I couldn’t stop it.
Not after having what had to be the most amazing night of my life.
Hours spent with him and his mom. With his trusting smile and open, incredible mind. With their amazing connection. Their love so free. Unconditional.
With Hope’s heart shining so bright, her body a stunning distraction.
Light and life and belief.
Yeah. I loved seeing it with Rex and Rynna. Their happy family. Didn’t know of many people who deserved it the way they did.
But that experience was always me on the outside looking in. Doing my best to be there for them when they needed me.
Tonight, I’d felt right in the middle of it.
A partner to it.
A part of it.
It was stupid.
I hardly even knew them.
But standing there looking down at him, I’d been wishing things could maybe be different. I’d been wishing that fate wasn’t such a cruel bitch to send me these two when I couldn’t keep them. Shouldn’t keep them.
Because everything felt too close and too raw and too real.
Besides, I knew Hope was struggling to deal with something bigger than I fully understood.
My bones howled with the warning that I shouldn’t even be there. But my spirit was demanding I stay. That I explore whatever was happening between us. It felt too important to ignore.
The awareness of it had seeped into the atmosphere when I’d come back into the kitchen and told Hope he was asleep.
All the playful easiness from earlier had been erased.
In its place was an intensity that slowed the atmosphere. The room echoing with what-ifs and questions and hunger. This blinding need that tugged and pushed and bound.
“It’s really late, Kale. You should go home. I never expected you’d stay this long.”
I glanced at the clock. “It’s barely one a.m. on a Friday night. That’s still early.”
I attempted a smirk that fell flat.
She gave a little huff. “I bet. Though, I’m sure you are much more accustomed to putting that stamina to better use on Fridays in the middle of the night. You regretting it yet, Cowboy?”
My mind blazed right back to that Friday two weeks ago.
I could hear her.
Taste her.
I angled my gaze her direction, pinning her with my stare, voice going deep. “My only regret is you not having the chance to experience it yet.”
“Kale,” she whispered, her fingers fumbling as she wound the candy. “Don’t do this.”
“I’m not the one who’s doing it, Hope. Seems to me it’s already there, whether we give it permission to be or not.”
She blinked, trying to concentrate on finishing one of the last lollipops. I still could see the small tremble on the corner of her delicious mouth. “You’re right. It’s there. I just wish it would have come at a better time.” I could see it, the fear that suddenly blistered across her flesh, the way those eyes glinted beneath the light with the moisture that had instantly gathered.
Rage.
It burned.
Immediate.
Hardening every place inside me. The sudden, consuming need to wrap both of them up and protect them.
“What is he asking?” I pushed out through gritted teeth, trying to keep myself cool and composed.
Impossible.
She exhaled a harsh breath, eyes moving to the archway to ensure Evan was still asleep before she looked back at me. “I’m not sure I should be telling you any of this.”
I blinked, swallowing back the fury, something that was typically so foreign for me. I was the laid back one. The one who found the good in all situations.
But whoever that piece of shit was had the power to obliterate that.
My teeth gritted. “Why not?”
A small gesture of her chin as she said, “For starters, you basically look like you want to up and murder someone at the mention of my ex.”
“That only seems natural.”
“What’s that?”
“Wanting to protect you.”
She dropped her gaze back to her work, and I reached out, touched her hand from across the table. “I want to know, Hope. You can trust me.”
Her eyes squeezed closed, like she wanted to disagree, or maybe like she wanted to run and hide, obviously struggling around the fear that had taken her whole.
“He wasn’t a good dad?” Obvious, I knew, but I needed the verification. Her proof. Because I was feeling things I hadn’t ever felt before.
A wild kind of protectiveness.
A savage kind of possessiveness.
She rasped a hoarse, unamused laugh, as she peered over at me.
“No, Kale, he wasn’t a good dad.”
Violence curled my fists. The itch to get up. Hunt him down.
“And I know what you’re thinking . . .” she rushed. “It wasn’t physical. It was . . .”
I attempted to keep my voice steady, but it tremored with barely contained fury. “What? You can tell me anything.”
Fuck.
Deeper and deeper.
I couldn’t stop.
She looked over at me.
Hopelessly.
Which just about fucking killed me.
“He rejected him as his child the second we found out about his heart condition.”