Chapter 7

It’s the end of my shift but the guys still have about half an hour left on the clock. Normally, I’d wait for them in the lounge area since they’re always happy to drive me home. Saves me a short bus ride or a walk, but tonight I think a walk is precisely what I need to clear my head.

Besides, I’m afraid to be in the same car with the Danson brothers at this point. I’m so hot for them, and they’re clearly hot for me, it’ll only take one small move, one sexy word uttered, and clothes will start flying. I doubt we’ll even make it to the bedroom.

“Are you hearing yourself?” I whisper inwardly, shaking the thoughts out of my head.

I’m just about ready to walk out when Eric rushes over. “Halle, wait.”

“What’s up?” I ask, my tone as flat as possible. I wonder if he can tell that I’m trying to seem indifferent to him—and his brothers .

“You’re leaving?” He looks somewhat confused.

“Yeah, I’ve got to get home before Marie brings the kids back.”

“Mom knows to drop them off after seven p.m. It’s still early,” Eric replies, a subtle frown tugging at his brows. “I was actually hoping you’d let me take you out to dinner tonight. Wyatt and Chase will be more than happy to stay with Luna and Sammy.”

“Dinner?” I stare at him in disbelief. “You want to have dinner with me.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he chuckles. “Yes, Halle, I’d love to have dinner with you. Would you like to have dinner with me?”

It’s like he’s talking to a five-year-old. Slow and clear, repeating key words to make sure I understand what he’s trying to tell me. I must look particularly dumbfounded.

“I can’t,” my mouth says without my consent. “I need a walk to clear my head. Another time, okay? But thank you.”

Before he can say anything, I walk out.

I can feel those baby blues watching me as I cross the parking lot of the fire station and turn left, sticking to the main road to get me home. Evening has fallen over Dallas with explosive hues of pink, oranges and reds, and it smells like all the trees in the city have decided to bloom at once.

It is so beautiful and it gives me a faint sense of peace. The kind of peace I’ve been missing in my life. I’m not used to any of this. I am not used to seeing the prettier side of things. That wasn’t something I was able to do while I was living with Colby. He had a way of sucking the joy out of everything.

It’s time for me to start living again, really and truly.

My early evening walk is delightfully pleasant. Heavy traffic hasn’t started yet. It’s between six and eight p.m. where there’s nothing but a river of crimson taillights. For now, however, it’s breezy and relatively quiet, which gives me a moment alone with my thoughts.

I don’t know what the hell happened today but it was wrong on so many levels. It was inappropriate and it makes me feel like some kind of harlot. It’s awkward enough that Eric and I are hitting it off and then some, but to observe the same kind of chemistry with Chase and Wyatt, too… that’s insane.

I am terrified of what will happen when Eric finds out that Chase and I kissed in the same room where only moments before he had given me one hell of an orgasm.

Everything could blow up in my face. What have I done?

I try to shake the thoughts away choosing instead to focus on what’s next on my to-do list. I’ve already filed the appropriate paperwork for a new driver’s license, as well as copies of my birth certificate and passport. Once those items arrive, I’ll need to start planning ahead.

The dazzling scent of Queen of the Night blossoms fills me to the brim, and I smile softly as I turn the corner, passing a couple of familiar faces. I see them jogging every day. The same route, the same neon running gear, the same cadence to their steps—stuck somewhere between speed-walking and light running. I’m in a comfortable zone now and feeling a sense of home, even if it’s just a temporary one .

“You were stupid to let Chase kiss you,” I tell myself. “You just stood there and took it.”

I would’ve taken more.

I shake my head and think of the many things I still need to do tonight. The guys will be hungry. The kids may have gotten an afternoon snack at daycare, but by the time they get home, they’ll be famished, too.

I know I spotted some meat in the freezer, and I specifically remember seeing canned tomatoes and fresh onions and garlic in the pantry. There are several different types of pasta in there, too. I’ll whip up a huge pot of spaghetti and meatballs.

I briefly text Wyatt and ask him to stop by the market for some fresh parm on his way home.

I suddenly spot something out of the corner of my eye. A presence. My instincts immediately flare up and I turn around. There’s nobody there. Who was I expecting to see?

Colby. You were expecting to see Colby.

But he doesn’t know where to find me. My heart is quick to race as I take deep, measured breaths in a bid to regain my self-control. I lost it there for a second; a critical second that too easily threw me off my game. It’s only people, I keep telling myself. Normal people going home or headed to work for their night shifts.

Humans, like me.

Not monsters, like Colby.

Yet the shadow persists. I don’t know if it’s real or imagined, but it is doing a number on my ability to control my impulses. I’m walking faster. Constantly looking over my shoulder. I lose track of where I am for a few seconds. I don’t even register the change from apartment buildings to two-story houses with white picket fences.

