Chapter 11 Lincoln #2
“Then you called me last night in a time of vulnerability. Added vulnerability,” I clarify.
“Since the power being out was on top of an already shitty week. You needed a friend, not a fucking hand on your shoulder. Not a guy on your couch. And definitely not someone who wanted to eat you the fuck up.”
“I think you think of me as a girl.” She sighs. “Like, a young girl. A teenager or whatever.”
I assure you, babe. I don’t.
“I think you’re caught in this in-between, obligated to keep me in the little sister category, but you’re attracted to me, too.
It’s clear I’m nothing more than a cliché, just waiting to be screwed over.
I wasn’t mad about what we did. I’m not even mad you may think of me in a way that isn’t brotherly at all.
No woman would have a problem with a man desiring them, especially when that man’s sense of right and wrong is so firm. ”
“Nova—”
“We almost crossed a line,” she butts in, a paper bag crinkling on her side of the line.
“But when I changed my mind, you didn’t attempt to convince me otherwise.
You didn’t plead or whine or coerce. Desire is okay.
And as crazy as it sounds, focusing on you these last few days has been the only time in nearly two weeks I’ve been able to come up for air.
My heart hurts,” she rasps, “and I continue to ask the same questions, time and time again. Why us? Why him? Why did this have to happen? And why does it feel like no one gives a shit? From the moment that SUV hit our truck and everything changed, it’s like oxygen disappeared from the world, and my lungs stopped working.
But when you’re right here in front of me, or in my office, or in my freakin’ living room, I can breathe again. ”
Jesus. I lick my lips and swap the book for the watch, turning it over and checking the back in case he left a chip inside it.
A message. A fucking love letter in Morse code.
“You say those things, Nova, and you probably think they’re a convincing argument for why my presence in your life is a good thing. ”
“Air is good. Air is necessary.”
“Sure. But those are the same reasons I should stay the fuck away. You not being able to breathe? That’s grief, Nov. And me being a distraction? That’s a trauma bond.”
“Lincoln—”
“You lost your parents, which made you and Ry it for each other. You’d go to war for the other and make anyone bleed if it meant keeping your sibling safe. You watched him die, Nova.”
God. Shut the fuck up!
“You went through what most others wouldn’t survive!
And then I walk in and become the connection to your brother you’re desperately clinging to.
It’s not that I mind being here for you, but I’ve gotta admit, the idea you want me around as a distraction from your grief, and not because of my sparkling wit and sexy body, is just—”
She barks out a cathartic laugh that verges devastatingly close to a sob.
“It’s heartbreaking,” I finish, no damn clue if I want to smile or scowl. Laugh with her, or smash something. The only thing I know for sure is that my heart hurts. And fuck, that’s new. “I want you to want me even when you can breathe. Not only when you can’t.”
“I want you to want me so desperately that life ceases to exist until we’re together again,” she counters on a crackling whisper.
“I want you to be crawling out of your skin because you need me right there in front of you. Like, even in the absence of trauma, the risk of losing me makes it hard to think. I want you to make me feel like you can’t stay away.
And if this is just a distraction from my grief and not real?
If I wake up eventually, and you’re walking out the door because what I thought we had was just me and a hefty dose of dissociation, then that’s the price I’ll pay.
Later. When my lungs have healed, and my head no longer swims.”
Giving up on my search, I set the watch down and beside it, my elbow, so I can lean over my arm and rest my face in my hand. “So, you want something, even if it’s fake, and you don’t care if it ends later, because by then, you’ll be healed enough to walk on your own?”
She wants to throw herself into a fucking romance and forget the real world. Which is literally everything I need to get my job done and Aster off my back.
Why should I care about her reasons?
Because I give a fuck about the woman too pure for this life, that’s why. Because using her up and walking away when I’m done may become the worst sin I’ve ever committed.
And I’m a man who’s known a few.
“You willingly toss yourself into a fantasy?”
“Right now?” Her voice rattles, thick with emotion. “I’ll go literally anywhere, with anyone, if it means I can escape this pain I feel. But to go to you? To be with you?” she whispers. “That’s a fantasy I might enjoy, even when it’s over and you leave.”
“And you’re so sure I will?”
