Page 76 of The Price of Forever

“Yes. Trust me, Jordan—” I stopped myself, unsure how much I should admit. I’d already gone way too far. But that was par for the course with her. “If I was a normal man, and you were just someone I knew…then yeah, maybe this would make sense.”

“What do you mean if you were a normal man?”

I reached for my tea again. But instead of drinking it, I stared into the murky depths, remembering all the reasons why getting close to someone was a bad idea. I could already feel the tug on my heart when it came to Jordan. The undertow, taking me out to sea. My heart couldn’t withstand shattering a second time. It had been barely patched together, thumping but injured, after my fiancée’s murder. Almost ten years later, I was mostly fine.

But if I ever experienced pain like that again, I wouldn’t be fine. I’d be destroyed. And I didn’t trust myself to limp out of the wreckage a second time.

“It’s not worth getting into.” I dipped my teabag a few times then set the mug back on the coffee table without drinking.

Jordan was quiet for a few moments. Then she sighed, pushing off the couch.

“Well, you make a good point,” she said. “No use wading into something that neither of us even wants.” She drifted toward the pole in the back of the apartment. “Unless you mean that fucking part. I’m pretty sure we both want that.”

“Don’t be a brat,” I warned.

“How is telling the truth bratty?” She laughed, hanging on to the pole with one arm as she swung in a slow circle.

“Just make it easier on both of us and don’t bring it up. How about that?” I sipped my tea testily.

Jordan stayed quiet as she climbed the pole. A moment later she was in the bat formation, her gaze bouncing around the room.

“What’s the big deal about honoring my brothers anyway?” She let her arms hang slack toward the floor. “It’s just work. You make more business contacts. You find new clients. Life goes on.”

“Like I said, you might not get it, because you guys have some…family issues. But they mean a lot to me. They’re not quite brothers but…they’re not just my clients, either. They feel like family, somehow. And I know better than to throw something like that in the trash.”

She didn’t know just how small my circle was these days. I had Trojan at my side. My mother was in a nursing home. And the Fairchilds. That was it. Everyone else I kept at a distance. Jordan couldn’t become an addition to that circle, even though it seemed impossible to keep her out. She needed to be transferred to a different officer immediately. But even if she was under the care of a different officer, it didn’t give us the green light to be together.

Because letting her in would only lead to me falling in love with her. And I knew better than to go down that road a second time.

Jordan heaved a sigh, then reached up and grabbed the pole between her legs. She slid down a moment later, catching my gaze across the room.

“You done drinking that tea? Let’s get started on your lesson.”

I lifted a brow. “You have to be on drugs.”

“The only thing I’m high on is the pole.” She tipped her head. “Come on. Up and at ’em.”

“Jordan.” I tried my best to make my voice sound authoritative, because I was not getting on that fucking pole. “I’m hungover as shit.”

“This will help.”

“I disagree.”

“You need to learn a basic move before I find my own place. The clock. Is. Ticking.” She punctuated her final words with hand claps. “Now come on, don’t make me activate your military competitiveness or whatever you Marines have dormant inside you at all times.”

I admired her tenacity. That was the only reason I set my mug down and joined her. I paused at the base of the pole, crossing my arms. “I haven’t stretched.”

“You won’t need to.”

I sighed, joining her in front of the pole. She tipped her head back to look up at me, and for a split second, I saw how this could end: me, dipping down, catching her face in my hands again, coaxing those heartbreaking kisses from her lips.

I wanted that so badly. But I wanted my inner stability more. I wanted my future, unchanged and unbothered. I wanted the Fairchilds’ respect. I wanted this all to be worth something, not just a humiliating chapter in my quest to expand and succeed.

The air buzzed between us. She felt it too. Jordan took one of my hands and placed it on the pole, smirking.

“Just grab this thick shaft right here and follow every instruction I give you.”

A laugh rippled out of me. “I know better than to agree to that.”

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