Page 80 of Steal My Breath Away

“He always did have a good sense of timing,” she said, not unkindly.

“He just held me until I was done. Now I feel different. Empty, but not in a bad way. I don’t want to hide from how I feel anymore—not about them and not about Ace. I care about Ace, and I think he cares about me. I wish he hadn’t left, but I understand why he did, and it doesn’t change how I feel. He left, but he came back when I needed him. That’s enough commitment for me.”

“I guess we’re not making up the spare room,” she said. “At least I won’t have to sneak in there tonight and make good on my promise to avenge you.” She put her hand in her pocket and pulled out a container of thumbtacks. “What am I going to do with these?”

Ace joined me in bed an hour later, slipping between the covers and curling his warm body around me. “I didn’t know if you’d want me here,” he murmured. “I didn’t check my messages until I went to the guest room and saw you hadn’t made the bed.”

“The heat has never worked well in that room.” I snuggled against him. “I didn’t want you to be cold.”

“So thoughtful.” He chuckled and put his arm around me. “You’re definitely warming me up.”

“I hope so. It’s been a long time.”

“Too long.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry I left the way I did. I know it was the wrong thing to do, especially when you were hurting, and after you told me how you felt when I deployed, but I honestly thought you wouldn’t want me around after I’d failed you. I didn’t even want to be around me. If you’d been any other client, I wouldn’t have left you in the bar to go back for Paige. My job was to keep you safe, and I didn’t do that. I’ll carry that guilt with me for the rest of my life.”

“You carry too much guilt, and often for things that aren’t your fault.” I reached over to my nightstand, turned on the light, and grabbed the grad picture of him and Matt that I’d pulled out of the box, along with the other things I’d saved for him. Turning to face him, I pushed myself up on my elbow. “Look what he’s holding.”

Ace studied the picture. “That’s the model plane your dad gave him for his sixteenth birthday.”

“A plane.” I gave him the model I’d found in the box. “Not a model tooth or a pair of dentures. He loved to fly, Ace. You know that. It’s all he ever wanted to do.”

“You should have this.” Ace offered the plane to me. “He was your brother.”

“I have his things, and I have this house, and I have his memories. Mom didn’t give anything away. It’s all there, and when this is over, I’m going to sit down with her and go through all the boxes, because I’ve realized that she buries her pain deep just like me.” I handed him the letter. “He left this for you. I hope whatever he wrote in there helps you the way opening that box helped me.”

“I have some work to do on myself,” he admitted. “Tony sent me to see a psychologist. Apparently I’m not as unaffected by my childhood as I thought I was.”

“Neither am I.” I leaned over and kissed him. “You should try having a good long sob fest in a freezing garage and cry eight years’ worth of tears. It’s very cathartic.”

His arms wrapped around me, and he pulled me close. “I know something else that’s very cathartic.”

“Do you seriously want to have sex when there are bad guys closing in?”

“Mav and I set up enough surveillance tech that the moment anything gets near the house, we’ll know. It already went off when a rabbit hopped across the yard.”

I slipped my hand into his boxers and stroked his hardened length. “What if they come at an inappropriate time? You’d better not stop.”

“I wouldn’t dream of leaving my girl unsatisfied. I’ll send Mav to take care of them until I’m done with you.”

A smile tugged at my cheeks. “Am I your girl?”

“You’ve always been my girl, Haley.” His deep voice rumbled in his chest. “I’ve just never thought I was good enough for you.” He flipped me on my back and tugged my nightdress over my head. “I’m going to make you forget every man you’ve ever had in this bed.”

“That would just be you,” I admitted.

He pushed to one arm and frowned. “I thought you said—”

“We didn’t make it to the bed. He heard you and Matt talking downstairs and he got performance anxiety.”

Ace threw back his head and laughed. “I promise you will not have that problem with me.” His hand slipped between my legs and he pushed my panties aside with a thick finger. “In fact, I promise the opposite.”

Ace made good on that promise. Multiple times. We could have probably gone all night, reconnecting physically and emotionally, but around 3:00A.M., when we were lying exhausted in each other’s arms, an alarm sounded on his phone.

“Stay here.” He jumped out of bed and pulled on his clothes. “Mav and I will check it out. Hopefully it’s just another rabbit.I’ll send Paige in so you’re together. Lock the door after she’s here.”

“I’m not going to let you put yourselves at risk for me while I hide upstairs,” I said, grabbing my jeans from the floor. “I’ve spent my whole life hiding—hiding from pain and loss, hiding from myself, hiding from the past. I trust you, Ace. I’m not going to do anything stupid. I’ll stay upstairs with Paige, but if something doesn’t sound right, I’m coming down. I’ve never been a coward and I’m not about to start now.”

I thought he would protest, but instead he nodded. “Do you have a weapon?”

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