Page 12 of No Apologies
“Sky…” His voice was rough and he cleared his throat, “You promise me right now that if you feel it falter, even once, you’ll tell me and I won’t take you to the hospital until it does.”
She instantly nodded, “Promise.”
He blew out a rough breath and pulled his hand away from her chest, “Okay, then we should get you back to bed.”
“Mmm, so this is what it takes for you to take me to bed.” She gave him what should have been a teasing smile but the exhaustion in her features made it weak and her eyelids drooped shut again.
He ignored that comment. He had to. If he didn’t ignore it then he would get them both in really big trouble but it wasn’t easy. Not when she was looking at him like he really was some sort of savior and not when his dick was stealing most of the blood supply his brain so badly needed right now.
He had to remember all the reasons keeping Skylar at arm’s length was important. Close, but not too close, that was his rule when it came to her. He needed her close, needed to see her so he didn’t go crazy, but he couldn’t let her close enough to see him, not the real him, not all the things he hid from the people he cared about.
She couldn’t find out just how much she meant to him. It would ruin everything if she did. She’d insist he do something about it and he wasn’t ready for her yet. He wasn’t good enough for her, not yet.
Maybe, someday, when he was stupid enough to let himself hope that was what he dreamed about. A someday, with Skylar. A day when all of his family bullshit was no longer darkening his life and his moods. A day when he finally cut out all the bad parts of himself and only let the good parts linger. That was a someday that he wanted and he wanted it with this woman but he couldn’t tell her that, not now, not when he had no idea when or if he would ever be ready for it.
He wasn’t a believer. He wasn’t an idealist. The only love he’d ever seen in action was the kind that hurt. Love meant pain and opening himself up to even the possibility with a woman had never appealed to him.
But he already cared too much about Skylar. She’d gotten in past all of his defenses. What had started out as a simple friendship had twisted inside of him because of the kindness, acceptance and even forgiveness that she showed him daily, even when he didn’t deserve it. She made him want to be something he wasn’t, something he didn’t know if he could ever be. Better.
And that was far scarier than Decker’s fists or Lincoln’s threats could ever be. Because he knew how to deal with those things. He had years of experience. He knew all about darkness, about violence and anger and hate.
But love was a completely foreign concept for him. He had no idea what to do with it. All he knew was that the people who should have loved him, his parents, never had. The people that should have loved him were the ones that had hurt him the most and his greatest fear was that he would repeat that pain on someone else, on Skylar.
His need to protect her was more important than his desire for her. He couldn’t let her love him. He would protect her from that. It was all he could give her, even if she deserved so much more.
