Page 74 of Dare to Love Again

“Andrew thought he had control, but a bullet from a piece of human shit ended him.” She clapped her hands together as she shouted, “Just like that! I loved him, and he left me. And you”—in an explosion of livid energy, she pushed hard against his chest with both hands—“are just like him!”

Her shove rocked him back on his heels, but otherwise, he went no farther. As for Esme, she was far from done.

“Andrew fucked with the mob. And now, here you are fucking with drug gangs set on vengeance!” She shoved him again. “Are you insane? It’s right in their fucking name, Keiran Finnegan.”

Her hands fisted and fell to her sides, and she backed up a step, shaking her head vehemently.

“I won’t have it. Not again. I won’t fall in love with another hero set on saving the world from the dregs of humanity only to have him leave me trying to pick up the pieces of my shattered heart without him.” Esme’s voice cracked, and her shoulders slumped as the utter physical and emotional exhaustion of not only the last twenty-four-hours, but the past five years seeped from deep in her bones. “The last time broke me. To go through it again will kill me. I can’t survive it again. I’m not strong enough.”

Out of breath and energy, she trembled, her knees rubbery. Rational thought returned, and she realized all she had just shared. She hadn’t even told Pax some of those things. Venting was freeing as well as frightening, and like when he spanked her to an emotional release that first night, a strident cry erupted from her throat and a torrent of tears followed.

As he’d done then, he picked her up, set her in his lap, and held her.

When it went on, endlessly it seemed, he didn’t try to stop it, just kept his arms clamped tightly around her, and with the benefit of the swivel office chair, rocked her gently, murmuring soft words of reassurance. And he didn’t let go when her sobs had slowed to hitching, hiccupping breaths.

“How do you do it?” she asked brokenly, between sniffles when she could speak again.

He shifted, taking her with him, as he reached for the box of tissues she kept on a shelf next to her desk. Once he’d grabbed a handful and settled back, he asked, “Do what, sweet lass?”

“Get me to admit things I haven’t told another living soul.”

While he leaned her back in the crook of one arm, and dabbed beneath her eyes and wiped her cheeks, he tucked several tissues into her hand and ordered, “Blow.”

She did as he told her, indelicately, because after that deluge, there was no pretty way to do it. When she was through and looked up at him, she was still sniffling.

His expression contained no judgment, and none of the anger of before. She read only concern and affection.

“Feel better?” he asked, a little smile curving his lips.

She nodded.

“Good.” Then he answered her question. “I haven’t done anything other than give you what you need, Esme. Whether by turning you over my knee, offering you a shoulder to cry on, or by confronting you with the truth.”

“Others could have done that. A few have tried.” She huffed a short, humorless laugh. “Except the spanking part, and I didn’t have an emotional breakdown and bare my soul to them.”

“Perhaps because you refused to let them in.” One big hand cradled her face, his thumb stroking a still-damp cheek, his touch tender but purposeful in that she couldn’t turn away from his next words. “I’m different, though, aren’t I, lass? It’s been that way since the night Carlos was such an ass. You trusted me then, moving in close, seeking my protection, and you didn’t even know my name.”

“You had a badge,” she muttered, a pitiful attempt at an excuse.

“Mmm...” he hummed skeptically. “Tears are a good outlet for you, and wiser for a submissive than tearing into her dom and getting physical.”

“I shouldn’t have done either, especially shoving you. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

He snorted as if offended. “Do I look like I can’t take it?”

“No, and you barely budged.”

“It’s good you don’t make a habit of it, or you’d have to retire your sub card and start carrying a quirt, like Latrice.”

“I’m sorry I lost it.” She sniffled again, and then, as shame washed over her, closed her eyes. “I learned pushing you around, or trying to, is very unsatisfactory. And not only because you’re as movable as a concrete wall. I don’t know how she does it.”

“Darlin’, look at me.”

She obeyed, without hesitation, seeing affection in his gaze, not the hard edge of anger and disappointment like when he’d first arrived. It stirred the warm, melty feeling inside her again. That’s when she knew her plan to become the crazy, sexless, single cat lady of Northridge was on shaky ground.

“You are no Latrice. She’s wired differently, more like me. It goes against your grain to dominate, even in anger, which is why you felt dissatisfied and remorseful afterward. We’ll take care of absolving you of your guilt with a good paddling later, and since I’ll enjoy it, too—because that’s the way I’m wired—you’ll be making it up to me at the same time.”

She sat up and stared at him. “Did you not hear me when I said I was through? I’m serious, Keiran. That goes for men, doms, and especially dominant male detectives.”

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