Chapter Twenty-Three
They didn’t figure it out, but Grace was eventually convinced that Callum should update Dean and Vivian about Dominic’s phone call. They were tracking her phone calls already, and if they didn’t report his call in, they’d wonder why she had gone radio silent.
Other than that, Grace didn’t know what to make of dinner. Talking out Dominic’s motives had zapped the energy from her, and worse, Callum had turned to stone after she had accused his teammates of treachery.
She did what she knew best. Run and hide. That was what she was good at. At least when she ran away this time, she figured he understood she needed space. Grace hadn’t exactly been smooth with her claim of the sudden onset of a headache.
And he had let her go.
Grace showered and slipped under the covers.
Falling asleep would be impossible. New houses always had their own sounds to get used to.
It was one of the things she realized while moving often.
She cataloged what she heard. The house settled.
The air conditioning clicked. Callum’s footsteps paced the living room and kitchen.
He went outside. His truck door opened and closed, and the pacing returned in the living room, then tracked down the hall.
He stopped outside the bedroom door and knocked quietly as he entered, whispering, “Are you asleep?”
“Trying.” Facing the wall, she imagined what he looked like at the threshold of the bedroom door. Large. Powerful. Decisive. That would have been her best guess until she heard Callum let out a long breath.
He stepped in. The door clicked shut behind him, and she heard him pull his shirt over his head. Her pulse picked up. His zipper slid down, and the sound of fabric falling to the floor jump-started her heart.
“You sleep in more clothes than I do.” He eased the comforter back and climbed into her bed without a moment of hesitation, a big spoon to her little one. “How’s your headache?”
“I didn’t really have one. Just… a mess of thoughts. What are you doing?” It was far too early for bed, and he wasn’t making a move on her.
Callum snuggled close as though he’d lain in bed with her time and time again. His hand rested on her hip. His fingers flexed. “What kind of thoughts?”
She should face him, but every muscle protested turning in his arms. If she turned around and saw an expiration date on them, the fantasy would be over. Just another second to savor his warmth and strength. God, she’d gone her whole life wondering what this might feel like.
Just another second…
Grace memorized the feel of his arms, the weight of his hand on her hip. She committed all of it to memory and pulled away from his hold, forcing herself to face Callum and reality. She turned in his arms. Their eyes locked. “I thought you were mad at me.”
“Why would I be mad at you? The world, yeah. It never stops. But you? I won’t make you guess, Grace. If I have something to say, I’ll say it. I expect the same from you.”
Her stomach flipped. His stormy eyes didn’t blink, and in the most unnerving, soul-baring way, he searched her face, gaze wandering from her eyes to her mouth and drifting back again in the laziest sweep she’d ever seen.
She was sure a man had never ever studied her before, just as she was certain no man could make her feel like she was drowning in him with a simple look. “I’ll try.”
Two fingers caressed her cheek and tucked her hair back. “Okay for the time being.”
He always seemed to look into the future, when she had no practice with anything except what was immediately in front of her. “Are you going to tell Hayden about us?”
A crackle and spark danced in his stormy eyes. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“You didn’t before.”
He skimmed fingertips along her jawline. “I had to get my head out of my ass. Didn’t I?”
She laughed.
“There’s that beautiful grin.” He rested his heavy-muscled arm over her and cupped the back of her head.
“We have a lot going on, but you and me? Don’t worry about that.
” He smoothed his hand over her arm, killing the downward spiral of uncertainty, and tucked her head to his.
“There you go.” Their foreheads touched. “Just like that.”
“You worried,” she whispered, “that I fell for you because I’m the damsel. But what if you’re only here because you like to save the day?”
“I do like to save the day.” He grinned. “But you’re more than that.”
She nodded.
“Grace.” His fingers threaded into her hair and softly stroked the back of her head. “Are you okay?”
“I haven’t been in years.”
His lips flattened. His cheeks ticked.
“Until you,” she admitted. “And I’m scared this will go away.”
“It won’t.”
