Page 120 of Hidden By His Side

So careful, she often felt like she would break.

“I love you,” he whispered into her hair.

Her throat tightened, too tight to give him back the words, but he never held it against her, no matter how little she said it to him.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love him. She still loved him more than anything. The words just struggled to come out.

She closed her eyes, refusing to cry. Breathing out slowly, she dragged in another deep breath, and another, until her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm.

“You had another nightmare,” he said.

The words weren’t a question, so she didn’t respond. Her fingers curled into his chest before she could stretch them outagain, resting her hand over his mostly healed bullet wound instead.

“I’m here, if you want to talk.” His voice hesitated, almost trailing away, but his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “You can tell me anything. You know that, right?”

She stared at his throat, listened to his heart thrum a little faster. “It’s not what you think.”

Ramiro continued to stroke her hair.

“It’s not—” Her voice broke, and she swallowed, her fingers stroking over his bullet wound, mapping the pattern of the slightly raised flesh. “I keep having nightmares about what happened to me before you found me that night on the bridge.”

His hand paused, the fingers pressing against her scalp.

“The memory of that used to be fractured. I had scattered moments of awareness, but mostly it had been a vague fog. But now, after—” That puckered wound of his soothed her as she touched it. Ramiro had been hurt too, but he was healing. “The memory became clearer, and it’s like it just happened.” She pressed closer until her rounded stomach bumped against his.

Ramiro’s hand dropped, stroking along the side of her belly.

“What happened recently is disjointed because, most of the time, I was imagining being safe with you.” Her hand moved around his shoulder until she was hugging him. “I hid in moments just like this, and none of the rest could touch me. I mean, my body hurt, so I knew it was happening, but theirfaces aren’t clear, even Ovidio’s. Instead, I see the boys from the party, taunting me, hurting me.”

Ramiro pulled her in closer. Her lips pressed against his throat, feeling the way he swallowed.

“That can’t be any easier on you.” His voice hitched, and he swallowed again. “I wish I could take it from you, remove all of what they did. I wish—” His words choked off as his arms tightened.

She held him back. “I know,” she murmured against his skin. “But you can’t.”

Having him there, so close, being all wrapped up in him, it helped. It also hurt, because there were moments when she thought it wasn’t real, when her mind whispered that she was imagining things, but she never wanted to be without him.

She listened to her heart beat as they breathed together, neither of them falling asleep again that night.

Chapter 37

Ramiro stared at the computer screen, or at least pretended to. Summer had come into the room. She wore a dress with pink peonies printed on it. It was one of the looser dresses he’d ordered for her, with blossoms patterned right over her extended stomach. She wasn’t huge by any means, just obviously rounded, but the waistbands of her skirts had begun to bother her.

He loved the sight of her stomach. He wanted to sit her on the desk in front of him and press kisses all over it. His hands itched to do it, though the healing one itched all the time.

Her hair was loose and flowing, and her feet were bare. She’d kicked off her shoes beneath her desk again. He was addicted to her bare feet and the sounds she made when he pulled them into his lap on the couch to rub them at the end of the day.

Small touches. He fed himself through small touches every moment he could, needing to feel her, real and alive. She didn’tflinch anymore, her eyes warm when they met his and she leaned into his touch.

He opened his mouth, ready to ask her to come closer, but the phone rang.

Summer set the cup of coffee on his desk before scurrying out of his office. She’d left the door open. He preferred it that way. He’d even had the office rearranged so that he could see her sitting at her own desk through the doorway.

Summer smiled that secretary smile of hers as she reached for the phone.

“Rodriguez Security, this is Summer.”

She’d answered the phone, just that way, so many times in his memory. Summer had been the one to push for them to return to the office, and she’d blossomed more each day as things returned to the structure she craved.

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