By the time I reach the next street corner and turn right, the shadow is looming bigger and heavier than before. I keep looking back to find nobody there yet I am still on edge. My anxiety is reaching new and unbearable levels.

Footsteps.

They’re getting louder.

My heart’s stuck in my throat. Whoever it is, they’re fast approaching. Are they trying to catch up to me?

I glance over my shoulder and see a tall dark figure. I start to run.

My pulse quickens, sweat bursting through my pores as I push past the front gate of the Danson house. I run up the pathway and up the stairs. My feet are so light while my heart flutters in frantic, uneven rhythms that I feel weightless. The front door opens just as I’m about to stick the key in and I yelp.

“For fuck’s sake!”

Eric stares at me with wide, confused eyes. “Halle? What’s wrong?”

I look at him for a moment, bewildered. Of course he got home first, he drove. I walked. I walked for what felt like forever, only to have it end on the razor-sharp edge of a panic attack. I look toward the street to see a lone neighbor walking past the house.

Slowly, I shift my focus back to Eric, panting and sweating bullets. “I’m so sorry—

”

“What are you sorry for?” Eric frowns and takes a step back to let me in. “Halle, what happened? You look terrified.”

“I, it’s nothing. Probably just jitters after the diner fire,” I try to brush the whole thing away.

He closes the door behind us and takes a minute to look at me. I catch the cool, marine scent of his shower gel, note his loose shirt and slacks. He’s showered and ready to relax. He smells fantastic. But the shadow I was running away from still has a hold of my chest, its claws clutching and piercing through my very soul.

“Halle, talk to me,” he says, coming closer. “There’s no one else home yet. It’s just you and me. You’re safe.”

“I know that. I feel safe when I’m with you. It’s just…”

Why am I holding so much back from them? They can obviously tell I’ve been through some things. No woman ends up working at an off-the-beaten-path diner with two little children, struggling to make ends meet, because of how well she’s had it. Between the fire and the scare on my walk home, I’m strung out in more ways than one.

What bad can come from me opening up a little bit? Eric and his brothers deserve that much after all they’ve done to help me.

“Halle.”

“I’m scared, okay?” I burst into tears, no longer able to keep it together. Not when he’s looking at me with those deep blue eyes that seem to peer right into my soul. “I’m scared and I feel alone. I keep looking over my shoulder, waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“What are you running away from? Or who?” Eric asks .

I can only laugh with bitterness in my tone. “It doesn’t even matter anymore.”

“For what it’s worth, you can talk to me about anything.”

“I know.”

“Even the things you might think I won’t understand.”

“It’s not that you wouldn’t understand. It’s just that am simply tired and worn out. Mentally and emotionally exhausted. Physically drained.”

I’m crying like a baby and he wraps his arms around me, pulling me in for a tight yet tender hug. I am helpless in his embrace, instantly melting as my terrible thoughts wither away like leaves falling in the wind. I hold on to him, breathing him in and letting everything out in raw, heaving sobs. I can’t control it.

Eric holds me close, giving me the emotional comfort and safety I need to release things that I’ve been keeping inside for far too long. As I slowly regain control, I look up to find him looking at me, his gaze warm and soft and filled with wonder.

“You try so hard to be a rock for your kids, but you forget that you’re still a human being,” Eric says. “It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to be afraid, regardless of the reason.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“You need to stop apologizing, Halle,” he replies, kissing my forehead with so much tenderness that it brings a second wave of tears to my eyes. “You’re going to be okay. I’m not letting you slip away, and I’m not leaving you alone to face whatever it is you’re so afraid of.”

“Oh, Eric, you’ve already done so much.

”

He cups my cheek and smiles. “I’m ready to do a lot more if you’ll let me.”

He kisses me gently while my mind unravels.

Eric deepens the kiss and I welcome the taste of him on my lips. I welcome his hot breath and thundering heart, his strength and his body enveloping mine. I turn into mush as his tongue does quite the number on my senses. Twirling with mine in an increasingly tense battle for dominance.

“I can’t let you walk away like this,” Eric says.

“I can’t walk away,” I manage.

The ravenous kiss evolves into something far more intense and devastating as his hands work their way up and down my body. He helps me out of my boots. Then my pants and shirt come off in the blink of an eye. I place my palms on his chest, beckoning for his lips again while my fingers revel in the muscle of his rippling pecs.

He grabs my ass and squeezes hard, pulling me closer until I can feel him, hard as a rock against my lower belly. It causes liquid heat to trickle at the same time he peels my panties off.

