Things We Never Said (Hart's Boardwalk 3)

Like his place in Boston, it was devoid of the feminine touch.

His front door slammed shut, and I jumped, whirling around to face him. “Falafel?” I held up the takeout cartons.

“I already ate.” He looked and sounded impatient as he crossed the room to put his gun on the kitchen counter.

“I went to the station, and Jeff said you’d be here.” I felt nervous and awkward. Sighing, I put the cartons down on the coffee table and clasped my hands in front of me.

Michael dragged his eyes down my body and returned to my face. “That doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

“I wanted to see if you were okay.”

“Well, as you can see, I’m fine.”

I flushed, unprepared for a snippy Michael. “Should I go?”

He rubbed both hands over his face and groaned. “No.”

The need to reassure and comfort him superseded my uncertainty. I took a step toward him. “This isn’t your fault, Michael. Freddie is not your fault. He always was a creepy little fucker, and if he was capable of killing Stu, then he was always capable of killing Stu.”

Michael nodded, his dark eyes moving over my face. For a moment we stood in silence. When he eventually spoke, it wasn’t what I expected to hear. “I used to come home after seeing some terrible things, and Kiersten didn’t want to know.” The thought of him going home to a wife, as always, was an unbearable sting I tried to hide from him. “I didn’t want to give her the details—I wouldn’t do that to her—but I wanted to talk. Get rid of it somehow, you know. I attempted a couple of times, sliding into bed beside her, reaching for her. She’d push me away. And I’d lie there, looking at the ceiling, and I’d think about you.”

The air between us thickened. His confession hit my chest like a physical impact. “I’d lie there remembering all the times we sat in my car talking about everything. I’d tell you about my day at work, the good and the bad, and you’d listen. Really listen. And then you’d wrap your arms around my neck and kiss the bad right out of me.” Pain slashed across his expression. “I never resented you so much as those nights I’d lie next to my wife wishing she were you so you could kiss the bad right out of me.”

Tears flooded my eyes. Because I wished I’d been there too. So much. So much more than I could bear.

Michael took a hesitant step toward me. “If I asked you to lie with me right now—if I told you I wouldn’t read too much into it, what would you say?”

Without hesitation, I crossed the room and reached for his hand. His warm strength curled around mine, the calluses on his fingertips rubbing gently across the soft palm of my hand. Without a word, I let him lead me to his bedroom, and for one perfect moment, I silenced all my fears, all my worries, so I could do the thing I needed to do most.

Take care of Michael.

Michael knew ho

w he was feeling wasn’t about Freddie Jackson. Yes, it was his job to find the dirty bastard, and he would. He was determined to. However, his need to find the guy had become wrapped up in all the ways he felt he was failing. With his family. With Dahlia. Since moving to Hartwell, he’d spoken to his mom only a couple of times, and any mention of his dad made her clam up. He worried that without him there in Boston, his dad would return to his old ways, taking all his drunken bitterness out on Michael’s mom.

Then there was Dahlia.

He wanted to be patient. He’d promised himself he would be. Yet deep down, he thought the giant gesture of moving to Hartwell for her would’ve broken through all those solid defenses she’d surrounded her heart with over the years.

It wasn’t working.

Michael was failing at the most important thing he’d ever faced.

He was just … failing.

Though as he led Dahlia by the hand into his spartan bedroom, he let go of all his miserable shortcomings. All he’d planned to do was lie down on the bed with her, feel her there in the dark, maybe pretend that everything was okay for a few hours so he could sleep.

He didn’t expect her to stop at the edge of the bed, stare up at him with those soulful blue eyes, and whisper, “Let me take care of you.”

Michael would never forget Dahlia’s version of taking care of him for the rest of his life. If it was all he ever got from her, then he was sure it was more than most men had ever had from any woman. First, she undressed them both, and then she’d asked him to lie on the bed. She’d hovered over his body, a fantasy of smooth skin, big breasts, tiny waist, generous hips, gorgeous legs, and dark hair that cascaded down her back. Her full breasts, with their tight, erect nipples, were so tempting, he reached for them. Dahlia had allowed the touch for a second and then curled her hand around his and pressed it back to the bed.

“Let me,” she whispered.

Michael would understand what that meant when she touched him. Her lips and hands were tender, slow explorers caressing their way around and down his body, learning every inch of him. She spent so long learning him, Michael’s heart felt like it would explode from beating so fast. He panted in the dark, trying to catch his breath, his legs moving restlessly against the sheets, his hips pushing up toward her in need.

But he never lost his patience because there was a part of him that didn’t want her to stop.

No woman had ever cherished—fuckin’ cherished—him the way Dahlia McGuire was doing right then.