Something was between us. That couldn’t be ignored. The heat in the air that would top any kind of heatwave California could have. The way my body erupted in goosebumps despite that heat. The need that started between my legs and spread throughout every limb.
It was physical, yeah sure. I knew that the sex we had wasn’t normal. Wasn’t sex that many people got to experience. There was an attraction there. Beyond attraction. But there was something else. The something else that made it impossible to forget Lance in the months he’d been gone, and it would be impossible to for the foreseeable future, regardless of why he was here.
“You sent Nathan away,” he said after we’d stared at each other long enough to make it uncomfortable. No way was I going to speak first. He was here, for a purpose, I assumed, it was up to him to lead the conversation.
I nodded, moving my purse on my shoulder. “I didn’t want to confuse him.”
Lance’s body tightened even further.
“Thinking you’re back only for you to leave,” I continued. “I’m not letting him go through again. I can’t watch him go through that.”
I can’t go through that, was what I left unsaid. Because I was going to go through it whether I thought I could handle it or not.
Lance flinched at my words.
Actually flinched. Like I’d struck him physically. Me alluding the pain my son went through these past months was a blow to him.
I hated that simple flinch made me immediately soften toward him. Because what I hadn’t seen, what I had missed when I was cataloging his new muscles, lack of sweat and sexy beard was a sadness. Lance had carried around a sadness before. Cloaked in his empty glares, his brooding silences. It was something I could feel, something I’d itched to explore the closer we got.
But there was more now. It was a hurt. It was much closer to the surface. An exposed nerve. I had an instant urge to protect him. To soothe that sadness. Because this was a man much more vulnerable than he seemed.
“He won’t have to,” he whispered. Yes, whispered. Gently. Barely audible, like he didn’t have the power to speak louder.
Yeah, way more vulnerable than he seemed.
“You won’t have to,” he said, louder this time. Stronger.
My body reacted to that. What sounded like a promise. An oath. I didn’t trust promises. I couldn’t. Every promise ever made to me had been broken. I didn’t know what a kept promise sounded like. But this sure seemed like what it was meant to feel like.
“I’m not gonna leave again,” he continued when it became clear I wasn’t going to say anything. I was far too busy trying to keep my shit together. He swallowed visibly and some of that vulnerability I’d been thinking about flickered on his face. “If you don’t send me away, that is.”
I should. That was the smart decision.
The safe one.
Greenstone Security would eventually be completely out of my life in the professional sense. The case was pending and it looked like Robert was going to be spending a long time in prison. As it was, I hadn’t heard a peep from him since I’d laid him out in that phone call. To be fair, Rosie had been with me when I filed a restraining order. I presumed he’d been served with it, but I didn’t know.
I should have felt peace with that silence, but it didn’t feel peaceful. It felt like the sky’s inhale before a storm, when everything was still, quiet. A quiet so loud you braced for the destruction it would bring.
I was trying to shake off that feeling, that I was in the eye of a tornado, but here was Lance, a man that was a storm himself. A hurricane.
A normal woman stepped away from a storm. A sane one wouldn’t walk right back into one.
But I stayed right where I was, still not speaking, but that was answer enough for Lance.
His shoulders sagged, slightly, as if a tiny weight had been lifted from the pile he’d been carrying. It was then he pushed his shades to the top of his head. When his eyes met mine, it was a punch in the throat. In the heart. Everything hurt and everything healed with that look. There was a nakedness to it. An agony. An honesty.
“I wasn’t going to come back,” he said. “I promised myself I wouldn’t. Because it was the best thing for you and Nathan.”
“You don’t get to decide what’s best for my son and me without consulting me. That’s how a relationship works.” I paused. “If that’s what we had.”
Lance’s jaw went hard. “It’s not what we had.”
Pain speared through my chest.
He moved forward, slightly, moving his hand to lightly trail down my bare arm. “It’s what we have,” another whisper. “It’s what I need from you. I can’t live the life I did before knowing what I left behind. What I did to you. And Nathan. I was certain I didn’t deserve that, even now I know I don’t deserve either of you, but I need you.”