Normally when I felt that primal urge for sex, I headed to West’s bar. I’d pick out a woman for the night. Share a few drinks with her, a few laughs. Later, we’d head back to my place and fuck until dawn. And that was it. I’d be set for a few months.

  This … with the courting and the nerves … it was nothing like my standard operating procedure.

  I’d never felt so stripped bare and vulnerable. Never put myself out there so completely with a woman before. But then again, Finley was unlike any woman I'd ever met.

  And she was still just standing there. “Can I come inside?” I asked, heart in my throat.

  She didn't say anything. But she opened the door wider.

  With Nolan’s words ringing in my ears, I stepped over the threshold, sure that whatever happened tonight had the power to heal us both.

  Soon, my worries about coming here started to fade away. We sat together on the sofa, drinking wine and talking. Finley was in a somewhat deep and contemplative mood, if our discussion topics were any indication. We talked about life, goals she had for her future, for Maple’s future.

  Finley pulled her bare legs up onto the cushion beside me. “I want more for her than I had, you know. Broken home where I never had much of a relationship with my dad. I want her to go to college, meet someone nice, do whatever it is that makes her happy.”

  “You’re a good mom. And a good person. I’m just …” A fuck-up. I tried to ignore that nasty little voice in my head. As irritating as Nolan's lack of faith in me had been earlier, it was a lot harder to shut up my own self-hatred.

  “Don’t say it,” Finley breathed.

  That caught me off guard. A few short weeks ago, she would've been the first person in line to cut off my balls—in fact, she'd done it more than once. Now she wasn't even letting me mention my failures? Well, if she wanted to linger in this bubble where all the shit in our messy past didn't exist, that was fine by me. “I won’t say it,” I relented.

  "There are some things I need to tell you."

  She waited for me to continue, placing her hands in her lap.

  "We were given a choice that day. We didn’t have to go on that mission, yet I’d rallied for the chance to go into enemy territory, wanting to calibrate the telecommunications equipment I specialized in. If we could get some real intel, the entire mission would move forward and we’d all get to go home sooner."

  She stayed quiet but her eyes were wide and filled with curiosity. I didn't know if I was telling her all this because I genuinely thought she needed to know, or if it was because I needed it off my chest. Scratch that--I knew exactly why I was telling her. I needed her forgiveness. Without it, I knew I could never forgive myself.

  "Our commander was adamantly against it – said it was too dangerous. But I knew the risks and I was willing to take them. I also knew that Marcus, as one of my closest friends on the team, would insist on going with me."

  Admitting it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. Finley just blinked, quiet and contemplative. I always assumed this was her real issue-that I chose to do that mission despite not being required to go and knowing that Marcus would tag along.

  "But I got the approval and we set off. It ended up being just the three of us – me, Marcus and Nolan. And then …" God, I hated thinking about it, but it always found a way to replay in my brain. The scent of gunpowder burning my nostrils, the too-bright flash of heavy artillery fire momentarily blinding me.

  "And then he was hit. I saw the panic in his eyes. Already knowing it was too late, I rushed to administer first aid while Nolan held him. I muttered shit about his gorgeous wife and getting home in time to see the boxwood trees change. And while I held my breath with painstaking worry, he took his last."

  She reached over and took my hand, giving it a firm squeeze.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. I felt a little lighter with the words I’d bottled up for so long now out in the open between us.

  “I’m okay,” she said. “It’s good to talk about it, I think. I’ve kept everything inside for so long that...” She stopped, and I squeezed her hand.

  “I understand.”

  We sat in heavy silence for several moments, the mood changing all around us.

  “Thank you for being so good with Maple.”

  “Of course.” I stroked her cheek with my thumb. The look of longing in her eyes was unmistakable. She wanted this to be okay just as badly as I did.

