if we didn’t say the words aloud, I could keep Brody safe. That if those three tiny words were never uttered, he wouldn’t be at risk. My eyes burned and filled. “I want to keep you safe.”
“Hell,” he muttered, pulling me into his chest so his strength surrounded me. “Nothing’s going to happen to me. Or you, either.”
The tears came faster, my chest shuddering. “I love you, too. I didn’t want to say it because if we say it, then it’s real. And if it’s real, you become the person Michael would want to hurt most of all.”
Brody held me tighter against him. “Not letting those words free doesn’t change anything. The truth still exists. That love is still there. Nothing’s going to erase it.”
“I know.” For a normal woman, one who’d had a typical childhood, who’d dreamed of the perfect man, a white dress she’d walk down the aisle in, his words would’ve been a dream come true. But for me, someone whose past meant that she’d had to hide every single thing she even remotely cared about, it brought ice-cold fear. The kind that froze everything inside of a person and made it impossible to move.
“Caring about someone doesn’t make you weak. It makes you stronger. Those feelings give breath and life.”
He spoke the words against my hair, his lips grazing the strands. I tried to take them in, grab hold and anchor myself to them. To the hope that our love could make me more powerful than I ever had been before. “I want to believe that. But everything I’ve ever loved has been ripped away and out from under me. Either destroyed or twisted beyond recognition.”
My parents, gone. My aunt, someone I couldn’t even see in person for fear it would lead Michael to either of us. I’d lost friends, my cat, any toys that I’d seemed to especially love. Everything just…gone. And if things like that happened enough, you stopped reaching for the stuff you wanted.
But, somehow, I’d reached for Brody. I hadn’t meant to, but the invisible pull had been too much. My fingers had itched to touch him from the moment I’d laid eyes on him climbing off that boat. My soul had called out for his the first moment I’d seen his paintings. The threads that tethered us to each other weren’t anything I could sever, even if I’d wanted to. I’d have to trust that they could withstand whatever life might throw at us. And that included Michael.
Brody slipped a hand under the hem of my t-shirt, the heat of his palm chasing away some of the ice-cold fear. His thumb swept back and forth across my skin. “You’re stronger now. There are people who have your back. We’ll fight with you.”
I tried my best not to let my body stiffen at his words, but I was only partially successful. “I don’t want anything to happen to any of you.”
“It won’t. And the more people who know what’s happening, the better. We’ll have more eyes. Only those you trust.”
When I searched my mind for who landed in that category, there were more than I would’ve thought possible a few years ago. Caelyn and Griffin. Bell and Ford. Hunter. And even though I knew them less, Kenna and Crosby. They were in that circle simply because I knew they were in Caelyn’s and Bell’s trusted circle. Maybe it was time to let people into the life I’d left behind. Let them in to help me fight for the future I wanted. “Okay.”
Brody pulled back slightly. “Okay?”
I nodded. “I think you’re right. It’s time to stop holding onto so many secrets. If I’m constantly worried about hiding, I’ll never be free.”
He tugged on a strand of my hair. “Wise.”
I shook my head but smiled. “I might’ve heard it once or twice from this incredibly stubborn man I know.”
“Stubborn, huh?” Brody released his hold on my hair, his hand going to my waist.
I moved in closer, my body pressing against the hard planes of muscle in his. “He’s pushy, too.”
“Demanding?” he asked, the hand at my waist slipping under my t-shirt.
My breath caught as his fingers traveled up to the lace of my bralette. His thumb swept across my nipple and everything in me tightened. “Definitely demanding.”
His thumb circled the peak, teasing and toying. “Sounds like he’d be hell to live with.”
“It certainly provides a fair number of challenges.”
In a flash, my shirt was whipped over my head, and I grinned. “You gonna take