They lay in the darkening silence. He stroked her hair.
He was so much more than she could comprehend.
She was in love with him. Admitting that to herself was scary, and realizing that was surreal.
She’d thought of the years she ached from what was just puppy love.
But this was different. It was real and returned.
“I was dishonorably discharged,” he whispered. “They kicked my ass off the team that I would give my life for, for my country that I bled for.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t follow an order.”
That wasn’t possible. Callum Hale was the king of doing the right thing.
“It’s a nightmare that plays in my head almost constantly,” he admitted. “The order was illegal. I’ll stand by that for the rest of my life. But that didn’t matter.”
“What was it?”
He stroked her hair. Minutes ticked by. “It doesn’t matter. It was carried out anyway.”
“By Hayden?”
“No. Never. But I said no, and someone else said yes. Maybe I could have done more. I keep trying to see how I could have changed what happened…”
“What was it?”
He pinched his eyes closed. “Someone at the wrong place. The wrong time.” He shook his head.
“They weren’t armed. They posed no threat.
I couldn’t stop it.” He released an unsteady breath.
“They’re dead. Nothing I could do except go home and report it to anyone who would listen.
I don’t know what will come of it. I know what should… But what will?”
Grace didn’t know what to say. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m mourning the person who needlessly died.
Compound that with former teammates spinning a narrative to cover their asses.
They irreparably ruined my belief in…everything, and during dinner, I kept thinking what it would mean if someone on my new team did that again. I don’t know how I’d handle that.”
“What if they did?” Dominic’s reach into law enforcement had left people dead before. It wouldn’t be a stretch to believe he could turn people again.
His chest expanded with a breath so deep she wasn’t sure he would take another. The corners of his eyes tightened, and he let it out slowly, not answering with a slight shrug.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
She tried to remember the moment during her marriage to Dominic when she realized she was completely on her own, that no one would truly be loyal to her, that she would never be safe. “I’ve spent years not trusting anyone. I don’t want that feeling for you.”
“Don’t take on that worry for me,” he said. “I’m fine.”
“I’ll try.”
His dark eyes intensified. Seconds ticked by. “Try harder.”
“I don’t want you to feel the way I do—did,” she amended.
“I trust my team. I do… I don’t have any reason not to. Except Dominic knows more than we do. That threw me for a loop.”
“He’s always one step ahead.”
Tension flickered in the chiseled indentation of his cheek. “That’s what you keep saying.” He stroked the back of her head again. Callum skimmed his fingers over her skin before brushing his lips over the spot he’d just touched. “I want to know about Dominic.”
“You know everything—”
“No, I don’t,” he whispered under his breath. “You didn’t tell me everything from before.”
“Do you mean when I was married to him?”
His chin barely lifted.
“You know he hurt me.” She’d pushed down the bitter memories so far that it was almost like they had happened to someone else.
“I read the summary of the court filings from your divorce.”
She remembered him saying that. But she also knew that paperwork from well-paid negotiations didn’t paint the truth.
“There are a lot of reasons a man hurts a woman. Power. Inferiority. Stupidity. Dominic liked control. Anything he did to me physically paled compared to what he did mentally. I lived in constant fear.”
“I would never hurt you. You know that, right?”
“You don’t have to say that. I know.”
“Maybe you know. But now you’ve heard it.”
She loved Callum and had fallen so deeply for him that keeping her mouth shut was nearly impossible. He wouldn’t hurt her, but she couldn’t handle the risk yet. She kissed him instead of chancing the words would inadvertently fall from her lips, and then took off her pajamas.
He stripped and rolled on protection.
“I hate the years I missed with you.” His hand ran over her. “But if there’s a fuckin’ god up there pulling the strings, and all that brought me to you? I have to be okay with it.”
Grace straddled him. He palmed her ass and ran his hands up and down her back. She lowered herself onto him, and his hands locked on her hips, moving her, giving her everything she needed.
He gripped her hips, thrusting into her as she rode him, and as his climax neared, she waited, wanting, needing, to fall with him.