  I leaned in closer and she didn’t pull away. Instead, she wet her bottom lip with her tongue. That was all the answer I needed. Cupping her jaw, I took her mouth in a hungry kiss. I’d waited all fucking week for this moment. And even though I'd told myself, as I pumped my cock each night, that her kisses couldn’t possibly be as good as I remember...it was a damn lie. They were better. Her tongue matched mine stroke for stroke. Her pulse pumped against my thumb where I cradled her jaw, skimming along her neck. If one simple kiss could get me this worked up and ready, I was scared to see what would happen when we were skin to skin between the sheets.

  Finley crawled closer toward me on the couch, our mouths breaking apart for just a second. But it was long enough for me to see her nipples were two firm points under her thin tank top and her eyes were dilated with desire. For me.

  “Come here, sweetheart,” I murmured, guiding her mouth back to mine, and praying to God this moment wasn’t too good to be true.

  Chapter Eight

  Finley

  I hadn't felt this good in more than two years. I'd convinced myself that I could shut off all my sexual feelings and just be a mom. But that was total bullshit, because right now, my entire skin was on fire. Feeling playful and a little tipsy, I decided to give Grey the lap dance he'd paid for all those weeks ago.

  I swung my leg over to straddle him. Closing my eyes, I let him hold me, and kiss my mouth and neck. I moaned at the onslaught of sweet sensation. We were so close I could feel his answering groan, a primal sound of need that rumbled straight from his chest into me. His cock twitched between my thighs. So hot, so hard, so close to where I craved it.

  He grabbed onto my hips and held me firmly against him. I could have continued our little game—scolded him, slapped his hands away, forced him to endure this erotic torture until I decided to relieve him. But right now, he wasn't a customer, and I wasn't a dancer. We were just a man and a woman. Two bodies that ached for each other. And when I opened my eyes, the roaring fire in his gaze made it impossible to wait any longer.

  Kissing him hard, I ground into his erection. He growled and thrust up. Even separated by his jeans and my pajama shorts, the friction made me gasp. He shoved up my tank top and I moaned aloud as his mouth closed around my nipple. Tongue writhing, he suckled the sensitive bud until I squirmed, panting, dizzy. God, if he could melt me into a puddle just by playing with my breasts...how would that talented mouth feel on my clit? My pussy clenched at the thought.

  He switched his mouth to my other breast, leaving the first nipple wet and aching to pebble in the cool air. His hands delved into my shorts, squeezing my ass, pulling me down harder against his firm bulge. My hips bucked shamelessly. His cock throbbed in response and I was dying to feel that throb from the inside. I wanted Grey to give me every indulgence I'd been denying myself for so long. All we had done was rub together through our clothes, but white heat was already building low in my belly, coiling tighter and tighter. Like we were a couple of horny teenagers necking in his backseat. I might have felt embarrassed if I weren't so damn desperate.

  And then Grey's hands cupped even lower. I squeaked when his fingers brushed my outer pussy lips from behind. Yes, I wanted to cry, touch me, please touch me, I don't even care how, just get me off, please.

  “Come on, baby,” he panted. “Just let go. Let me make you feel good.”

  I moaned shamelessly into his mouth. But as the pleasure started its final climb, reality suddenly hit me. I was going to have a screaming orgasm on top of Greyson Archer. I was going to come my brains out barely ten feet from where my daughter slept at night, with the man who had taken her father away forever.

  Guilt slammed into me. I struggled backwards onto my feet and yanked down my tank top, trying to ignore the crushing ache between my thighs. My whole body was crying out for me to get back down on that sofa and finish the job. But there was no way I could. Letting myself go in Grey's arms...it was all wrong.

  “I'm sorry,” I blurted before he could say anything. “No, I can't. I just can't.”

  Grey blinked up at me, the haze of lust not yet faded from his eyes. “You're throwing me out again?” He looked so bewildered and frustrated, and I couldn't blame him—I felt the exact same way.

  “I'm sorry,” I said again, uselessly.

  “What is it you're after, Fin?” He stood up with a sigh. “All I want is to be there for you. I thought you wanted this...wanted me.”

