Page 105 of Never Quiet

“Then we won’t go…”

“He’s there. He’s in Washington. I don’t want you there.”

“I’ll stay here. Right here, in New York.”

Exhaling hard, he nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“For wanting to keep me safe?”

“For being afraid.”

“If you weren’t afraid, that would be the sign of a problem. I’m afraid, too. We shove past the fear and keep going. I smile and you take out the dregs of society.”

“Not enough of them. There are so many…”

“That’s alright. There will always be men and women willing to fight with you, for you, to take them out as fast as they can. It’s impossible to get them all but you and the organization save thousands of victims every year.”

Kissing him, feeling him stroke agonizingly slow into her body, she moaned against his lips.

“Focus on the wins, Hayden. Not the losses.”

“You’re so beautiful.”

“Thank you…”

He shook his head. “I don’t mean your face.” He slipped his knee to the side, opening her legs wider. “I don’t mean your body.” He increased the speed of his strokes and her eyes started to drift closed. She caught herself, kept her gaze locked on silver-gray. “The soul of you, that’s the most beautiful thing of all. Better than long legs or gorgeous hair or perfect breasts. The piece I can’t touch but I can feel it.”

“You do touch it, Hayden.” She slid her hand between them, stroked her fingers over his heart, and whispered, “I see you. I feel you.” Leaning up, she kissed him lightly. “Our souls have smiled at each other from the start. Two people so different from each other in age, background, and experiences. How wonderful that we met.”

Reaching up with her other hand, she stroked her fingers through his hair and held his cheek.

“I’m not a religious person, not someone superstitious. All my life, I’ve loved science, logic, simplicity. Before I left Colorado, I was hurting. Someone told me that she takes great comfort from something a friend told her once. That the universe craves balance…”

He stilled and murmured, “Elizabeth?”

Her eyes widened and then a slow smile spread over her face. “Did you feel that, Hayden?” She pressed her palm to his heart. “A circle just closed.”

Blinking against tears, he stared at her.

“At this moment in time, at this place in your life, I think I’m meant to balance you. You feel weighed down with darkness and I have an overabundance of light. It doesn’t have to last forever, it just has to last enough. We’ll know when that is when we get there.”

He gathered her close, kissed her until she wanted to cry at the beauty of it, and wrung pleasure from her body for hours.

It was near midnight when he fell asleep wrapped tightly around her. She held his forearm where it gripped across her torso and felt the answer to an unspoken question slip softly into her mind.

Yes, it was entirely possible for her to love someone other than Erick.

The pain of losing Hayden would be tempered by the fact that he wouldn’t let her go unless the one person he’d always loved, the person Amanda believed he was meant to love, stepped fully back into his life.

His Isabella.

She wanted them to find their way back to each other, to stop denying what they were: to look past the mistakes and pain to the joy and love.

Right now, he needed Amanda to temper his darkness. A role she accepted gladly, without reservation.

Until it was enough.

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