Crave (The Gibson Boys 3)

“Totally.”

She curls up under the fabric and nestles against my side. The air might have a bite to it, but I don’t notice because she’s right. This is totally better.

Back and forth we go, our stomachs full of a dinner we almost burned because we couldn’t stop telling stories and laughing long enough to remember the grill. I could close my eyes and live in this moment. It’s felt good with Hadley many times in my life, but it’s never once felt like this.

It’s never just us. It’s me and her and all the baggage we carry. It all piles together until there’s a giant wall that feels impossible to scale.

How do you scale all that? How do you look at someone you care about and think, Okay, I’ll risk your happiness for my own?

I don’t know. What I do know is that sitting on the porch with her on this cool, quiet night makes things feel not quite so impossible. Not totally uncomplicated, but not quite complicated either. It’s what I’ve always thought spending time with a woman you care about would feel like, and that’s scary as fuck.

“Look at the stars,” Hadley says. Her arm stretches across my middle against my stomach. When contact is made, she starts to pull back, but I stop her.

“They’re beautiful,” I say, my hand resting on her forearm.

Her profile is the same one I’ve studied countless times. Her nose curls up just a bit at the tip. Her lips form a little bud at the center as if she’s just been kissed. It takes everything I have not to do that. Not yet. As good as that would feel, it wouldn’t be better than just holding her like this … and it might ruin everything.

She looks up at me through her thick lashes. “You aren’t even looking at the stars.”

“Oh.”

She shakes her head, her kissable lips forming a smile against my side. “My favorite nighttime skies are the ones after it rains. I don’t know if it’s because we get so used to the storms and the clear skies are such a relief, or if the rain just washes away all the yuck. But I love nights like this.”

“Me too.” My arm rests over her back as we swing. “Do you have plans for tomorrow?”

“I’m supposed to do something with Emily,” she says. “She wants to go to Crave.”

My initial reaction is to flat-out tell her no. Every worst-case scenario dashes through my head, and all I can envision is some guy grabbing her, or her getting shoved, or some unsuspecting asshole hitting on her in front of me.

But as she gazes up at me with her honey-colored eyes, she looks different somehow. Stronger. Wiser, even.

My gut reaction is to protect her from everything I can—to keep her out of harm’s way. That’s why I can’t have her in Crave. Why I threaten every asshole I see talking to her. Why I stay away myself.

As we rock and I hold her close and think about the things we’ve talked about tonight, how she’s survived so much loss and turmoil and came out on top, maybe she’s okay. Maybe I can ease up a little.

I summon all my strength and gaze into the darkness. The swinging slows until it stops. “Be careful, okay? I’ve seen your girl Emily on the verge of fistfights, dancing on tables, and I have a suspicion she swindled some bikers out of a hundred bucks at the billiards tables. She’s reckless.”

Hadley sits up. “That’s it?”

“That’s what?”

“Be careful.” She cocks her head to the side. “No warning not to come? No threat to only order water or to sit at the bar next to Peck?”

I pull her back down against me again. “No.”

“Well, okay, then.”

Rifling my hands through the fabric until my hand is on her back, I start swinging again. “I figure you know what you’re doing. Right?”

“Right,” she says, squeezing me tighter. “Besides, you want to know something funny?”

“What’s that?”

“Crave isn’t so bad.”

I snort. “Well, I agree, but it’s funny to hear you say that.”

Her fingers strum against my side, sending waves of warmth through my body. “It’s important to you in a way I didn’t understand. I don’t think I completely get it now but watching you in there isn’t like I thought it would be.”

“So, no strippers?” I laugh.

She makes a fist and jabs me in the side. “Anyway, Emily wants to come in and see Peck.”

“I don’t get the Peck thing,” I say, confused. “I think Navie has a thing for him too.”

“Navie totally has a thing for him.” She laughs. “Peck’s cute, Mach. He’s funny and kind, and he has a good job. He’s a great catch.”

“He’s a goof.”

“A lovable goof.” She sits up and looks at me. Her eyes rival the stars with their sparkle. “Does it make you jealous?”