Page 34 of Undeniable

I blew out a big puff of air. “I knew what I was signing up for, Adam. I have to do something. I have to make a difference to someone.”

“You make a difference to me,” he said, looking all kinds of uncomfortable.

“Yeah, well…” I struggled to find my words. “You don’t have to be responsible for Steve’s little sister just because of some loyalty you feel for him.”

He took a hesitant step toward me. “That’s not it.”

“Yeah?” I matched him, taking a step forward too. “Then what is it, big guy?”

“It’s more,” was all he said, coming to a halt only inches away from me and my breath caught in my throat as he stood there, his deep brown, almost black eyes staring down into my soul. He could see everything from his vantage point, I was sure, including the heartbeat hammering in my neck.

Now was my chance and I was going to take it. I rested both open palms on his chest and raised my face to his, pressing my lips to his soft ones as fireworks went off like a coronary in my brain and my ears. He didn’t pull away or startle, but his hands didn’t come up to rest on my hips or my shoulders and when I made a slow movement to deepen the kiss one of his hands flew into my hair, squeezing tightly, dragging my face back from his.

“Don’t.”

It took me a moment to clear the haze of lust that had fogged my vision, and I opened my eyes to find him breathing hard, his nostrils flaring.

“Don’t what?” My head was cranked back at an uncomfortable angle and he looked like he was fighting with himself not to lean back down and finish what I’d started.

“Don’t start this now, VanBuren. This is something you can’t finish and we both know it.”

He released his grip on my hair and I stood there with my hands at my sides as he stomped out of the room. I heard the kitchen door slam, the noisy whir of the garage door opener, and the glow of headlights illuminated the room as he backed down the driveway.

What the hell had just happened?

8

Adam

Ittookmehoursand one really long, cold shower to come down from the way Madelyn had wound me up. It was my fault, too: I shouldn’t have held her hand through dinner. I shouldn’t have given her that lead. I shouldn’t have allowed her to step closer. But there was something about her that made me ignore “shouldn’t have.”

Now wasn’t the time to start something, not with her leaving in a couple days, and I was afraid to emotionally invest myself in someone who might choose her career over me. That was self-centered and childish, I knew, but I’d been on the losing end of a decision-making process before.

Madelyn had a savior complex, I knew that much. She’d joined the Air Force to save herself and over time she associated her value with saving others. She stood up for the weak and wounded; jumped in to fight where others might have shied away. I loved her for it, but it terrified me. One of these days, I worried, she’d get into a scrape too big to get out of and she wouldn’t back down. I couldn’t always be there to save her from herself or to hold her together when she fell apart, and I wasn’t sure she even wanted that from me.

Chances were good the crush she’d alluded to having on me all those years ago had run its course and her interest in me now was temporary. I was a curiosity, a flavor she’d never sampled, and to hear Steve tell it she hadn’t done a lot of dating in the last twenty years.

I couldn’t imagine that meant she’d been without attention, because Madelyn was beautiful. She attracted stares everywhere she went, tall and beautiful, with thick, dark hair. That she was in incredible shape only added to her allure, making a man’s mind run wild with the possibilities.

I stayed away until I knew she’d shipped out and she didn’t call or text before she left, something that was surprising to me. She was the least clingy woman I’d ever met and I wondered if it meant she just didn’t know how to play the games most of them did. Because while I hadn’t had many women in my life–and that was by choice–the ones I had entertained had quickly grown tiresome.

Harlowe was the first woman I’d been genuinely interested in since Jess, and the fact I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell with her had been a bitter pill to swallow. She loved me in her way, I knew, but it was a love that would never extend beyond friendship.

It was surprising to me that I’d even consider letting another woman into my head and my heart after how badly it had broken me when Harlowe chose Aaron over me. She hadn’t done it purposely; I’d never expressed my feelings or intentions to her, and all was fair in love and war. I’d stupidly hoped she would understand that when she needed me, I dropped everything and ran to her because I was in love with her…but she never seemed to figure that out.

It wasn’t lost on me that Harlowe shared a number of similarities with Madelyn: both were tall and stunning, with long dark hair and a piercing gaze. Harlowe was made of even sterner stuff than Madelyn. Madelyn teased, whereas Harlowe didn’t seem to know how. She was stern and focused, maybe a little cold, except around Aaron. Something about that man lit her up like a Christmas tree and at first it made me insanely jealous of him. I’d hated him for his ability to pull something from her that I couldn’t.

Then I’d been jealous of them as a couple, because they hadthat thing. That connection with one another was something visceral. They could speak without words, with looks and touches, something so intimate that it was hard to watch if you didn’t have that connection with someone yourself–and clearly I didn’t. It made me a little bitter for a while.

That was something I knew I could easily have with Madelyn. I’d felt it the instant I took her hand at the dinner table: that current of awareness that ran down her arm and through her fingertips, into mine. It had been simultaneously comforting and terrifying, a little like the nerve-wracking time I’d first held a girl’s hand as a teenager.

Madelyn made me nervous as hell and calmed me down at the same time, which made no sense. My heartbeat went wild anytime she was near, so much so that I was afraid she’d hear it hammering. But then she’d smile at me or find some way to touch me, and it was like I could remember how to breathe.

The thought of her being gone weeks or months freaked me out more than I was willing to admit, and the reason I’d gone outside to “help” Steve with the turkey he was smoking for Thanksgiving was to ask him for permission to ask his sister out. Properly.

“About fucking time you decided to man up. You’ve only had a thing for her since we were kids,” he scoffed, and I was sure my face had gone bright purple. For years I’d told myself I’d done a great job of hiding it, but apparently everyone else was onto me.

Since the new guy was working out, I didn’t have to pull such long shifts at work anymore and though I kind of enjoyed the overtime pay, I didn’t mind having time on my hands for once. At first I hardly knew what to do with it and I showed up to visit Steve often the first few weeks she was gone. He thought it was hilarious and teased me endlessly about being my security blanket, a conduit to what I really wanted.

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