Page 100 of Not Mine to Keep

“What are we doing?” She set down her hands, hanging her head. “Are we still only playing pretend? And if it’s fake, why is it that when no one’s watching us, it feels the most real? You’re all I think about, and your climbing into bed at night is what I look forward to every day.” She met my eyes in the mirror. “I don’t know how I’m going to survive you walking away from me, which is crazy because tomorrow is onlythree weeks since we met.” A single tear slipped down her cheek as she obliterated my thoughts with what she’d confessed. “But what you said out there ... You’ll break my heart, won’t you? You warned me, and I tried to listen. I tried to fight it. But then you did what I asked by being sweet in Nashville, and you’ve been sweet ever since.” Her lower lip quivered as a few more tears fell. “Is Nicole really why you’re this way? Unwilling to commit? To fall?”

I sank into the dark feeling that overtook me at her words, feeling a little dizzy. “Yes and no.” I all but breathed out the confusing response.

I turned away and freed myself of my suit jacket and tie, then undid a few buttons of my gray shirt.

It was now or never. Either I opened up and tried to touch the fire—risk my heart—or I let it shrivel and die in my chest for good.

When I chanced looking at this stunning woman again, I knew the answer. She’d always been worth the risk.

“Not sure what my mom spilled to you already, but Nicole was my high school girlfriend. We were together for five years.” She’d been my first relationship and my last. Well, until Calliope. “Right after I got my Ranger tab, I proposed.”

Calliope’s mouth rounded, and her eyes shot to the ring on her finger.

So Mom didn’t tell you I was engaged?“Nicole said yes, and I was deployed shortly afterward to Afghanistan. There was a daylight mission two weeks later—those always sucked even more—but it had to be done. The op went sideways, and my best friend was killed right in front of me. I couldn’t save him, and knowing that and having to watch it happen ...” I went over to the bed and dropped down, head in my hands.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” she whispered, sliding her hand up and down my back in soothing motions.

“I think maybe I need to.” I looked up at her, finding her glossy eyes on me. Her nod had me choosing to go on. “I was pretty screwed up about his death. Instead of helping me get through the pain, she brokeup with me, saying she couldn’t deal with me being the next to die. Five years together, and she walked away when I needed her the most.” My hands fell to my lap, and Calliope quietly threaded our fingers together. “Then Bianca died, which fucked me up way more. Nicole had the nerve to show up to the funeral with a husband. The real kick to the nuts—he was a Team guy. Military. So she was willing to risk getting her heart broken, just not by me.”

There. That’s my story.Maybe it was a bullshit excuse to turn my back on love for good, but it had made sense to me at the time, and it had kept making sense until this woman had come into my life.

“I’m so sorry.” She slowly pulled her hand from mine and stood, then folded her arms over her chest as if chasing away a chill. “But I’m also ...” More tears appeared, and she licked one free from her lips. “I’m a horrible person, though.”

I joined her on my feet, unsure I’d heard her right. “How areyoua bad person?”

“Because.” Fuck, that sad look and wobbly lip gutted me.

“What is it?” I tipped my head, a hell of a lot more nervous now.

“Because I never would’ve met you if she hadn’t ... well, screwed you up. And what kind of person does that make me?”

At her confession, I hauled her against me. “It makes you just like me. If Armani hadn’t dragged you into this mess, then you wouldn’t be in my life now, and I’ve felt guilty for being ... thankful you’re here with me.”

Staying in my arms, she looked up and pointed those gorgeous greens at me. “I kind of love that you feel that way.”

“And I kind of love you’re glad I was an asshole for eighteen years so I could meet you,” I shared in return.More than kind of.Maybe we really were masochists, but we belonged together, didn’t we? “Hunting criminals and risking my life became what I craved over the years. It became an addiction.” I could barely stand to look at her without totally losing it, so I closed my eyes. “And now I’m addicted to you.”

Fuck, even after what Hudson had told me about the Barones’ war-starting plans earlier, all I could think about was this woman.

Calliope worked her arm between our bodies and set her palm to my cheek, and I forced my eyes back open. “What are you saying?”

I tensed at the only truth I knew that’d been burrowing its way inside me every day since the moment we met. “I’m falling for my wife.” Knowing my voice would probably break when I spoke again, I went ahead and revealed, “I don’t want to say goodbye to you when the time comes.” I paused, giving her a second to absorb my confession. “Or ever ... I don’t want to say goodbye ever.”

Her downturned mouth had me worried. “And that terrifies you?”

I brought my lips near hers, prepared to kiss away those nerves. “Not nearly as much as losing you does.”

My concerns disappeared when she pushed up and kissed me first. It was the kind of kiss that could heal whatever was still broken inside me.

When her lips left mine, it took me a second to open my eyes.

“Make love to me?” Her fingers began working down the length of my shirt before I had a chance to answer. After waiting eighteen years for this woman to come into my life, I wasn’t about to wait another eighteen seconds to be with her, but ...

I captured her hand, stopping her from finishing the job of removing my shirt.

There was something about this moment, with us laying our cards on the table and having nothing in between us now, that had me nervous. Fuck, was I ever. I needed to remind myself for a second I was nearly forty and not a fumbling twentysomething with no clue how to pleasure a woman.

But make love? How the hell do I do that?

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