CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I held my breath.

Zoe was staring at my fingers curled around her wrist. I wanted to use her arm as a lever, yank her closer and kiss her until all her fear just melted away. I still wasn’t sure why she’d panicked; as much as I wanted to know, I wasn’t prepared to push.

She looked up, those beautiful hazel eyes shining with tears that threatened to fall. “Eli—” The sound of my name on her lips usually evoked something within me. Right now, my heart was aching. “I want to, but I don’t think—”

Pressing my fingers against her lips, I cut her off. “Please don’t tell me that you’re no good for me. The way I see it, someone who can make not only me but my daughter smile too, is pretty amazing. And that’s definitely someone I want in my life.” I tucked my fingers under her chin. “In case it wasn’t clear, I was talking about you.”

When she blinked, two thin lines ran down her cheek. Without giving it a second thought, I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her to my chest. “I’m so afraid that I don’t know how to be happy anymore.” Her confession had me forcing back my own emotion.

I touched my lips to the top of her head. “Me too, sunshine, me too.” Pulling back slightly, I wiped the tears from her face. “We’ll learn together.”

Zoe shook her head. “You don’t understand, I’m not like most women.” The tears weren’t rolling anymore but her eyes still glistened, and the look in them was like a punch to the gut. I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to like whatever she was fixin’ to say.

Still, I silently waited for her to find her voice again. “I grew up in a wonderful home, my parents were caring and they made sure I was loved.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, she opened them again and the sadness I saw there cut me to the bone.

It was deeper, more intense than anything I’d ever seen.

“But all the love in the world couldn’t stop the darkness from crawling in.” We were still so close that I heard the hitch in her breath. I sensed that she needed space so as much as I didn’t want to, I fell back against the couch. My stomach twisted and churned while I tried very hard not to imagine what kind of darkness she was eluding to.

“My uncle…he…uhm…took a shine to me.” Her words sounded bitter. I wanted to tell her I wasn’t stupid; I could connect the dots because I really didn’t want to hear this. The words stayed stuck in my throat. “I was too young to fully understand what was going on, unfortunately by the time I did understand, I was completely brainwashed—” The words died on her lips.

Zoe looked so lost in that moment that I couldn’t help but reach out and touch her hand. “I know this must be hard to talk about. You really don’t have to go on.”

Her hazel eyes almost seemed gold as she peered at me through her dark lashes, “You gave me something of you, Eli. Please let me do the same.” She twisted her hand, touching our palms together. “When I eventually found the courage to tell my parents what was going on, they blamed themselves for not paying better attention, for not protecting me.”

Her shoulders rose and fell in a small shrug, “Not that I believe they could’ve stopped it from happening.”

I remained silent, but in my head, I was thinking that I’d like to find out who this uncle was so I could put a bullet between his eyes. That might’ve sounded harsh, but if you could be screwed up enough to steal a kid’s innocence, you didn’t deserve to breathe.

As if reading my thoughts, she said softly, “He committed suicide…Said he wasn’t cut out for prison life.” She sucked in a long, steady breath as if she was steeling herself for the next words to leave her mouth. “I don’t know how he did it, but he managed to sneak a letter to me. In it he told me how worthless I was, and how I’d only been good for one thing…”

“Shit, Zoe, that’s messed up.” The words were out before I could stop them.

She smiled ruefully, “No, what’s messed up is that I believed those words for the longest time.”

“You couldn’t possibly—”

With a slight tilt of her head, she shrugged again, “But I did. Things went downhill from there; I started to experiment with alcohol, and believe it or not, sex. I quickly learned that I could shut my emotions off—” snapping her fingers, she added, “—just like that.”

She shook her head. “I used men in the exact same way I’d been used as a kid. The only feelings involved were the physical ones, my heart always remained Fort Knox.”

I was aware that she was speaking in past tense…Was it premature to hope that possibly I’d crawled under her skin as she’d burrowed under mine?

And then she said two words that completely slayed me…

“Until you.”

Before relief could rush through my veins, the look in her eyes sent a chill down my spine. “You and Molly scare me, Eli.”

I swallowed hard. “We scare you?” My voice cracked a little; I wasn’t sure if she noticed.

“Yes.” Her gaze dropped to our hands and when she looked up again, fresh tears were on the cusp of slipping down her cheeks. “I can’t shut off around you. I just feel…it’s scary for so many reasons.” With her free hand, she swiped at her tears. After a few breaths, she softly confessed, “You scare me because you’re giving me something to lose.”

Well, shit.

I scooted closer to touch my palm to her wet cheek. My heart hiccupped when she closed her eyes and pressed into my hand. Slowly, methodically, she parted her lids, aiming those hazel irises straight at my soul.

Like I’d done previously, I flattened her hand against my chest. My heart was slamming against her palm at the speed of light. “You do that to me…with every beat my heart takes for you, another part of it heals…because of you.” Dragging in a breath through my nose, I pleaded, “Feel with me, Zoe.”

