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“Self-defense?” Tony asked with a smile in her voice.

“Yeah.” He lifted a lock of hair from Charlee’s shoulder and twisted it around his finger. “Charlee will help me get through the hand-to-hand stuff.”

The nerve endings in her fingers itched to touch his face. “I will?”

He smoothed her hair behind her ear and held his hands palms up on either side of her. A perfect brown eyebrow rose as he waited.

She slid her hands into his, and a jolt tingled up her arms, the urge to strip him bare and explore his hard body overwhelming. But she couldn’t touch him. Didn’t stop the thought from materializing into a warm throb between her legs.

“See?” He kissed her bottom lip. “You’re already helping.”

The heat from his fingers soaked into hers. She blinked against the sensation. “If helping means upending your entire life.”

He shifted their linked hands behind her, settling them at the small of her back and pulling her hips closer to his. “Christ, Charlee. I needed upending. Do you have any idea how much progress I made today?”

Her body buzzed with the excited pulse of her heart. She shook her head.

“I think you’ve gathered by now I have some fucked up shit corroding my head.” He looked at her imploringly.

She nodded.

“And you probably saw that shit stir up when I had my pathetic fucking break down in the parking lot.”

“It’s okay—”

“No. Listen. Ialwaysneed narcotics when it hits that hard. Smack, blow, pills, weed, any or all of it. Every. Fucking. Time. And even then, it takes me hours to resurface.”

His words squeezed her heart.

“Today, I was so damn crazed to get back to you, I shut it down in record time.Withoutdrugs. Know what that means?”

She had watched him shatter twice that day. Both times he picked up the pieces and put himself back together. “Youfixed it. Not drugs. Not me.”

“You’re wrong. It’s you. You make me want to rake up the shit just to dissect it. Figure out what I’m made of, what I’m not, and who I am.” A dimple flashed on his cheek, its appearance endearing him all the more. “Got to say, Charlee, that’s an undertaking I’ve never cared to attempt. You make me want to care about a lot of things.”

Intensity saturated his brown eyes. He appeared completely unconcerned about the presence of Nathan and the others listening in, until he touched his mouth to her ear. “More than anything, I want to learn how to bend to your touch without breaking.” He stroked his cheek along hers, the rise and fall of his chest intoxicating her. “I want you to touch me inside and out.” He straightened to look at her.

The heat from his words left her breathless.

He squeezed their hands at her back. “You saw strength in me once. Do you think you could find it again?”

He was a man like any other man, draped in a net of memories. But it seemed like his memories were suffocating him, as if his scars whispered and burned and tried to dominate his life. Only the man trapped beneath could do something about that.

“You stood up to Roy. You called him a fucking prick.” She let out a laughing snort. “Do you know how many times I’ve witnessed someone confront him?”

The skin around his mouth softened, giving him a gorgeously exposed look. He shook his head.

“None. Never.”

She fell into the deep waters of his eyes. They held the opening between her past and future. “To answer your question…for two years and two months, I stared at the Golden Gate Bridge from Roy’s penthouse window. I watched it weather the strongest storms, rise above the thickest fogs, and buttress countless commuters with unbending steel. I used to fantasize that one day, it might carry me to a place Roy couldn’t touch me.” She held his gaze. “When I look at you, I see that bridge.”

His lashes lowered, fanning his cheeks. Holding her hands at her back, he curled his upper body around her and spoke low into her ear. “Then I promise not to buckle beneath you.”

43

Charlee followed Jay up the portable airstair to the door of the rented jet. The exhausts of shuttle buses, private planes, and fuel trucks added to the heat wafting off the tarmac.

Could one of the bustling vehicles have a Craig in it? Not that she was in a position to notice something like that. She couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from the black leather stretching over the back of Jay’s thighs and cupping his ass with each lift of his muscled legs.