Page 65 of Spark
“My mother had spent seven years believing Martin was the love of her life.She fell for him so hard that it broke her.She’d thought they had everything, and he’d been nothing but a cheat and a liar who ghosted her when the cops got too close.She tried to hide how much the betrayal wrecked her, but I still heard her crying every night.She fell into a pretty deep depression.That first year was almost unbearable for her.I didn’t realize how much until a lot later.Eventually, she got a job as a teacher’s aide, with benefits that covered a good therapist.It took ten years of working two, sometimes three, jobs to get back on her feet before we were able to move to Remington and really start fresh.But neither one of us will ever,everforget what loving Martin did to her.”
“Oh, Tyler.I’m so, so sorry,” Chloe said, and God, his composure wasn’t sturdy enough for the emotion in her voice.“I can’t even imagine how painful that must have been.For both of you.”
He managed a broken nod.“I saw what all those emotions did to her, how vulnerable she’d made herself by falling so hard, and I swore I’d never let that happen to me.I thought that if I shut my feelings down before I even had them, I’d be safe.Christ, I even chose a profession where my very survival depends on my ability to compartmentalize.I thought I was being so fucking smart, never letting myself get far enough with a woman to feel anything below the surface.”
A sound that would’ve been a laugh if it had held even a shred of joy crossed his lips.Christ, how had he thought for even one second, he’d be able to resist this?Resisther?“But I wasn’t, because I still ended up here, feeling this good with you.And even though it scares the shit out of me, I can’t stop wanting you.”
Chloe slid both hands up to cup his face, giving him no choice but to meet her eyes in the shadowy light, and her gaze was so fierce, it stole his breath.
“Listen to me, Tyler.What happened to your mother—and to you—didn’t happen because she fell for Martin.It happened because Martin was an abuser.The harm was his fault.Hedid it, and neither of you deserved it.Just like you don’t deserve to still carry the burden of it now.”
“I’m not sure I know how to let it go,” Tyler admitted, his heart in his windpipe.
But Chloe was right there, with that avenging angel look on her face and her lips gossamer soft on his, kissing him once before saying, “I’m not sure I have all the answers for that, but here’s one thing I do know.You’re a good man, with a good heart.If you need someone to help shoulder the weight while you figure it out, well…I’m an excellent wing-woman.Just saying.”
Against every last one of the odds, he huffed out a laugh.“Looks like I need one, so thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”Her smile was so beautiful, he felt it in the dark.“Thanks for trusting me with the story.And for letting me help.”
“You might end up sorry you offered,” he said, but she shook her head and returned her cheek to his shoulder, the weight of her warm and steady and tight against him.
“I won’t.”
And as they started to fall asleep, nestled together on her couch with her hand still covering his heart, Tyler waited for a sensation that didn’t come.His defenses didn’t scream at him to put up walls.That feelings like the one dominating his chest right now were dangerous, that they led to things far more devastating than broken hearts.
Instead, he thought of how every time Chloe smiled at him, the axis of his whole world tipped toward her, his body electric and alive and his heart threatening to catch fire, and while his mind knew—fuck, it knew more thananyone—how badly this could end, his heart knew something different.
Chloe had his back, and even though it scared the shit out of him, he wanted nothing more than to let her, and to have hers right back.
21
Chloe woke up and had no idea where she was.The bed felt like hers, with its soft cotton sheets and comfy mattress, and—yep—the yellow patchwork quilt, caramel-colored floorboards, and bedside table piled high with cookbooks and romance novels all looked like hers, too.
The insanely sexy, still-sleeping firefighter with his tree trunk of an arm wrapped around her rib cage and his (okay,wow) impressive AF hard-on pressed against her ass?Yeah, that was the part turning everything into super unfamiliar territory.
Very warm, very enticing, very,verytempting unfamiliar territory.
Chloe took a slow breath as she recounted everything that had happened last night.The party that had been a massive success, with everyone laughing and celebrating and close, like the patchwork family of relatives and friends they were.The way Tyler had put words to the want she’d been feeling all night, claiming to be no angel, then taking off her dress and taking her breath away as he’d proved it.The heartbreaking truth he’d confessed to her afterward as they’d curled together with each other, limbs and breath tangled in the dark.
God, that truth.Her whole chest had ached for him when Tyler had told her what his father had done to both him and his mother, at the emotion he’d so clearly kept locked down for so long.But that ache had turned into something else, raw and sharp, when he’d told her that Martin’s betrayal was the reason he’d never allowed himself to feel anything other than fleeting physical pleasure.That he didn’t know what to do with the way he felt for her, and Chloe hadn’t even hesitated, because even though she’d tried to fight it, too, she felt the same way in his arms.Good.Safe.Right.
Chloe had meant what she’d said.Tylerwasa good man, with a good heart, and the more time she spent with him, the more she wanted to protect it.
She and Tyler had stayed there, pressed together on her couch, his lips at her temple and her hand over his heart as they’d drifted off to sleep.At some point, when even the streetlights beyond her blinds had softened into barely a glow, her couch had become too unwieldy for the both of them to spend the entire night on.But rather than finding his clothes and slipping away to sleep in his own bed, Tyler had wordlessly taken the hand she’d offered him so they could pad down the hallway and tangle back together in her bed.They’d had slower, yet equally intense sex before finally sliding back into sleep, and even though Chloe had never woken up in his arms before, she couldn’t imagine anywhere else she could possibly want to be.
Which, before, would’ve made her think she was in the deepest of deep trouble, but now only made her feel like maybe she was exactly where she belonged.
“Hey,” Tyler whispered against the back of her neck, her heart beating like butterfly wings as he punctuated the word with a brush of his lips.
“Hey,” she breathed.She wondered briefly if she should offer him coffee, or maybe the spare toothbrush she kept stashed in her medicine cabinet in case her niece asked for an impromptu sleepover at Auntie Chloe’s.Was there protocol for what to do after a night of shockingly intense sex with your older brother’s best friend who you weren’t supposed to be catching feelings for but were absolutely, completely catching feelings for?
Without moving, Tyler said, “Stop overthinking, Ferguson.”
She laughed softly, the tension in her chest knocked loose.“How did you know I was overthinking?”
“Because we’ve met,” he said, laughing back.“But also, because I was doing it a little bit, too.”
Well, that got her attention.“You were?”
