“Keep your hands to yourself, asshole.”

The guy blinked up at us dumbly and then slowly nodded. I put a hand on the center of Zeb’s back and wanted to cry when he shook off the touch. This is why emotions were dangerous. They hurt so much and there were too many of them to handle. I could feel mine cresting and breaking all around me. He stalked through the crowd with me hot on his heels until he found Church.

“Some drunk idiot just manhandled her in the hallway. He was shaking her and had his hands on her. He wouldn’t let her go.”

Church stiffened and nodded, his unusual eyes solemn and intent on the direction in which Zeb pointed. “His shirt is halfway open and he has a red tie on. The fucker is lucky I didn’t strangle him with it.”

“I’m on it. We’ll eighty-six him. Do you want me to call the cops?”

“No.” I poked my head around Zeb’s back and shook my head frantically. “I’m fine. Don’t call the police.”

“Are you sure?” Church crossed his arms over his chest, and had the situation been different I would have taken a moment to appreciate the way they bulged under his tight, black T-shirt. He really was an extraordinarily beautiful and intense man.

“I’m sure. Let’s just go, Zeb.”

There was an exchange of masculine grunting and glaring that apparently communicated things that went beyond my knowledge and then I was whisked away and cloistered in the front seat of the Jeep and enveloped in a stony silence as Zeb seethed next to me. I could only take it for a few minutes before I blurted out, “I’m sorry.”

His head whipped around so fast I was shocked the Jeep didn’t run off the road. “For what?”

I shrugged. “For everything.” For not handling this better. For thinking I could do this and end up unscathed. For not being able to be as passionate and loving as he was. For not being brave enough to trust him to breathe life back into my mistreated and shriveled heart like he had done to my house.

“I can’t stand to see men with their hands on women. It’s a hot button for me.” I knew it was. It had to be after what happened to his sister.

“It was fine. I was fine. I was handling it. You have too much at stake right now to come riding to the rescue like that.”

He growled low in his throat and I saw his hands go white on the steering wheel.

“When you say shit like that, it makes you sound like my lawyer, not my lover. Whenever someone hurts you, threatens you, or makes you afraid, I’m going to interfere, Sayer. I care about you . . . I lo—”

I cut him off before he could finish the thought. I couldn’t hear that. If I let him say it the flood would wash me under. I took a deep breath, collected the tattered pieces of my shell around me, and prepared to do what I knew I should have done from the start to keep us both safe. I reached over and put a hand on his leg and waited until he turned his head to look at me.

“I am your lawyer, Zeb. I want what’s best for you and your son.” It looked like later had descended upon us sooner than either one of us had thought. I knew how to be his lawyer and give myself fully to that. I wasn’t going to let him risk anything for me. Not his heart. Not his child. Not his future . . . nothing, not when I couldn’t offer him anything in return.

He was deathly silent as we made it the rest of the way to my house, and when he pulled in the driveway and shut off the engine, I knew this good-bye was going to hurt worse than any other kind I had ever said before.

His green eyes were dark with prickly, painful things and I could feel their impact all over my suddenly too sensitive skin.

He blew out a breath that was so heavy as it landed on my skin that it felt like it was loaded with every hope and dream of his that I had taken away.

“So that’s it? You want to be my lawyer? You want to figure out every problem you have on your own and handle anyone that tries to hurt you by yourself, even though I’m right here? I know I have a lot to lose if I get myself in trouble, Sayer. I understand that there is a lot at stake; what I don’t get is how you can ignore that you’re one of those things I’m trying my damnedest to be better for.” His eyebrows shot up. “You’ve seen me, just me, from the very beginning, Sayer. Why is it so hard for you to believe that I’ve seen you, all of you, as well?”

He was going to make me cry. I bit down on my lower lip and reached for the door, but before I could push it open he was there. He was always there, in that spot right in front of me that seemed to belong only to him.

He put his hands on either side of my face and I felt him rub his thumbs over my cheeks. I was surprised at the moisture that followed the trail he left.

“I don’t know what else to do here, Say. I built you a house. I made love to you. I gave you all the colors and helped you celebrate them. I melted you over and over again. I want to tell you how much I care about you . . . you tell me what else I can do?”

The world.

This big, tough man had given me the world and I couldn’t do anything with it. For once, it was my hands that were too cold, while my heart felt like it was burning up inside my chest. So many feelings. So much fear. It was all too much to grasp as I flailed around inside the torrent. I reached out for the only thing that seemed stable, that seemed rooted to the ground. I reached for him.

I curled my hands into his shirt, I pulled his mouth down to mine. I whispered to him that I wanted him to come inside with me one last time, and I did it all knowing Zebulon Fuller would be the first and last boy whom I ever kissed because I was changing, slipping and sliding into a person who wasn’t before or after but who was a confused and jumbled mess of both. He should have something better than that. I was half a woman lost in the horrors of the past and half a woman just now figuring out what she wanted and needed in a life that was her own. He deserved someone whole and so did his son.

He destroyed me with openness and stark honesty. I destroyed us by not having any space inside of myself. Even with the emotions I was purging and choking on leaving a hollow and empty space, I still couldn’t find room to hold all of those wonderful things he was trying to give me.

CHAPTER 14

Zeb

She kissed me good-bye and I followed her inside. This was one of those prime opportunities for me to practice thinking long and hard about the consequences of my actions before I dove recklessly into the deep end. Too bad I wasn’t going to stop and do anything other than fall even harder for her.