anymore—free from Grant’s grasp while my entire body began to quake. Next would be a blood-curdling shriek if he didn’t pick up on the way I was unraveling.
Thank God he did, though.
“Blaze.” He nearly choked my name and dropped my hands simultaneously. Then he stepped toward me at the exact same time I stepped back.
“No. Stop.”
How had we gotten to the Inglewood prep kitchen?
I swung my head from side to side. No. No. I tried to calm myself. We were still on the yacht. I looked around frantically, taking in details of my surroundings. Yes! We were definitely on the deck of the yacht.
But that sound…my God…what was that sound?
I could feel Grant’s stare boring into the side of my face, so I shifted my stance to square off with him. All the while, a thousand different thoughts banged around inside my head. Like dirty pigeons in a city park, all taking flight in unison after a wayward child escaped his mother’s grasp to terrorize them. Cacophonous, leathery wings flapped in thirty-six different directions inside my skull—all at the same time. I had to close my eyes and try to make the clamoring riot stop. With fingers pressed to my temples and eyes squeezed shut, I hummed as loudly as possible to drown out the sound.
“God! That sound—make it stop!” I looked to my hero for assistance, but he was frozen in horror too. He usually fixed everything else, but he just stood staring at me in panic.
“Make it stop!” I shouted again, gripping feverishly at my ears.
“Rio!” Grant shouted while trying to wrestle my hands down to my sides. What had started as a simple stress stopper, with my fingertips on the pressure points at my temples, had morphed into gauging at my hairline with my fingernails. Droplets of blood trickled down my face, under my jaw, and continued down my neck.
“Rio, stop! You’re hurting yourself!” Grant begged.
“Make it stop!” I shouted blindly. My vision was blurry, and that damn noise!
“Baby, please! Look at me! Open your eyes and see me.”
When I finally followed his commands, nothing made sense. The panicked look on his face was the most confusing of all. Jesus Christ, what just happened? My head was throbbing and hurting so badly. I carefully touched the source of the stinging sensation, only to pull back bloodstained fingertips. I shot my questioning look to Grant, but he was frozen with shock and dismay. He stared at me like I was a complete lunatic. And I’d seen the look before. I was definitely interpreting it correctly.
News flash: It never got easier.
But when the man you loved looked at you that way, a piece of your heart actually shattered.
Shit. I wasn’t in love with Grant. That’s not what I meant. I knew that. But I did love him. He represented all the good things in my life. All the things that grounded me and kept me fighting for the next day. Fighting for hope for a better day the following day.
Was I revealing all that in my gaze now too? Because when I finally built up the courage to search for his gaze again, I found it filled with nothing but sincere understanding and patience. His ocean blues were mesmerizing with their adoration, especially as he zeroed more of that energy in on me.
Oh, God.
I didn’t deserve this from him. Any of it. Not ever, really, but especially right now.
The more I let my insecurities run wild in my fucked-up, broken-down mind, the more I thought what I saw was really pity. “Why are you looking at me like that?” I snapped.
“Let me help you. Or more like, can you help me right now, Blaze?” He reached for my hand, and before I could think to pull away from him, he scooped it up in his own and towed me to the closest lounge chair.
We shared the bottom half of the chaise where Grant arranged us so we faced one another. Finally, he reverently kissed the center of my palm and then pressed it to the side of his face. His skin was always so warm and virile, and he let his eyes drift closed like he was getting some sort of comfort from my touch. Could that even be possible? Could I give anything to this incredible soul? Add anything to his world when all I seemed to do was take from him? Drain him of his kindness, energy, and light?
Without taking my hand from his face, he reached