Page 111 of Damaged Protector

What the…

“I don’t know what that means.”

His chuckle vibrated through my ear. “I don’t either, to be honest.” He was quiet for a few seconds. “I had offers. Ones I would normally jump on.” My stomach tightened at that.

“Why didn’t you?”

Another beat of silence followed my whispered question before he followed with one of his own. “Can we FaceTime?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Ten seconds later, he appeared on my screen, his hair damp as if he’d just showered, and his chest and shoulders were bare. He looked damn yummy.

Picking up right where we’d left off, he said, “I didn’t want anyone in my room because I just wanted to settle in and call you.”

That made me smile, and I didn’t even try to mask it. “Because you missed my sparkling personality?”

He laughed, flashing those perfect white teeth, and dammit, why is he so effing attractive? “Something like that.” His eyes moved slowly around the screen, like he was memorizing my face. “I know you were upset today, so I wanted to call and set your mind at ease.”

I chewed on my bottom lip for a second, deciding how to respond. “You’re single, Hawk. I know that, and I know you have… needs.”

“All my needs are currently being met,” he replied, his eyebrows inching together, and my heart stuttered in my chest. “I don’t fuck around because I have to. It’s a choice I made a long time ago.”

“Because you don’t trust women because of how your mother was?”

“That’s part of it, and it’s not that I don’t know there are trustworthy women out there. I just don’t want to end up like my dad. I told you most of that story, but…” His lips rolled inward, and his eyes glazed over.

I kept my voice soft. “You don’t have to tell me, but I’d be happy to listen if you need to get it off your hairy little chest.”

He smiled at that. “Pain in my ass.”

“You like me being a pain in your ass. It keeps you on your toes.”

“That it does,” he replied, shifting until he was lying down on his back with his phone propped on his chest. I could see a light wood headboard behind him and a crisp white pillowcase on the pillow beneath his head.

He was quiet for a moment before he started speaking. “So, I told you my parents got a divorce after the incident with Jennifer.” I nodded. “After that, my dad retired from the Marine Corps. He started drinking. A lot. Like piss-drunk every night. He literally drank himself into an early grave.”

My heart broke a little. I couldn’t imagine losing my dad. “Hawk, I’m so sorry.”

He nodded. “I found him. He didn’t show up for work one day, so I went to his house to check on him. He’d aspirated his own vomit and choked to death in his sleep.”

I covered my mouth with my hand as tears filled my eyes.

Hawk swallowed hard. “My mother blamed me for his death. She said if I hadn’t lost my shit so badly the cops had to be called, we could have, and I quote, swept the whole thing under the rug.”

My hand slapped the couch in anger, startling the cat, who mean-mugged me and stalked away into the kitchen. “That’s complete bullshit. He was attacking your sister!”

“I know, but shit like that sticks with you. I know she was deflecting because she was in the wrong and looking for someone else to blame. But that shit still sticks with you.”

My heart was in pieces. Hawk was so damaged on the inside, the events of one night forever altering his perception of himself.

“You can’t blame yourself.”

His dark eyes held every emotion he was feeling. Regret. Sadness. Guilt.

“And yet I do. If I hadn’t lost it like that…” He shrugged those big shoulders which carried more than their burden.

“That’s why you always need to be in control.”

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