Page 67 of The Moments You Were Mine

“What are you doing?” she asked, voice low and sexy without even trying.

“Putting you to bed.”

“I’m not four, Parker. I’m not a child.” Her lids fluttered closed as if they were too heavy to keep open. “I’m not sure I ever was.” The words were raw and pained, but they were also the truth. Hadn’t I thought it myself earlier when arguing with Teddy?

I tried to move away again, but her grip on my shirt tightened. “Let go, Ducky.”

Long lashes opened, and the longing I saw inside those amber eyes almost knocked me off my feet. A craving as strong and alive and as intense as the one that beat in me.

“Chicken,” she said, voice thick with emotions and tangled with lust. “No… Chickens are actually pretty obsessive when they see something they want. They don’t back down. You’re more a cow…meandering away at the first sign of danger.”

“And you’re supposed to be the danger?” The words slipped out before I could call them back, gruff and angry because we both knew the truth. She was dangerous. She’d always been.

She taunted me with a raised brow and eyes that fell to my mouth. Frustration burned. Didn’t she know how much control it took to hold back? To not claim her? To refuse every offer she’d sent my way? I wasn’t a fucking coward. It had taken more effort than it had ever taken me to hold up a boat in BUD/S to push her away each and every time we’d gotten this close.

“I must be pretty dangerous if I can make a SEAL run,” she said breathily.

I wasn’t sure if I’d moved or she’d moved, or if gravity had somehow pulled us together, but our lips ended up so close that if I even replied, our mouths would brush. Dread filled me. A sinking feeling I’d lost this battle. That I couldn’t fight it anymore. But I didn’t move. I didn’t take the last breath that would cause our lips to touch. I just watched, drowning in the hunger of her eyes, as every fiber in my being told me to sink into them. Into her. To finally take what was mine.

Except, she wasn’t mine to take.

She wasn’t mine.

She wasn’t mine.

She wasn’t mine.

She closed her eyes again, letting go of my shirt, releasing me, and putting space between us once more. I found myself hating the inches that now existed between our lips when, moments ago, I’d been dreading our closeness.

“Don’t worry, Frogman. I promised myself I’d never give you the chance to reject me again. So don’t consider this an offer. You’re off the hook for good when it comes to me.”

I hated that almost as much as the space between us. I didn’t want to be off the hook. I wanted to be on it, dangling from a line that only Fallon controlled. I wanted her reeling me in, inch by inch.

I still didn’t move as my body and mind and heart all warred with each other.

Take her. Leave her. Love her.

It was the last thought that had me jerking away.

Love her? Where the fuck had that come from?

I did love her. Like one loved family. Friends. People who were important to you.

And maybe, sometimes, in the dark corners of my mind, I’d thought there could be something more…before promises and honor had stopped me from taking what she’d offered.

The love my parents had, or her dad and Sadie had, wasn’t something I could have with Fallon. Not only because it was very rare for anyone to have that timeless, all-consuming love, but because I wouldn’t leave a family to fend for themselves while I went off to fight wars no one on this planet knew we were fighting.

I stepped away as I always had, telling myself I was doing the right thing, the brave thing. But as I strode from her room and shut the door, I feared she might have been right. I really was a chicken. A fucking coward.

Chapter Nineteen

Fallon

I DARE YOU TO LOVE

Performed by Trisha Yearwood

THREE AND A HALF YEARS AGO