She lowered her gaze to her fingers sprawled over my pec before steadily lifting it to meet mine. “Okay.” The word was whisper-soft, but it rang in my ears loud and clear. All I needed was a chance to show her that feeling could be damn amazing. Slowly, I inched closer, making my intention clear, giving her time to pull away.

Zoe knocked the breath right out of me when she was the one to close the distance between us. That sweet moment when her mouth touched mine was equivalent to the rays of sunlight breaking through a darkened sky. She did that to me. Brightened my entire damn world by simply being.

I held back as long as I possibly could, giving her as much control as she needed. Her lips tentatively moved over mine, back and forth, back and forth. Resisting the urge to plunge my tongue into her mouth, to ravage her completely, became almost impossible.

But I knew she needed this. Needed to know that she would be the one who determined how fast or slow we’d go.

I was good with that.

The only thing I wanted was to be with Zoe. As much as I’d love to lose myself in the warmth of her body, I didn’t need it. Not yet. And if kisses were all she was prepared to give me right now, I’d take it, because this woman’s kisses were enough to fuel any man’s late-night fantasies.

Her tongue touched my bottom lip, I greedily allowed her entry. I couldn’t help but groan as she edged closer to wrap her arms around my neck. As our tongues continued their sensual dance, my hands went to her waist.

Shit.

For all my promises to myself, I was still a red-blooded man with raging hormones, and if she kept kissing me like this, we’d end up where we’d been not too long ago — her flat on her back with me grinding into her. Yeah…after everything she’d just confided in me, that was the last thing she needed.

It took all my willpower, but I finally managed to tear my mouth from hers. One look at those puckered, wet lips and I was ready to dive in for more. The little sanity that I had left, reminded me why I pulled back in the first place.

“Kissing you is like crack to an addict, I can never get enough.” Giving her a sheepish smile, I looked to my lap before meeting her gaze again. “I’m afraid if we keep this up, it’ll become too hard to stop.”

Her eyes went wide at the same time as her cheeks turned bright red. “I’m giving you mixed signals, aren’t I?” She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t ever have to apologize to me, sunshine.” I pushed to my feet and held out my hand, “C’mon.”

She didn’t need to voice it; I saw the gratitude shining in her eyes. Her gaze dropped to my hand then slowly lifted to meet mine again, “Where are we going?” She asked as she pressed her palm against mine.

“To make hot chocolate.” I beamed at her. “I thought you said it was the answer to everything?”

 

 

“Ah, come on. You have to tell us something.”

Leaning back against the counter, I crossed my arms in front of me while I glared at my two brothers. Apparently bringing Molly home was a two-man job. After my girl had showered me with kisses and then ran to her room, they’d cornered me in the kitchen, demanding to know every last detail about my date with Zoe last night.

If they thought I was going to tell them how we sat on the deck until the sun wakened from its slumber, they were wrong. The night certainly hadn’t gone as I thought it would; it went better. Sipping liquid chocolate with her snuggled up against me had been…amazing.

She’d shared more about her brother’s accident and how her parents weren’t coping that well. My heart broke a little, I couldn’t imagine ever losing Molly in such a cruel way. I had confided in her how worried I was about Mama’s health. Hell, I’d even told her that I was afraid of the things Molly was missing out on because she only had me.

I wasn’t stupid…I was falling for this woman, so damn hard. It should scare the shit out of me; instead, it made me feel free.

It was exhilarating.

“Why are you smiling like that?” Chase’s whine pulled me from my thoughts. “Are you thinking of all the sex you had last night?”

“Don’t y’all have somewhere to be, someone else to annoy?”

“You’re not answering his question,” Logan piped up, happily avoiding mine.

I gave them both my best shit-eating grin, “I know, and I ain’t going to.”

“Seriously, dude?” This coming from Chase. “You never go out... ever. Of course, we’re curious. The least you can do is throw us a bone.” Pushing off the wall, he meandered to the fridge before opening and rummaging through it.

“You know, curiosity killed the cat.”

“I see the stick hasn’t been removed from your ass.” Logan’s mumbled words had me bellowing out a laugh.

“I’m confused,” Giving them my back, I busied myself with prepping the coffee machine. “Are you my brothers or two adolescent girls?” Without looking at them I retrieved three mugs from the cupboard above my head.

“Fine,” I blew out a breath as I turned to face them again. Chase was busy demolishing a punnet of strawberries while Logan casually lounged at the breakfast nook. “I’m not going to tell you guys a thing about last night—” as soon as they started to moan, I held up a finger. “The only thing that you need to know is that I really, really like this girl. If I had my way, she wouldn’t be leaving Willow Creek anytime soon.”

A few seconds of silence followed my admission, and then…

“Another one bites the dust...and another one gone, another one gone…” Chase started singing, his voice bouncing off the walls while he danced around the kitchen, strawberries still in hand. His singing career was cut short went Logan smacked him upside the head. Rubbing the spot, Chase glared at our brother. “What the hell, man?”

With a shake of his head, Logan approached me. When he was standing next to me, he bumped my shoulder with his. “I’m happy for you, man.”

And that right there was why I loved my family so much. As much shit as we gave each other, we gave support in equal measures.