“Everyone does.” She sniffles. “It’s my curse.”
Fuck. Me.
Shoot. Me.
And put me in a deep, dark, unmarked grave.
It’s where I deserve to be.
“Maybe we could start out slow?” Who the fuck am I? “Dinner, maybe? Something Ryan wouldn’t throw a fit over. No fully fledged sex maniac fantasies while you’re still crying at the drop of a hat.”
“Lincoln—”
“I’m just saying, if we’re messing around and you start crying, I’m not sure I’ll recover. It’ll be like the dude with the small dick. We could create one of those groups. If Nova Nichols has personally emasculated you, we meet on Thursdays and Sundays at noon. BYO coffee.”
She chokes out a snotty laugh, sniffling and drawing in a jerky, despairing breath.
“It’s a genuine fear! I would never recover from that kind of rejection.”
“I’ve never cried during sex.” She snickers. “I don’t know if that brings you comfort, but in all the years and all the men—”
“Don’t tell me their names,” I growl. “Don’t tell me how many there have been or where you fucked or how often you did it or if you loved them. Dammit, Nova. I assure you, I don’t wanna know.”
She snickers again. “Okay.”
“Dinner? Maybe we could hold hands or something. Risk it all and kiss you on the cheek when I bring you home again.”
“You heathen. You only want me for one thing.”
I’m smiling. Fuck knows, I forgot I was standing in Ryan Nichols’ bedroom, searching his things, and preparing to steal from a woman who deserves so much better. But her words, so innocently spoken, bring me screaming back to reality as gently as a brick to my face.
To the one thing I want from her.
“Did you, uh…” Pushing off the drawers, I snatch up the watch and slip it into my pocket, then I tuck his notebook back in the top drawer.
There’s nothing in it except a list of groceries and what might be random song lyrics.
Or poems, maybe. He wouldn’t be the first soldier to settle in during the quiet hours and put pen to paper.
“You said you needed to call about my loan, too?”
“Oh. Yeah.” She goes back to crinkling her paper bag. “That was a smooth conversation transition. They teach you that in the military?”
I step back from the drawers and look them up and down to make sure everything is where it should be.
Then, turning, I carefully unzip Ryan’s duffel and peek at his things.
“They taught us how to survive. And right now, I’m barely keeping my head above water.
You’re stressing me out, because you’re funny and silly and witty and so fucking beautiful, looking at you feels like a sin.
But you’re also your brother’s sister, and nothing in my entire life has ever left me so damn conflicted. ”
“Glad it’s not just me, then. Also, your loan application bounced back because there was a misnomer in your Social Security number.
If you could come down to the bank at your next convenience, I need you to fix that up and have the change certified.
Then I can send the application out again and get the loan sorted for you. ”
“That’s annoying.” I drag a pair of boots from the bag and turn them over to check the soles for a tiny, almost-invisible slit cut into the rubber.
Who knows; a soldier might slide a chip in there.
A key. A clue, maybe, that spells out ‘the thing you’re looking for is taped behind a photo frame to your left.
’ And because I think it, I set the untampered boots down and glance around the room for photos.
“I can swing by just before the close of business. Is that cool?”
“Sure.” She takes a quiet bite of her lunch. “I finish at five, so be here at ten-to, and I can get that settled for you.”
“Really?” I wander to a large painting on the wall—a thick, beveled frame surrounding a riverbank scene most would only see in hotels. Which makes it suspicious as fuck, hanging from a soldier’s bedroom wall. “You won’t even stay back for me? Am I so unimportant?”
She scoffs. “I’m happy to, but you need Edwin to certify the change to your documents, and he leaves at five. If you’re late, poor Edwin will have to stay back. Or worse, you risk missing him altogether. In which case…”
“I’ll be there before five.” I fake a chuckle, but grit my teeth as I pull the painting away from the wall and run my fingers along the taped backing. Keys. Code. Cards. Give me something! “Maybe skip your afternoon snack, so we can head to dinner right after we’re done at the bank.”
“You won’t even allow me a chance to go home and get changed?” she admonishes. “No date-night dress for you? No makeup and fresh hair?” She tut-tuts. “Shame on you, Mr. Castro.”