  I swallowed hard and looked away. There had been no real anger in his tone, only confusion and concern. An honest affection that I suddenly wasn't sure I deserved.

  He waited a few moments for my answer. Then, more somberly, he said, “There's nothing I can say to take your pain away, is there?”

  I flinched.

  “Is there?” he pressed.

  Biting my lip hard, I finally replied, “No. There isn't.” I forced myself to meet his gaze; he deserved at least that much. “It's never going to fade. It's never going to be okay. I'm always going to look at you and see...”

  I didn't have to finish the sentence. Grey hung his head and cursed, his fists clenching at his sides. He wanted to fight me, to challenge me—but he knew I was right. Which only deepened my resolve.

  “No matter our physical attraction, this will never work. It can’t be. We can't.” I choked the words out of my throat like sand, hoping I sounded confident and sure, when what I felt was shaky and weak.

  Grey swallowed heavily, his throat working to hold back the argument I knew was on the tip of his tongue. I could read the man like a damn book. And this one didn’t have a happy ending.

  “So you need to leave,” I went on. “Right now...and this time, don't come back.”

  His head snapped up. “But what about—?”

  “I never should have let you see Maple in the first place. It'll only confuse her to have you popping in and out of her life all the time.” Without giving him a chance to respond, I turned my back and opened the front door. The gesture was plain. Get out.

  The night air rushed in to cool my face, flushed with shame and grief and the last stubborn traces of lust. For a moment, I squeezed my eyes shut against the tears that threatened. Grey walked past me and paused at the threshold. I kept my expression frozen as he looked at me for the last time, searching for a crack in my resolve, silently pleading for another chance.

  His fingertips stoked my cheek – so light, so sweet – a soft gesture I didn’t deserve after all the ways I’d probably tortured him. His eyes were so blue, so deep and so haunted, that I almost took back every nasty word I’d said. It was all right there on the tip of my tongue. But I knew I couldn’t, wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did.

  So all I said was, “Goodbye, Grey.” And then I closed the door.

  Chapter Nine

  Greyson

  The pain pounded through my head like a jackhammer through concrete.

  “Fuck, make it stop,” I groaned into my pillow. I pulled it over my head and squeezed my eyes shut, as if that could block out the noise. That'll teach me to drink nothing but whiskey for three days straight...

  The pounding was so intense that, for a second, it transported me back to the war zone. Small-arms fire rattling, artillery shells screaming through the air, bombs detonating in the distance. Deafening and deadly.

  I hated the memories that rushed in with that sound. As the team leader that day, I'd had to make a snap decision between several equally risky options. And while my choice did result in a casualty, it was impossible to say whether any of the other options would have fared any better. The scenario had no obvious right answer. And that was what kept me up at night. Replaying every move I'd made¸ trying to imagine every possible outcome, wondering if I could have saved him.

  Cracking one eye open, my brain latched onto the fact it was daylight out. Then the fog began to clear and I realized that wasn’t my head pounding. It was my front door.

  “Christ, hang on a second.” I shoved the blankets back and tripped over my boots at the edge of the bed, stumbled my way out to the living room. Not an easy task when the floor was strewn with empty bottles, pizza boxes, and random articles of clothing.. Who the hell was at my door? It sounded like a goddamn elephant trying to charge through.

  “What?” I pulled it open and saw a very pissed-off Nolan staring back at me.

  “What the hell happened to you?” he barked.

  I scrubbed a hand over my stubble-covered jaw. “Nothing.” Nothing I wanted to talk about, anyway. Especially not with Nolan’s judgmental ass.

  “I was pounding on your door for fifteen minutes. Called your cell at least a dozen times.”

  I shrugged. “I was sleeping, you dick.”

  “It’s ...” He glanced down at his wrist watch. “Twelve-fifteen. On a Monday.”

  Christ. It was Monday. I’d missed work. I took a deep, sobering breath and I knew things had to change. That final rejection by Finley had sent me into a tailspin. One I hadn’t been able to pull myself out of all weekend long. I was fucking up at work because I was so distracted, consumed by thoughts of her.