With trembling fingers, I take his shirt off then struggle with the buttons of his pants. He chuckles softly, stopping to watch me fumble through what should otherwise be a simple and smooth task. “I find it amazing that you’re bad at this,” Eric jokes.

“I’m good at so many other things though,” I shoot back with a hungry smirk.

We’re playful and uninhibited, desperate for one another. It’s the kind of chemistry I’ve never felt with anyone before.

“Oh, I don’t doubt tha t ” Eric says, unclasping my bra. “You were made for excellence at just about anything you do,” he adds and looks down, dazzled as he admires my full breasts. “You are fucking gorgeous, Halle, has anyone ever told you that?”

He fondles my breasts and kisses me again, then trails his tongue down the side of my neck, all while undoing his slacks. I gasp when he pulls them down and his erection springs free. I can’t help but lick my lips at his magnificent cock. We’re all alone in this big house and I plan on making the most of it. Screw every conflicting thought that I battled on the way home. This is what I desperately need.

“Take me,” I tell him. “All of me.”

He growls and takes my nipple in his mouth while one hand travels downward, the other wrapping around my waist. I tilt my head back in the throes of passion as he suckles my nipple, harder and harder until it stings in the most wonderful way. “Oh, God,” I manage as his fingers slide between my wet folds.

I’m so ready for him.

“Fucking hell, Halle,” Eric grunts, flicking his thumb over my swollen clit while two fingers dip inside me. I clench tightly around them, panting and moaning as I feel the electricity rolling around in my body, working itself into a ball in the center of my being.

I’m like melted butter as I let Eric escort me to the sofa in the living room. We’re never going to make it upstairs at this rate but it doesn’t matter. His fingers never leave my pussy, taunting and priming me for more until I’m seated. He pulls back for a moment, just to admire me .

Naked and wanting, I spread my legs for him and bite my lower lip.

A smile stretches across his handsome face. “Touch yourself,” he says.

“What?”

“Touch yourself.”

I blink a few times, heavily aroused and unable to think properly. But then my synapses kick back into action, and I touch my breasts while he watches. I notice his cock twitching anxiously whenever I pinch my nipples. I gasp, reveling in the delicate sting of my own self-pleasing as Eric gets down on his knees and dives face first into my pussy.

My nerve endings come alive, my pulse galloping as I feel myself closer and closer to a mind-wrecking orgasm. He makes good use of his fingers, thrusting three of them in, then curling them with every retreat. It causes a chain reaction to unfold as he licks my pussy then focuses solely on my clit.

I listen to his groans of raw pleasure as he finger-fucks me and suckles my clit until I can’t take it anymore. I cry out in sheer bliss as I come hard all over his face. Eric licks every drop, eating me out until the ripples of this first and shattering orgasm begin to subside.

He’s not done, though, and we both know it.

“All of me,” I remind him, my voice barely a whisper.

Eric’s smoldering gaze finds mine as he comes up and rams right into me. I scream in surprise and pleasure as I’m filled and stretched by his huge cock. He fits inside of me perfectly.

I wrap my legs around his waist and raise my hips to meet him.

“I told you, you were made for this, Halle. You were made for me,” he says as he starts pounding into me. Harder. Deeper. Faster.

“Oh, Eric,” I call out his name, welcoming every glorious inch of this man. My pussy is stretched and aching but he’s fulfilling my need, over and over again.

Every thrust brings me closer to the point of no return, our eyes locked on one another as the intensity rises, the air crackling between us. Beads of sweat drip down his temples and fall onto my lips. I lick them off, tasting his saltiness on my tongue as he fucks me harder.

The room is filled with the sound of flesh slapping against flesh, of this man claiming me as we look deep into each other’s soul. “Come for me again, Halle. I want to feel you all over me,” Eric whispers and slips his thumb between us. I moan as I feel the pressure mounting yet again.

He teases my clit, now a tender bud, made even more sensitive by the mixture of sensations dashing through my body. I completely give myself over to him as he fucks me harder and deeper and faster. Mindlessly, I grab my breasts and squeeze, massaging them under his savage gaze.

It makes him even harder. I can feel him thickening inside me as he goes deeper.

Every thrust causes my insides to tighten more and more. I clench myself around his cock. “Oh, Eric!” I scream as I come apart—shattered, broken, and deconstructed all at once.

“Halle…” Eric kisses me as he comes .

He shoots his load, his cock pulsating inside of me. I feel every bit of him, so close, so intimate… it’s as if our souls have become bound.

I taste myself on his tongue.

He moans sweetly as he gives me the last of his thrusts. I love the way he shudders in my arms, and I hold him close, showering him with sweet kisses. This is it. The point of no return.

I saw it coming.

I wasn’t sure where it would lead.

I’m still not sure.

But I ride the wave anyway.