Page 49 of Boomer
His own throat suddenly tight, he abruptly stuck his hands in his back pockets, not trusting himself. Unable to tear his gaze from her face, he spoke, his own voice gruff. “She’s wrong on so many counts,” he whispered.
Her expression transfixed, she stared up at him, then suddenly she covered her face with one hand, her voice a watery mess. “Emil, my baby brother. Sensitive, artistic, and never quite fit the mold. Our mother barely hid her disappointment. Our father tried to toughen him up unsuccessfully. I tried to protect him,” she sobbed. “But I didn’t understand. I was trying to protect myself even harder. Over time, that dynamic exhausted me. I pulled away. He stopped asking. We drifted. He died of a fentanyl overdose.”
Her voice gutted him, her face gutted him, and her words gutted him. He had a feeling she’d never said this stuff aloud to anyone in her life. Taylor, so young, sweet, tough as nails, was harboring this kind of pain that sent people into a spiral they couldn’t come out of. His mouth went dry. Heknew…hefuckingknew.
This was a minefield of emotional chaos wrapped around devastating, raw pain. He knew how to defuse mines; they were physical, had a format, a purpose, a schematic. Taylor was a mine, but she was flesh and bones, a body a man would die to have. But that wasn’t why he’d texted her. He texted her because her loneliness called out to him.
Taking a step toward her body wouldn't be hard. That was instinct. Muscle memory.Contact.His skin already remembered the shape of her hips, the slope of her spine, the burn of her mouth on his. That was simple. That was safe.
But taking a step toward her soul? That was something else entirely.
Letting her in meant letting her see everything, no barrier, no bravado, no place to hide, and if she saw the real him, theone underneath the jokes, the control, the steel-eyed calm, andwalked away?He wouldn’t come back from that. Not whole.
Maybe that’s why, whenever it got too close, too real, he cracked a joke. Took a breath. Stepped back. Physical was easy. Physical was a distraction.
Intimacy was war.
As a man, he was ashamed of how much it scared him. As a SEAL, it was almost worse. He’d rather face a kill zone at midnight than fail her like he’d failed Lila. He wouldn’t breach a woman’s heart unless he could clear the room behind it.
If he let her in, there’d be no going back.
Same went for her. If she let him hold this…holdher, she wouldn’t know how to go back to being untouched.
She doubled over, clutching her stomach as everything collapsed, and Boomer didn’t hesitate, he stepped into the maelstrom as she sank to her knees, he followed her down to the floor, catching her. He would never let her fall.
She flinched. Not visibly. Not like she was afraid. Her whole body stiffened like a breath caught sideways in her chest. Like she wasn’t ready for the contact. Or wastooready and hated it.
Boomer froze, his arms loose. His hand hovered just shy of her spine. Thisrattled himbecause that flinch wasn’t fear. It was feeling. It was vulnerability.
Boomer knew tension when he touched it. He started to release her, his heart loud in his ears, watched her profile, the way her lips tightened like she was holding something back. Like she was afraid she would spill it if she breathed too deep. She wanted topull awaylike she always had. Not because she didn’t want him. But because shedid.This might be the most intimate thing she had ever shown him.
Taylor had held everything in for so long…too long. She’d never told anyone what she’d just told Boomer. The shock of her confession, the words she had never uttered for fear they wouldbreak her, were doing exactly that. When his arms came around her, when his warmth touched her, she recoiled because it hurt so much to keep herself separate from him. Hurt her to see his face tighten, but then Boomer said, “You don’t have to hold it together for me.” His face contorted, his mouth tightening. “I’m not going anywhere. Not now. Not when it matters.”
“Carter,” she whispered. “I loved him so much…and now Ansel. I can’t let her do the same thing to him as she did to my brother. He’s so young, still so heartbroken about Emil. He needs so much more than she can give him.”
His big, capable hands cupped her face, his palms rough against her cheeks, so warm it was a shock against her system that felt as if she’d been cold her whole life. “He has you, Taylor, and you have what it takes to make the difference, sugar. I believe it down to my bones.” He gently tucked wayward strands behind her ear, his expression full of tenderness and understanding, as if he had a direct link to the lonely, vulnerable little girl inside the woman who, not once in her life, ever asked for help. Her autonomy was her badge of courage, and it fucking sucked. Leaning wasn’t something she did. But when his breath escaped on a pained sigh and his deep, aching voice continued, she simply gave herself up to it, to him. “Take what you need. I have so much to give. I’ve held onto it thinking if I admitted it, if I let it go, there would be nothing left inside me anymore.”
His truth turned her inside out, and her heart simply slid into those safe, grounded hands. She collapsed into the aching comfort of his embrace, buried her face against his neck, and broke down crying, deep, convulsing sobs that wracked her entire body. He wrapped his arms securely around her. Taylor huddled in his arms, pressing her face against his jaw. Her breath catching on another soft sob, she wound her arms around his neck, crowding him, leaning into him, grasping a handful of his T-shirt and holding onto him.
Shifting his hold, he slid his arm under her knees and rose, lifting her effortlessly against all that flexing muscle, settling her securely in his arms. “Hang on, darlin’,” he murmured huskily. “I’ve got you.” He tightened his hold around her back as he carried her to her bed.
Taylor hung on and now she was crying, not only for Ansel, for Emil, but for this man. This devastating bastard who simply held her without consequence, without pushing, without trying to take any of her control, his breaching tools, his body, his warmth, and his honesty that scored her walls so easily, she barely felt the scrape.
They shuddered through her body, one desperate emotion after another ripping through her. He sat down. Bracing his back against the headboard, he swung his legs up onto the mattress, keeping her secure in a tight embrace. She lay in his arms, a haven against a world that had taken so much yet had now given her this man against some pretty steep odds.
She purged, long and hard, then taking a deep, cleansing breath, Taylor shifted her hold. He didn’t say anything, just continued to rub her back until she lay emotionally exhausted against him. He inhaled deeply.
Her breath caught and held, much like her stuttering pulse and the squeeze of her heart that yearned for all the things she’d grown up without. All the things she swore she didn’t need in her life, but Boomer made her believe were possible.
He shifted, stretching out beside her, with half his body pressing against hers and a thigh resting heavily between her legs. He stared deeply into her eyes, so intuitive and determined. “Seeing into another person’s soul takes courage,” he said and cradled her cheek in his big, warm palm, gently allowing her to confront the emotional connection between them that scared the living daylights out of her. “I look into your eyes, and I see a little girl who’s carried a wealth of emotional burdens for too manyyears now and a woman who is afraid that vulnerability makes her weak. Fuck that shit. You’re allowed to feel the way you do. We are all allowed that, no matter who or what tries to take it away from us. It’s ours, always.”
When she met that gaze, she sawhim. Not just his strength but the fracture lines beneath it. She saw a man who had also lost, who had also grieved in silence, who had also been told he's too much or not enough.
She brushed his jaw. “I see it in you, too. The pain you carry.” He closed those startling green eyes and nodded. Quietly. That unshakable stillness again, solid with handholds that never wavered.Gott, how could she not want this man, want to climb inside him?
“This isn’t about me, sugar. It’s about you and your family. Again, take what you need.”
It was those words that she found the hardest to trust in, even though her heart wanted so badly to believe in Boomer, the honorable man he was, and the promises he made. Tears gathered in her throat and stung the backs of her eyes. Not wanting him to witness her weakness, her greatest fears, she slid her palms over his silky, close-cropped hair and brought his mouth down to hers.
