Savvy gingerly removed shards of glass the size of fuckin’ rice grains from my back with her fingernails. I stood quietly and waited while she played nurse. She’d always had this nurturing quality about her. Something I’d been drawn to, maybe because it was something I lacked. When Emmitt died, caring died with him—until Savvy.
“Do you have any salve?” she asked.
“In the cupboard above the toilet.” When she went to walk away, I turned and grabbed her by the hips, tugging her backward into me. I kissed the back of her neck. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I don’t want you to go.” I meant ever, but I couldn’t tell her that. She wasn’t ready.
She smiled. “I’m just getting the salve.”
“Yeah,” I murmured, letting her go.
She went and got the salve then applied it to the wounds before her hands settled on my hips.
“Killian?”
“Yeah, baby.”
“At Compass, you said you knew every single way my body moved. It’s because you used to watch me dance.”
“Yes.”
“I never saw you. Not once.”
I turned and softly stroked up and down her arms. “If you did, would you’ve stopped?”
“Probably. You scared me. And you weren’t very nice.” She reached up and touched my cheek. “But you’re nice now. When you’re not being bossy.”
I cupped her chin. “This is going somewhere, Savvy.”
“Do you ever not get what you want, Killian?”
“Yes, for eleven years.”
I rolled over to snuggle into Killian’s warmth, but all I found was a cold mattress.
Sitting up, the sheet held to my chest, I scanned the warehouse for him. It didn’t take long to figure out what he was doing when I heard the smacks of his fists hitting the hard leather.
The punching bag was at the far end of the warehouse, and there were no lights on, but the sun was rising and peeked through the windows, offering a soft orange glow across the room.
His muscles flexed with every hit. Tattoos expanding over his biceps as he drew his arm back, hand curled into a fist as he plowed into the bag. Over and over again, skin glistening with sweat.
Unable to look away, I stared breathlessly as he bounced on the balls of his feet. Agile and beautiful. I’d never seen him fight in school, but as I watched him now, I realized why no one could beat him.
There was a fierce concentration on his face. Determination. A hardness. There was anger too, but it was controlled. As if he had a leash on it and held it back.
With each punch the anger lessened. As if he was hitting more than just a bag. He was hitting someone and beating him down. And with it the anger.
But there was more to the haunting sound of him punching the bag. It was the pain beneath the anger. A pain so deep that it was what drove him to do this. Not the anger.
Naked, I crawled from bed and walked toward him, my heart breaking as I continued to watch him. Hit after hit, his face a mask of intensity.
He was so focused on the bag, he didn’t notice my approach until I lightly touched his waist as he was about to swing. He tensed then grabbed the bag with both hands to steady it.
It took a second before the strain in his muscles eased, and he lowered his arms, turned and inhaled a ragged breath. His pulse throbbed in his neck, and it was obvious he’d been at this for a while.
“Savvy.” His expression softened, and he ran his hand over my head to the nape of my neck. “Did I wake you?”
“No.” I reached up and placed my hand on his heated chest. “Do you do this often?”
His brows furrowed and it contradicted his half smile. “When I can’t sleep.”
I stepped into him, chin tilted up and my other hand curling around his forearm. “You’re beautiful fighting.”
His jaw clenched. “It’s not fighting, Savvy. It’s working out.”
But it was fighting. He fought something. I saw it in his expression. His body. In every hit. I just didn’t know what he was fighting. His father? Himself? Or something else?
What worried me was that he still hid behind the wall and I didn’t know if I was strong enough to get through to the other side.
But how could I expect him to give me that part of him when I was holding back? In order to have all of him, I had to give him all of me and risk the pain of getting hurt again.
And as he held me in his arms, the sun a soft glow on the side of his face, the week-old scruff along his jaw and a bead of sweat dripping down his temple, I knew there was no walking away from him.
He was worth the risk.
The hidden. The complicated. The man who had demons behind the captivating green eyes, but within the depths also lived a man who cared. Who protected. Who made my heart skip a beat and my breath stop.