you really think having a few friends or playing a local gig will expose you?”
“It’s not worth the risk.”
“Just like I’m not, right?” I could feel the battle within Shay every day. While she slept in my bed, surrendered her mouth to mine, she always had one foot out the door.
She stepped back, her gaze heating. “I thought you said we could go at my pace.”
Hell. I closed the distance, cupping her face in my hands. “That’s not how I meant it. I’m happy to hold you. But I feel you pulling away every time we get a little closer. Maybe it’s instinct. You’ve been pushing people away for a long time. But I don’t want you to push me away.”
Her eyes shone in the afternoon light. “I don’t want to, but I can’t help it. Every person I’ve ever gotten close to, Michael found a way to hurt.”
I wrapped my arms around Shay, pulling her tight against me. The scars that littered her body weren’t the only wounds she still carried. And the ones in her mind would be much harder to recover from. “Nothing’s going to happen to me. I promise.”
She burrowed into the crook of my neck. “I’m not going to lie. Caring about someone scares the hell out of me. Every time I let you in a little more, my brain screams danger. I don’t know how to turn it off.”
“You don’t have to. You just have to keep stepping forward. Into that unknown. Even when it’s terrifying. That’s relationships. Hell, it’s life. Anything precious requires risk, carries the potential for hurt.”
Shay straightened, her mouth curving. “Are you going to lead by example?”
I fought the curse that wanted to surface. I was a fool of a hypocrite. “I need to paint.”
“Yes, you do. We’ve both let these ghosts haunt us for way too long. We can’t give the monsters space in our brains.”
“How about a trade?”
Shay’s brows rose. “I don’t trade for sexual favors.”
I let out a bark of laughter. “Good to know. I was thinking more along the lines that I’d complete a painting if you played your violin for more than just me.”
She was quiet for a moment before answering. “Deal.”
“And you have to sit for me again.”
She rolled her eyes. “Now, he’s just getting greedy.”
I gave her hand a tug, pulling her towards the sunporch. “No time like the present.” I arranged her in a standing position. The same way I had envisioned the woman on Harbor’s point. “Raise your chin.” I guided it up with a finger. “There. Just like that.” I let my hand slide down the curve of her neck, the feel of her smooth skin such a contrast to the rough pads of my fingers.
Shay shivered. “I thought you were painting.”
My hand kept trailing down, tugging at the material of her shirt so her shoulder was bare. I bent, trailing kisses along each visible scar. I wanted to touch every single one. To heal them. I wished I could make them disappear, but that would somehow take something away from Shay. Because these marks on her flesh were outward signs of how strong she was. Of everything she’d overcome. With one last brush of my lips, I straightened.
No words were needed. And Shay gave me everything in response when she didn’t pull the fabric back into place. When she didn’t hide from me but instead let me in a little more.
I rounded my easel and took in the blank canvas in front of me. The same white space that had been there for the past six days. I’d wandered into the room more than once. But every time, the empty space taunted me.
I flipped open my sketchpad to the drawing I’d been filling in as I waited for Shay to return from Anchor. The day my illusion of sanctuary had been shattered. There was only one way to fix it. And that was to rebuild. One stroke of paint against canvas at a time.
I looked from the rough sketch to Shay. She was so damn strong. She wasn’t fearless. She was something more. Someone who had been terrified but fought to survive. Who’d experienced the greatest depths of that fear and kept on going. That was what I wanted to capture with this piece.
A woman looking out at the storm to come and not turning away. Facing it head-on. And I just had to harness a tiny fraction of that strength to put my first mark on the page.
25
Shay
I