Chapter 21
Addie rolled from her belly to her side. Why was she cold? She was never cold with Noah in the bed. Heck, usually, she was on the verge of overheating.
She reached for Noah…but he wasn’t there.
Her eyes popped open. The room was dark. So dark, she could barely see a thing. It had to be the middle of the night. But then, why wasn’t he here?
Quickly, she turned on the bedside light before tapping the screen of her phone.
Three in the morning.
Concern wiped away any thoughts of going back to sleep, and she slipped out of bed. On the floor, she found a discarded shirt of Noah’s and pulled it over her head before moving out of the room.
Everything was dark in the hall. She’d expected a light on somewhere. Maybe he’d gone to the bathroom in the hall to avoid waking her. But it was empty.
Had he slept somewhere else?
She stepped into the living room, almost expecting to see him asleep on the couch. He wasn’t. He stood facing the window, the outline of his body stark against the moonlight.
Slowly, she crossed the space between them. “Noah—”
He moved so quickly she didn’t have time to react. One second, she was behind him, the next, her back was pressed to his chest, his arm around her throat.
Air stalled in her lungs and panic surged through her veins.
“Noah…” she breathed, forcing calm into her voice when calm was the last thing she felt. “It’s me…Addie.”
The muscle in his arm tensed.
“You’re safe,” she whispered.
“Addison?” Shock, fear, panic…it was all tangled together in his voice.
“Yes.” Gently, she touched the arm that was wrapped around her neck and swiped his wrist with her thumb. “You’re in your home in Amber Ridge.”
“Addie…”
The arm suddenly dropped and the warmth disappeared from her back.
She turned slowly, and the pain on Noah’s face…it killed something inside her. He looked pained and angry and frustrated, and he searched her body like he was looking for injury. An injury he’d inflicted. He wouldn’t find one.
“You didn’t hurt me,” she whispered.
“I could have.” He scrubbed his hands over his face with shaking fingers. “Are you okay?” he asked when his hands dropped.
“I told you, you didn’t hurt me. How are you?”
She stepped forward, but Noah mirrored her move, stepping away from her, keeping that space that felt too big between them.
She hated the distance. It felt like a wall she couldn’t cut through. An immovable barrier between them. “Noah—”
“I should have trusted my gut. Even Toby agreed with me.”
She frowned. “Toby?”
“I’m being selfish by keeping you. I’m thinking about me, not you or your safety.”
“Hey.” Another step forward, but again he backed away. “You’re not being selfish. We’re in this together. I want to go through this with you.”
“I’m dragging you into my shit. I’m trying to have you before I’ve done the work and made sure I’m okay. And if I’m not okay, you won’t be either. You won’t be safe around me.”
Fear started to weave through her bones. Fear of what was about to come. That he was going to hurt her, hurt them, before they’d even given this relationship a chance.
“You’re not dragging me anywhere,” she pushed. “We’re both adults. We’re both making the choice to be here. To love each other.”
“It hasn’t been equal though. I’m your boss. I’m older than you. There’s a power imbalance.”
They were back to that? “I’m not a child. I’m an adult.”
“And I’ve come close to hurting you so many fucking times.”
Four. He’d come close to hurting her four times. Because he was struggling.
She wanted to fight for him, for them. To tell him he would never hurt her…but he was right. It wasn’t an impossibility. And what if one day he did? What if one day he didn’t snap back to the present in time?
It would destroy him. And that would destroy her.
He rounded the couch so that it sat between them, big and immovable. “I need to go.”
“Go where? This is your home.” Her words were barely a whisper.
He turned.
“Noah, please stop.” The rational part of her brain told her to let him go.
He needed space and time, and trying to keep him would be for her.
It would be selfish. But there was also this ache deep in her belly…
one that told her to grab onto him and not let go.
One that felt completely empty without him.
“No, Addison. We can’t do this anymore.”
And there it was. The words she’d been waiting for. The words she’d feared. They sat in the air, and she was too scared to touch them.
“You’re breaking up with me.” She wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement. It didn’t matter. The pain that burned inside her was the same either way.
And it all amounted to the same thing—she needed to let him do what he thought he needed to do…and trust and hope that he returned to her.
But it still hurt. God, it hurt.
The pain and sadness on Addie’s face almost made him want to take it back. All of it. To close that distance between them, take her into his arms, and assure her that everything would be okay.
But that would be a fucking lie. He didn’t know if it would be okay. He’d almost hurt her again. And unless he did something, it would just keep happening and she’d never be safe with him.
He stepped away, afraid her proximity might push him to make the wrong decision.
Another flash of pain in her beautiful blue eyes. But it would hurt more if one of these times he used his strength, the skills he’d learned in the military, to hurt her. Neither of them would come out of that unscathed.
“I’m sorry, Addison.” So sorry that his heart felt like it was fucking bleeding.
Tears welled in her eyes, almost breaking him. “I get it. I wish things were different but…I get it. I just want you to be okay.”
Somehow her understanding made it worse. He had no fucking idea how, but it did. “Just until I know that you can touch me and no part of my body will confuse you with a threat.”
She nodded, a single tear falling down her cheek.
He wanted to tell her that it would be soon, but that would be an empty promise he couldn’t keep. He had no idea how long it would take to fix himself or how the fuck he was supposed to get there.
His fingers twitched to swipe the tear away. He turned before he could. Walking away was hard. Maybe one of the hardest things he’d ever done.
In the bedroom, he pulled on jeans and a T-shirt.
He felt her behind him. “I’ll call someone to watch the house.”
“I’ll leave,” she pushed. “You stay. It’s your home.”
“No. Stay here. Lock the doors. It’s safer than your place. I’ll talk to Jesse about what we can do to ensure your safety.” Whatever it was, it had to keep her safe from him as well.
Once he was dressed and his bag packed, he moved to the door, every step feeling hard and heavy and wrong. He grabbed his car keys from the hall table and flicked off the alarm. He’d just put a hand on the door when he felt it.
Addie grazed his arm, her warm, gentle touch surging into his bloodstream. “Noah, I’m not going to try to stop you. I just need you to know…I’ll be waiting for you.”
His fingers tightened on the knob, his eyes squeezing closed in pain. He couldn’t trust himself to turn to her. To look at her. Because then he’d back out of this. And he couldn’t afford to do that.
He stepped outside and pulled the door closed behind him.
Then he had to physically force himself to move.
To put one foot in front of the other. When he slid behind the wheel, he didn’t leave right away.
Instead, he sent a text to Becket asking him to watch the house until Jesse could sort out some protection.
Twenty minutes later, his cousin pulled up, and finally he drove away, but not before making himself a promise. This was it. This was when the healing began. For Addie. For their future.