Page 23 of Over the Flames

Silence spread to the point not even the white noise from the street seemed to penetrate.

“You really want to know?” she asked. “I loved her. More than myself, more than you. She was part of me long before I felt her move inside me. When you were more concerned about the victims’ families rather than your own and barely making it home to see us, Rey and I only had each other. She was…everything to me, Lawson. Even on the worst days, she was mine.” A hardness replaced the strain in her voice. “We spent hours reading books together, falling asleep on the couch tangled in each other’s arms, playing dress up. She’d beg me to make brownies after her nap, and I was more than willing to give in to make her happy. I didn’t care when she’d throw the flour in my face to hear me react, or that I’d have to spend the next hour cleaning up the mess. The sick days, the tantrums, the sleepless nights—she was worth it. I remember every moment, and not a day goes by that I don’t replay those memories in my head until I can’t breathe from the pain,” she said. “I’d stare at her after I’d put her down for the night and feel I made a difference in her life, that I could be everything she needed, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t enough for her when she needed me the most, and I will have to live with that the rest of my life.”

Movement registered from her side of the bed before her outline centered in the open doorway. The weight of her full attention pressurized the air in his lungs. She threaded her arms through a thin, silk robe she’d kept at the end of the bed and flipped her hair out from beneath the collar. “I’m not pretending she wasn’t part of our lives, Lawson. Having pictures of her around my apartment or hanging onto her possessions doesn’t prove how much I miss my daughter. The truth is I wake up every day looking for a way to keep my head above water without her. I’m sorry if your version of grief doesn’t match mine. I’m sorry I don’t spend hours on end studying medical journals, interviewing physicians, obsessing, and trying to come up with a reason she’s not here like you do. It might not look like it, but I’m doing the best I can, and the fact I choose to remember the good moments over the bad will have to be good enough for you.”

Arden’s outline vanished down the hall, her soft footsteps sticking to the hardwood, and a wall of regret slammed into him. Lawson scrubbed a hand down his face. Shit. He was an asshole. He pushed to his feet and followed her down the hallway.

Hands on her hips, she stared out the large windows taking up nearly an entire wall in the living space, her face only partially lit by the streetlights below. Unmoving. Almost ethereal, perfect.

“I didn’t mean…” To upset her? To impose his way to grieving onto her? Hell, he didn’t know what to say. He slid his hands down the outsides of his thighs, realizing he wasn’t wearing his suit of armor that protected him against these kinds of situations. Over the course of his career, through every case he took on for the Violent Crimes Unit, he’d had to separate his emotions from the victims who needed him to find them justice. He’d had to escape into a void where the pain couldn’t reach him. Only now, he recognized that maybe he’d never pulled himself completely out after all this time, but Arden had. She’d faced their loss, their combined anger, and created a new life for herself, leaving him behind. Alone. Confused. Afraid. “When you filed for divorce, I hated that you seemed to be handling what happened to Rey so easily while I could barely keep myself standing. You were ready to move on, and I was the one wondering what the hell had happened to my family. It didn’t occur to me you were hurting more than I was, Arden, because you didn’t let anyone see the truth. I should’ve seen it. I should’ve been there.” He took a step toward her, then another. “You deserved better from your husband. I took a vow to honor you for better or worse, and I lost sight of that when we buried our daughter. But these past couple of days…” He closed the space between them and reached out to run his hands the length of her arms. Smooth silk caught on the calluses on his palms, and she craned her head to watch as he trailed a path toward her neck before closing her eyes. He traced her jawline with his thumb, careful of the wounds darkening the skin of her neck. “I need you, Arden. More than I want to admit. I need you to show me how to be whole again.”

Arms folded over her thin robe, accentuating the flawless skin across her collarbones and turned to face him. She notched her head higher, and the entire world was at risk of shattering around them. In that moment, it was only the two of them. The deaths of her colleagues, the fact he almost hadn’t gotten to her in time in those woods, the standing distrust between their chosen careers—none of it mattered. Right then, there was only Arden. His wife.

“Do you ever wonder if we’d been there for each other in the first place, we wouldn’t have screwed up so bad?” A shaky smile turned her mouth up at the corners and instantly hiked his blood pressure higher. Even on the edge of a sob, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever set met. Patient, warm. Ambient light from the street below reflected off the tears in her eyes. “That if we’d known what we know now, we might’ve made it?”

“Yeah.” He’d lost count of how many times he’d wished he could’ve changed the past. “I do.”

“Me, too.” She raised on her toes and pressed her mouth to his. The kiss rocked him to his foundation. Rough, desperate, hungry. She slanted her lips against his and pressed against him.

Raging desire exploded in his gut and tore a low groan from his throat. Wrapping one arm around her low back, he molded her against him from chest to hips and reveled in the lean muscle flexing under his touch. Her arms drifted to his neck as she seemed to hold on for dear life, and a responding moan escaped past her lips. Damn, she tasted sweet. Like honey and lemon, and pure woman, and he couldn’t get enough. He was dimly aware of her nails biting into his skin as he maneuvered her against the floor-to-ceiling window looking out over the city. Blood pulsed hard behind his ears. He swept her robe off her shoulders, eager to feel all that soft skin under his touch. Her black bra and panty set stood stark against her pale skin, and a savage intensity to rip them from her body burned through him. He’d kept himself in check since signing the papers that’d led to his divorce, but control seemed to be slipping through his fingers with each sweep of her tongue against his. For him, there hadn’t been anyone else. Only Arden. He kissed her slow and deep before pulling back, out of breath. Lawson set his forehead against hers. He’d waited two years for this. He couldn’t wait any longer. “I have protection in my wallet.”

