to get to him.
” He pauses, and the absolute devastation in his gaze makes it hard to breathe.
“I was too late. I knew I was too late the moment I got to his school, and saw the ambulance.”
My stomach churns at the thought of what it must have been like for him.
Just the idea of something happening to Eli is enough to make all the oxygen in the room disappear.
“They hurt him, Sam,” he rasps, his previous anger morphing into a quiet, seething rage, fueled by his memories. “They hurt him so bad, he can’t see anymore. They hurt a fucking kid, just because they wanted to send a fucking message.”
My heart stops, my mind unable to conceive the brutality of what he just described.
I don’t know what makes me ask him.
“Did you find them?” I whisper.
Silver flames consume his gaze, swallowing up all the kindness and warmth I’ve grown used to, leaving nothing but ruthlessness behind.
Goosebumps break all over my skin, but the feeling is not unpleasant.
Not in the least.
“I did.”
He says nothing else, but again he doesn’t need to. His words carry the weight of a promise fulfilled.
I never look away from him as I lift my hand, and cup his face.
“Good,” I say simply, softly.
A low growl rumbles in his throat as he covers my hand with his, bringing my wrist to his nose, to his mouth, marking me with his scent until I’m drowning in it.
“Were you worried about me, Devon?”
For a moment, he says nothing, his eyes boring into mine with an intensity that makes my chest tight. But it’s got nothing to when he leans in, and I feel his lips on my forehead.
“Sam, the mere thought of something happening to you is enough to break me,” he murmurs roughly, and the world stops.
“The alarm went off, and I knew my staff would take care of everything. I knew that no matter the threat, nothing would reach you up here because I’ve made sure of it.
I’ve made sure no one will be able to harm a fucking hair on your head since the moment you set foot in this office months ago.
I knew all of it, but it didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered than getting to you, than making sure you were safe.
Because what if—” His breath warms my skin, and I’m dying. “What if I’d made a mistake again?”
His words wrap around me until I feel every ounce of his care, of his fear for me.
And my heart thunders with no plan to slow down any time soon, because this man has been watching over me since the beginning. This man who’s been hurting so much.
“It wasn’t your fault.” His eyes lock with mine, and a familiar stormy sea stares back at me.
He knows it. He knows what happened with Angel wasn’t actually his fault. He couldn’t have predicted what would happen. But he believes it is anyway, and it’s a belief steeped in debilitating guilt, one he has been living with for years and years.
It’s all there, in the storms still raging in his eyes, in the sadness he hides so well. In the small nod he gives me even though he doesn’t agree.
“You’d be better off away from me,” he says, and the pain in my chest robs me of breath.
“Wh-What?” I manage to mumble, my throat dry, fear squeezing my insides.
He cups my face, his touch heavy and wonderful, his gaze piercing.
“I should be letting you go. I should be peeling my fucking hands off you, and staying the fuck away from you.” He clutches me so tightly, I feel him branding my skin. “God knows, I don’t fucking deserve to look at you, let alone touch you.”
The thought of not seeing him, of not touching him, makes my soul wither.
“Do you want that?” I whisper. “Do you want to let me go? To never see me, never touch me again?”
Anguish floods his eyes.
“No.”
The word reaches inside me, carrying all of Devon’s pain, and need, and hope, and it’s the moment I know, I’m not letting him go.
He’s scared for me. It’s not just the hurt and guilt he’s bearing on his shoulders.
He’s terrified for me.
How is it possible that it was only hours ago when he was asking me out on a date? Teasing me and kissing my smile, his face glowing and making me ache?
I want that. I want to see him glowing again.
I want to take away the devastation and pain that lives inside him. I will shoulder it myself if it means he can be happy, and smiling.
“What kind of date were you thinking?”
Surprise crosses his expression as Devon blinks at me, eyes widening.
For a few moments, he says nothing, merely looking at me, his heart thumping hard against me. But then, his lips tip up in the warm smile I know so well, and my world narrows down to just that smile.
“I was thinking something modest. Buy out a Michelin-starred restaurant for the night maybe?”
His voice is still rough, but the look of tender playfulness he gives me makes my stomach flip.
I pretend to think hard.
“You mean, where you sit through twelve courses of tiny portions, and most times you don’t even know what you’re eating?”
“Yep.”
“It sounds exactly like my kind of thing.”
“That’s good to know.”
We both try to keep a straight face, and fail miserably seconds later, his quiet chuckle shaking my body as I drink in his smile while my own cheeks hurt.
I love it when he smiles. I love that I can make him smile even now that I know his heart is heavy.
“Come home with me.” The words slip out, impossible to be contained. They float between us, bearing my nervousness, my hope, my burning need to be with him.
Come home with me, where it can just be us and our baby, where you can see him and he can see you. Where you can lay down your burden for a while, and rest. With us.
I go on before I can lose my courage, even as I hear his breath catch.
“Just for the weekend. You could come stay with me, with… us. With Eli and me.” I lick my lips nervously, fidgeting against him.
“If you want to, of course!” Am I hyperventilating?
It feels like I’m hyperventilating. God, I don’t want to mess this up. “You don’t have to if you don’t wan—”
My sentence is cut off as Devon takes my mouth in a searing kiss that makes all brain function seize.
He’s all I can see when he pulls back, when he watches me like he’s never wanted anything more.
“I’d love that, Sammy,” he says, voice hoarse, soft smile already appearing.
And I believe him.