Page 83 of Attached At Heart
“It’s okay, Lane.” He stepped toward me, tucking a limp piece of hair behind my ear. I felt his closeness, his presence so acutely, and I just didn’t know what to do about that. “You can stake your claim on me whenever the fuck you want,” he muttered before leaning back and gesturing to the food on the counter. “I was thinking we could take a morning walk on thebeach. It might be a little chilly, but if it’s nice enough, I was going to pack this to eat down there.”
“You want to take a walk on the beach?” I repeated, both distracted by the flutters his words and proximity had set off inside me and confused by what it all meant. Not to mention, surprised about Blake’s suggestion of going to the beach, considering he’d had that nightmare two nights ago.
“If you want to.” He shrugged. “And if you promise not to be upset with me when I act like a helicopter parent.”
My lips quirked. “If you wanted me to call you daddy, you could have just said so, Blake.”
Blake raised a brow, and the glint in his smokey gaze cut right through me. His smirk grew, giving him a devilish look that was so unfamiliar to my perception of this man. But fuck if it didn’t set off a buzzing sensation in my veins.
“Careful what you joke about, Delaney,” he said, his gaze searching my face, seemingly trying to figure out if I was being serious, before dropping to my mouth and lingering there. “I just might take you seriously one of these times.”
My breath caught in my throat. I licked my dry lips as I pieced out what to say, but that only made Blake’s pupils dilate and my heart pound in my chest.
Suddenly, I was wishing that I’d taken Blake up on his offer last night about the kink conversation. I’d never been curious before about what made this man’s pulse race in the bedroom, but now I couldn’t stop thinking about it. What would he be like? What was he into? These were thoughts that I absolutely shouldnotbe having about my best friend who just happened to be my husband, but curiosity had won over logic, and now I was dying to know.
“Is that so?”
He nodded and then switched the topic back again without so much as a blink of an eye.
“I think going down to the beach will be good for me. There’s no one in the water here, you know? Too cold. I won’t have to be on such high alert. Maybe I can try to just…enjoy it. Push past the other thoughts.”
His words brought me back down to Earth. This was an important conversation, one I should be giving my full concentration. Not thinking about what Blake’s sexual fantasies might be.
“I’d like for you to experience that if you think it’s possible,” I said. “But there’s absolutely no pressure if you’re not comfortable with it.”
Blake’s gaze cut to the window and the waves beyond before finding its way back to me. “I think it’s possible. If you come with me.”
“Of course I’ll come with you.”
Like hell would I leave Blake to navigate through that experience on his own.
“Thank you.” Blake stepped in and pressed a quick kiss to the top of my head before walking over to the refrigerator, opening it and pretending like it was completely normal for us to show that kind of casual affection. “Why don’t you go get dressed?” he asked over his shoulder. “I’ll finish packing things up here.”
With my heart in my throat, I nodded. And then I scurried back to the bedroom before he could see all my emotions play out on my face.
I grabbed Blake’s hand as soon as we walked out the door toward the beach, and this time, my desire to touch him had nothing todo with the weird feelings that had been creeping over me lately. This was just me wanting my best friend to know that I’d stay by his side, no matter what.
Blake gripped my hand back, reassuring me that this was exactly what he wanted or maybe needed. I let him set the pace as he directed us down the sloping sand dunes toward the open beachfront. When we got to sea level, Blake switched to my other side, putting himself between me and the water. I gave him an encouraging smile, and he slipped his hand into mine again before we kept walking.
The tide was low, exposing big stretches of sand and allowing us to walk far from where the water met the land. Blake stayed silent as we crossed the beach, his eyes shifting along the shoreline, which was mostly vacant, and then back to me every few minutes. I let that go on without interruptions for a few minutes before I asked if he wanted to talk about what he was thinking. When he declined, I let it go and simply held his hand tighter.
We strode along the beachfront for about ten minutes before Blake stopped, assessed the area, and then spread a blanket on the sand. I sat on it quickly to keep it from blowing away and pulled my sweater tighter around me. Despite the whipping wind, the late-spring sun shone bright, glinting across the water and piercing through the chill. Blake settled in next to me and immediately focused his attention on pulling out the assortments of food he’d packed. And then once that was done, he scanned the shoreline again as he took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
We sat mostly in silence, picking at the pastries and fruit. I scooted closer to Blake, feeling this instinct of needing to be near him, and as soon as I got within arm’s reach, he wrapped himself around me, hauling me into his chest. I felt his heart pounding against my back, his ragged breathing against my neck. I inhaleddeeply and exhaled slowly until Blake managed to match it, his body calming against mine.
“This is what I needed,” he whispered, so soft it might have gotten lost in the wind if we weren’t so wrapped up in each other. “To hold you and see that nothing can touch you.”
“Only you,” I breathed because in this moment on the quiet coastline of the North Sea, it felt like we were the only two people in the universe.
This felt so distinctly right, so distinctly us. And I knew that if someone passed us by, they might view this as a romantic moment, but I knew better than to get any part of this confused. Blake’s soul had been damaged by that drowning, and the hurt continued to cut deeper by the way it still haunted him. And him protecting me, saving me, saving theworldone patient at a time, was his way of trying to heal it—heal himself. This moment was nothing more than that.
“Maybe now when I see the waves, I can think of this instead,” he added.
“I hope you can.” I really hoped that for him. More than anything. “It wasn’t your fault, Blake,” I added gently. I’d said those words to him before, but I needed to say them again now. Needed him to know. “It wasn’t your fault that you were a teenager who wasn’t experienced in CPR.”
His breathing stuttered as his body tensed, and I hoped I didn’t push him too much. I hoped I didn’t ruin everything.
“I still think it’s important for people to know, for people to be trained in it,” he replied after a moment of silence.
