Page 67 of Fire Meets Fire

How the hell my training failed me I can’t say, but I don’t know Chaz has finished the shower until I feel the sag of the bed. Opening my eyes, I see him looming over me.

“So fuckin’ glad to see you in my bed.” I can’t help it. I tense. “Oh, babe.” He sighs, cupping his hand around my face.

Swallowing hard, I admit. “I don’t think I can do this.”

He chuckles softly. “We’ve had hours of stress, nights with no sleep. Much as my dick wants inside you, Queenie, I’m content to just hold you while you sleep. Just knowing you’re here with me…” he pauses to shake his head. “I have no idea what I’ve done to deserve this, to deserve you. And we’ve all the time in the world. We can go at your pace.” His arm nudges at my shoulder, and automatically I raise my head, lying back, resting against his warm, shower-fresh flesh.

All the time in the world.His words repeat in my head. “You want me to stay?”

“Fuck, yes.” He pushes up on his other elbow and looks into my face. “I thought you already knew that.”

As he stares at me, a tear, one of those I never shed, leaks from my eye and rolls down my cheek. To my surprise, as well as to his, it’s followed by another.

“Fuck, babe. I thought you wanted this. Thought you felt the same way.”

I raise a hand and try to brush the tears away, but they keep coming, and I’m flummoxed when they’re chased by a sob. “I do. I…” I swallow hard, and then decide to tell him the truth. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Now I’m in his arms, not imprisoned so I couldn’t easily escape, but held gently in such a comforting way I find it impossible to resist. He rests his chin on the top of my head.

“You’ve got time to figure that out, darlin’. And maybe you’ll come to discover that what comes next could be better than what you’ve lost. Different, for sure, there’s nothing to say what youmake won’t be as good. I want you to stay with me, Queenie. I want you to make your place here. But if that’s not what you want, if I can’t give you enough, then there’s nothing holding you here.”

“I can’t promise you anything.”

“I’d promise you the world, but I don’t deserve you.”

He’s so wrong. He’s shown that he does in spades. No man, no person, has ever put themselves in a position where they were going to give up so much for me.

As if he can read my mind, he murmurs softly, “You owe me nothing. You don’t ever need to do anything you don’t want. Though it would kill me, I’d let you go. Fuck, some of that money belongs to you anyway, and that will get you started elsewhere.”

“I don’t want money. It’s your payment for all that you’ve done.”

He shakes his head.

“I don’t… I don’t know if I can be what you need.” The tears, which had ceased, start flowing again.

Again, he’s on the right wavelength. “You think I can’t control my dick? Fuck, Queenie, just holding you, lying here, is enough for me. Can’t deny I’m a fuckin’ man, and I want you so bad, but we’ll go at your pace.” He yawns, betraying he’s just as tired as me. “For now, why don’t we just sleep?”

As they often are, his expression of tiredness is contagious, and I raise my hand to cover it as my own mouth gapes. He doesn’t let go of me, his only movement is to place his lips to the top of my head, and then our breathing synchronises, our hearts in unison slowing their beats.

Maybe it’s my extreme tiredness. Maybe it’s being able to let go of all the months of stress. Or, maybe, it’s the arms holding me, but I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAZ

She sleeps in my arms as if she’s meant to be there. On my part, I’ve never felt more comfortable in my bed. It’s taken forty-five years for me to find her, but now I know I want this woman in my life, and I’ll do anything to keep her.

But she’s not someone I can chain and control. She has to want to be here.

As her chest rises and falls, I listen to her breath inhaling and exhaling, and start to think of all the ways to convince her she can make a life here. But what the fuck can I offer her?

Eventually, still having found no answer, I join her in slumber.

When I awake, there’s bright light coming in through the chink in the curtains, suggesting we’ve slept through a good part of the day. Consciously I keep my body still, my senses savouring her closeness. Her skin is so soft against my own, and when I breathe in, it’s a scent of her own perfume combined with my soap. Her face is a vision for my eyes, and for a moment I soak it in, worried having her this close could be for the last time.

As she stirs, she rolls over, into me, not away. I’m all too conscious that the natural effects of the morning and her verypresence had made my cock swell. I try to twist so it’s not so obvious, but my slight movement makes her open her eyes.

“Good morning,” she says softly, her lips curving into a cautious smile.

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