“Good.” She nipped at his chin, skimming her palms under his undershirt. Soft exhales glided down his neck and beneath his collar, warming him in places he hadn’t known existed. She kissed him again before tugging his shirt over his head. “We might not make it.”

“Your neighborhood isn’t going to get a show, Arden. I don’t give a shit who you’ve been with in this apartment. Tonight you’re mine, and I don’t share.” He set his hands at the backs of her thighs and hauled her up. Her legs locked around his waist as he carried her back toward the bedroom.

“There’s no one else,” she said. “It’s always been you.”

The last of his control broke the moment he stepped past the glass and wood barn door. He set her on the bed, her face surrounded by white sheets and soft, blonde hair. He trailed a prickling path of friction down her sternum, lower to her navel, and along the top of one foot. His legs shook with an unquenchable desire he hadn’t known existed. “So damn beautiful.”

“You’re just saying that to get in my pants.” A combination of challenge and electricity sparked in her eyes, and he couldn’t help but laugh to release the heated tension threatening to tear him apart from the inside if he didn’t touch her.

“Can’t blame a man for trying.” Entranced with the spread of her eyelashes across her cheeks as she stared down the length of her body toward him at the end of the bed, he memorized his fill of her. It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. “Is it working?”

“Better than I thought it would.” Her wide smile flashed, ejecting the pain and frustration of their loss into nothingness. Raising her arms above her head, she seemed to watch his every move.

Another groan escaped his control. He unpocketed his wallet from his slacks. Leveraging his hand beside her ribcage, he leaned down to kiss the bruising ringed around her throat, raging twice as hot as she fisted her fingers in his hair. He ran the tip of his nose along the outside of her ear.

Wrapping her foot around his shin, Arden dragged him over her body and pinned him to the bed beneath her. Her hair trailed across his face and chest, waking every nerve ending he owned as she set her mouth above his. “And just so we’re clear, I don’t share either.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Sunlight penetrated through the drugging fog of exhausted pleasure and sleep.

Arden cracked her eyes, sweeping her hand across the bed. Empty. She pulled her upper body free from the scent of Lawson’s aftershave on her sheets and clutched the comforter to her chest. They’d laid everything bare last night, exposing themselves to the pieces they’d denied existed all this time, and a lightness infused her veins.

Shame, guilt, grief—none of it had existed inside these four walls, as though they’d destroyed the limiting beliefs they’d built against each other in an effort to protect themselves. With her help, Lawson had admitted how much he’d hated her for wearing the mask she used to convince the world she was okay, and with his help, she’d let go of it altogether. What that meant for the future—if they had one—she didn’t know. “Lawson?”

No answer.

Arden stretched her toes toward the end of the bed and pushed to her feet. The edge of the comforter dragged against the floor as she stepped from her bedroom. Threading her arms through her robe, she cinched the tie. Clear skies reflected the addictive weightlessness spreading through her, shadows on the run as the sun punctured through the windows in her living room. The apartment was quiet, calm, and for the first time she could remember, exactly where she wanted to be.

She scanned the main living space. The FBI agent who’d soothed the edges of her pain and grief had vanished, but the slip of paper folded on her kitchen island caught her attention. Cold worked into her bare feet from the laminate flooring as she unfolded the slip. “Getting coffee and something to eat other than the condiments in your fridge. Don’t think about getting dressed until I get back.”

A laugh escaped past her lips. In his dreams. As much as she wished they could waste the day away, uncovering layer after layer of physical and emotional secrets, Baldwin’s killer was still out there. Heading into the bathroom attached to her walk-in closet, she discarded the robe and twisted on hot water inside the shower. Steam clung to the bathroom mirror as she traced the scrapes and ring of bruises around her neck. Shadows of Brent Hayward’s grip molded along her throat, and the violent flashes of memory escaped the box she’d hidden at the back of her mind. Panic, struggle, pain, unconsciousness. Then she’d heard Lawson’s voice, calling her. Her sharp inhale pulled her back into the moment, and Arden lowered her hand away from her neck. Minutes later, her uncertainty drained as she washed and tended to her battered skin. Her hair tangled around her hands and over her chest after she’d washed away the nightmare of yesterday’s chase.

Rey had loved playing with Arden’s hair, loved being tickled with the ends, brushing it with the plastic comb that’d come with her doll. Her daughter had been one of the reasons she’d let it grow so long, but now she realized she’d kept it as part of one last attempt to hold onto a life she’d never get back. Arden straightened and cut off the water. Tendrils of steam circled around her as she stepped out onto the bathmat and reached for her thin robe. Cinching the tie, she faced the woman in the mirror, so different than the one who’d discovered her mentor’s remains in that warehouse. Leaning over the vanity, she cleared the steam from the mirror and took a deep breath. She pulled a pair of scissors from the top drawer, florescent lights from above the mirror reflecting back at her, then gathered a handful of her hair in her opposite hand.

Rey wasn’t coming back.

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