  And since my work was basically the only thing I had, our little cat-and-mouse game was finally done. Push me away, let me get close again, rinse and repeat. Kiss me like she wanted to ride my dick, then throw me out. I was done. Done bending over backwards and trying to make this work. But what stung even worse than losing a shot with Finley—what really killed me—was losing Maple in the process. They were a package deal. I mean, sure, I could try to maintain my relationship with her, but the way I felt right now, I didn’t know if I had the balls to put myself in a position to get rejected and tossed out again.

  Nolan stepped around me and headed inside. “Seriously, dude?” He shot me a questioning look.

  I shrugged again, then sank down onto the couch.

  “I’ll make some coffee,” he called from the kitchen. I heard him rattling around for a few seconds...and then I heard him talking on his phone. He was giving someone my address. “Yeah, today. And I’ll pay you double.”

  I shook my head even though he couldn't see it. “What the hell are you doing?”

  He entered the living room with two steaming mugs of coffee. “I hired a cleaning service. They’ll be here in an hour.”

  “I have a cleaning lady who comes once a week.”

  “Yeah? And if she sees the place like this, she’ll probably never come back. You went on a drunken bender. Trashed the place.”

  “It happens.” After some of the shit we’d seen and done, he knew that as well as anyone.

  He nodded. “It does. But this time, I’d like to know why it happened.”

  I shot him an icy glare. “I tried to open up to you once. At West’s on Friday night. Remember how that discussion went? I don’t care for an instant replay, do you?”

  “Ah, fuck.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Maybe I overreacted, alright?”

  I took a drink from my mug. “I’m listening.”

  Nolan rolled his eyes. “Just tell me what happened first.”

  “Well, turns out you were right all along. Shit got too real and she pushed me away, said she doesn’t want to see me again.”

  “That’s bullshit. I wasn’t right.” He let out a loud sigh through his nose. “On Friday...I was being a selfish prick. It felt weird to think about moving on from Marcus’s memory. And that’s what would happen if you took up with Finley. He’d be shoved to the backburner. I didn’t like the idea of that. I didn't want anything about our lives to change—even though it was your and Finley's business, not mine. So I just steamrolled you instead of hashing things out like you needed. But after I cooled down and thought about it, I realized you were one hundred percent right. ”

  Slightly stunned by his naked honesty, I glanced up at Nolan, waiting for him to continue.

  “A single woman on her own and a baby? They do need someone watching out for them. And there’s no better man than you, Grey.”

  “Stop.” I didn’t need him blowing smoke up my ass.

  “I mean it. You’re the type of man who helps old ladies cross the street and pulls over to help when someone has a flat tire. Christ, you stopped our convoy in Baghdad to save a stray dog from wandering into the line of fire. You’re a good fucking guy, Greyson.”

  I continued drinking my coffee, looking out into the backyard. None of it mattered. It didn’t matter if my intentions were good. All Finley saw were my transgressions.

  “There’s no one who could be better for her and that baby than you. Marcus would have said so, too. I know it.”

  A lump formed in my throat. I wanted him to be right, I wanted this aching in my chest to ease up. But I had a feeling that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. “Doesn’t matter.” I stood up. “Didn’t you hear what I said? She’s done. That’s it. End of story.”

  But Nolan rose to his feet, too. “Since when are you a quitter?”

  He was right. I was usually the one to volunteer for the riskiest, toughest assignments out there. I didn’t believe in the word no. But this time, I was starting to realize...maybe I should.

  Wait a minute. What was I thinking? Fuck that defeatist bullshit. The caveman in me wanted to take her by force if necessary – sit her down and make her listen to every reason I had about why this could work. Even if Finley didn't want to touch me, I could handle that. I was a big boy. I knew how to jerk myself off. I didn't need to sleep with her to keep helping her and Maple. They still needed me to be there for them. And by God, I was going to do my duty, blue balls and all.

 

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