I stood, my knees trembling, and went toward him. I maneuvered myself between his legs and stroked his hair as I stood. “It’s okay.” I kissed his head. “It’s okay to be scared sometimes. Everyone is.”

“Not me.” He shook his head vehemently. “I haven’t been scared for twenty-five years. Until now.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Talon

Had to get out. Had to get away from her. For her. Couldn’t risk hurting her.

Fear coursed through me like a bass drum beating slowly, surely…like a clock ticking deliberately…my impending doom on a timer, each sand in the hourglass one more second until I hurt Jade. How many more grains would fall until I damaged the only thing I’d ever wanted in the world?

Why would she want to be with me? I had just tried to strangle the life out of her!

“There’s nothing to be scared of,” she said in her calm, sweet voice.

But I knew better. I knew what I was capable of. What I dreamed about.

Of killing those three bastards.

I had thought that joining the military, commanding an EOD unit and finding and disarming bombs, possibly killing—which I had done on more than one occasion—would satisfy the need to rid the world of those three demons who took me all those years ago.

It hadn’t.

I still had the dreams.

She was stroking my forearm, her touch both soothing and scathing. My hair stood on end.

I didn’t deserve her loving touch.

God…if I ever hurt her…

But you didn’t.

Her words echoed in my mind. I turned around and looked at her. She was still naked, her beautiful body glistening in a sheen of perspiration. Her golden-brown hair was in disarray and hung around her shoulders like tousled silk. Her blue eyes were searching, looking for something in me…something she would never find.

I had been kidding myself for too long. I could never have Jade. I could never have a life with her. I was too broken. Too fucked up. And I would never put her in danger.

I hated myself at this moment. Wanted to go find a bridge and hurl myself into the oncoming traffic below.

I’d tried taking my own life before, when I ran into that enemy fire under the guise of saving my men. Only I hadn’t been killed, and I’d been touted as a hero.

Some hero. I couldn’t even keep the woman I love safe—safe from that fucking ex of hers…or safe from me.

I didn’t want to leave her. I had promised I would stay by her side until court on Monday morning.

“Talon”—she squeezed my forearm—“there’s something good in all this, you know.”

I shook my head and let out a small laugh. “What in the world could be good in all this, blue eyes?”

She smiled and trailed her fingers down my forearm, clasping my hand in hers. “You were sleeping.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. I was a notoriously bad sleeper, and when I did sleep, I was usually plagued by nightmares. Just as I had been this evening.

“Think back,” she said. “Think back about how you were feeling when we had just finished making love. That slow, sweet passionate love that was different from anything else we’ve shared. What were you feeling right then?”

I clasped my head in my hands. I knew the answer, and I forced it from my lips. “I was feeling relaxed, blue eyes. I was feeling…good.”

She smiled at me, that beautiful loving smile. If that smile could be turned into a sound wave and subliminally channeled across the entire planet, I had no doubt we’d see world peace.

Tags: Helen Hardt Steel Brothers Saga Erotic
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