She drew tighter, begging for his orgasm.
He flipped her over and drove into her. He fell, and she tumbled with him, knowing this would be theirs for the rest of their lives.
Callum woke with Grace in his arms and believed everything would be all right. He wasn’t a look into the future kind of guy. More like look into next week. But that had changed, and if he could count on this type of morning every day, he would die a happy guy.
Carefully he checked the time without waking her. God, he’d slept like the dead, yet the urge to get up and jump into the day didn’t surface. His muscles were loose. His mind was clear. And he was happy.
Legitimately, categorically happy when he had never noticed that he had not been. Grace Willoughby had rewired his brain, and he was here for it.
She stirred against his side, easing into the day with that same sleepy smile that had made him lose his mind only a few days ago. “Good morning.”
Yeah, this was what he wanted. “Morning, beautiful.”
His phone rang, interrupting the quiet peace.
“So it begins.” She dropped an arm over her eyes. “Tell Viv and Dean good morning, too.”
Callum groaned and reached for it on the nightstand. It was Dean. “Got good news?”
“Yeah, hello to you, too.”
He ran a hand over his face and pulled himself out of bed, mouthing, “Give me a minute,” as he tugged on his clothes piled next to the bed.
“Are you just waking up?” Dean asked.
“Just haven’t had my coffee yet.”
“Man, it’s almost eight. Sounds like you’re on vacation.”
“Give me a break. It’s a lack of caffeine, not my stay at the fisherman’s getaway in the forest.” He beelined for the coffeemaker and fiddled with the filters.
“Well, I don’t have much to update you on,” Dean admitted.
Few issues slowed Dean down. An ugly shadow of doubt crept into Callum’s thoughts. His trust in his new teammates had never wavered until Dominic called. Doubting Dean wasn’t fair. He’d given zero reasons for Callum to be concerned.
But there was an issue, and Dean was the lifeline of information. If that had been corrupted, Callum had bigger problems than Dominic Marino. He cleared his throat. “Not a lot?”
“A lot less than I wanted by this point. I can’t backtrack how Dominic spoofed Mari Willoughby’s phone number, only that it was spoofed.”
The shadows of doubt jumped for more attention. “How’s that possible?”
“I only have one answer, and it fucking sucks: I don’t know.”
A heavy weight pressed against his shoulders. “Where does that leave us?”
“Nowhere good yet. Hey, I have another call coming in that I have to take.” Dean ended the call as abruptly as he had started it.
When was the last time Dean hadn’t been able to trace a simple phone number or track down a location?
In the few months Callum had been with Titan?
Never. He tried to remind himself that this wasn’t the Army with unlimited government resources.
The private sector didn’t have the same rules in play though, with more leeway and less bureaucracy.
His ears perked. Callum turned as Grace paused at the mouth of the hall.
“Hey.” Her hair hung loose on her shoulders. She rested against the wall and let it take her weight as though her body was too heavy to hold upright. “I couldn’t fall back asleep and decided to get dressed.”
She walked to him like a woman on a mission and wrapped her hands behind his neck.
His heart stuttered. Her warm softness pressed against him, and every part of him hardened.
Grace pushed onto her tiptoes. Her lips grazed his neck, and prickles of awareness burst over his skin. “I like waking up next to you.”
Fuck… so did he.
Callum curved his arms around her back and belted her body to his. She smelled like sweet summer, and breathing her in was enough to make him forget what they were doing. He needed to pull away and update her on Dean’s phone call. But he didn’t want to.
“I like sleeping next to you.” He tightened his grip on her. “And everything that leads to sleeping next to you.”
A stain of color warmed her cheeks as his hands ran over her hips.
“Everything to do with being with you.” She was his. Did she get that? He said it, showed it, and wanted to figure out more ways to prove it.
Grace peered up at him.
“You’re mine. All mine.” Such simple words. They still didn’t convey what he meant.
He kissed her. A tiny moan purred from deep within her. They had years to make up for the time they missed.