“You work tonight?”
“Yep,” I answer shortly.
“What time?”
“I gotta be there by eleven.” I roll my head on the headrest in his direction.
“You gonna take a nap?” he asks, his long fingers tapping on the steering wheel.
“Probably.” I shrug. “I haven’t really been able to get used to this schedule.”
“Can you get on a different shift?” He sounds concerned.
“If a spot opens up, I can ask to transfer,” I say, shifting against the leather of his seat.
“You gonna do that?”
“Maybe. The thing is…I really need to think about what I’m going to do. I love Vegas and everything, but this is the first place I have felt at home. I love the people and the lifestyle here. I feel a lot more relaxed than I used to, and I think I might see if I can find an apartment and move here permanently.” I don’t know why I just said all that out loud. Up until now, it was just a thought rolling around in my head.
“You have a place to stay as long as you want.”
“Thanks,” I whisper, my heart squeezing.
“You can’t move out for a while though,” he says, and his jaw starts ticking. “I talked to Link, and the cops are still tracking the guy.”
“I know. He told me,” I say, feeling a chill slide down my spine.
“Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“The whole thing doesn’t even feel real.” I shake my head. Every time I think about what happened, I can’t believe how lucky I was.
“It’s very real. Five people were murdered. Don’t ever forget that,” he growls, his knuckles turning white on the steering wheel.
“I will never forget it,” I whisper softly, my hand moving to his jaw, wanting to comfort him, but right when I’m about to touch him, I start to pull away, realizing what I’m doing. Before I have a chance to move away completely, his hand catches mine, pulling my fingers up to his mouth, where he places a gentle kiss.
“Stop fighting this,” he says gently. He drops my hand to his thigh, where he covers it with his own. The harnessing warmth of his thigh under my palm has my breaths increasing. “Stop fighting us.”
“There’s no us,” I tell him, shaking my head, trying to pull my hand away.
“You’re so fucking stubborn.” He tightens his hold on me.
“And you’re an ass,” I growl, and the car jerks to the right, onto the side of the road.
My body goes forward when he slams on the brakes. His hand goes to my seatbelt, and as soon as he presses the button, he pulls me over and onto his lap. One hand goes to my waist and the other to the back of my head and into my hair, forcing my head to the side.
“Stop,” I hiss, trying to wiggle free.
“No. Every time I knock one brick out of place, you put ten more in its place,” he seethes.
“Let me go.”
“If I have to keep kissing you to prove there is something between us, then fuck it.” His hand in my hair fists tighter as he pulls my head back, holding me immobile. “I told you before not to fucking lie to me.”
“Please.” I don’t know if I’m asking him to kiss me or stop what he’s doing, but the second the word leaves my mouth, his comes down on mine, possessing me with his kiss. I let go, completely drowning in him and his taste. My hands go to his long hair, gripping it between my fingers.
I whimper into his mouth as his other hand skims the underside of my breast. I’ve never wanted anyone like I want him. He makes me feel again—something I haven’t done in a long time. Something about him makes me want to open up, but the part of me that clicked into place to protect myself when they took my son was so strong I didn’t know if anyone would be able to get to the real me again.
“Every time I get my mouth on you, you melt,” he says against my lips when he pulls his away from mine. “I know you’ve been hurt.” I close my eyes, turning my face away from him. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but I won’t stop until I have you.”
I shake my head. He turns my face back towards him, placing a soft kiss on my forehead then my lips before lifting me off him, setting me back in my seat, pulling my seatbelt around me, and buckling me in place. We drive in silence for a long time. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but all I can think about is what would happen if I gave him a chance. Then I wonder if Link told him what happened to me.
“Have you talked to Link about me?” I ask, looking over at him. I don’t like the idea of him learning things about my history from someone else.
“To be honest with you, he offered to tell me about you.” He looks over at me, his hand coming to my thigh and giving it a squeeze before his eyes go back to the road. “I want you to be the one to tell me. I want you to trust me with whatever it is that has forced you to put up those barriers around yourself.”
I let out a long breath, one I didn’t know I was holding.
“I want you to come to me, Autumn,” he says softly.
Those words make my heart break a little. I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to go to anyone ever again. I close my eyes and fight back the tears that’ve started stinging my nose. When we get to the house, he says a quiet goodbye, telling me that he has some business to take care of. I nod, go into the house, and straight up to my room, where I crawl into bed, pulling the pillow over my head so I can cry.
Chapter 5
Done, I’ll Give Her Crazy
(Oops, did I do that?)
“We have a Life Flight coming in,” Tara says, coming into the room where I’ve been taking care of a patient. I automatically stop what I’m doing and follow her. “Derik has already started getting things ready. The victim is a young male suffering head trauma,” she says as we hurry into the emergency room.
As soon as the helicopter lands on the roof, Tara and Derik are out of the room, meeting it, while I stay behind and make sure we have enough supplies and everything is in order. When they arrive at the room, my world feels like it closes in around me. A little boy no older than ten is strapped to the gurney. His neck is in a brace, his face is cut and swollen, and his head is bandaged, blood seeping through the white gauze they’ve used to protect the wound. All I can see is my son. He would be about as old as the boy is. My brain tries to tell my body to move, but I can’t. I’m glued to the floor.
“Autumn, I need you to come over here and help me transfer him,” I hear Derik say, but all I can do is stare.
“Autumn!” Tara shouts, and my eyes go to her as she shakes her head and then nods towards the young boy, asking me a silent question. I shake my head in response.
“Autumn, I need you to pull it together. We need to help this little guy get better,” Derik says gently.
My eyes go to him and I swallow the bile in the back of my throat, turning my emotions off before I start to work on autopilot. For the next twenty minutes, we do everything we can to help save the boy before he is taken into emergency surgery.
“What happened in there?” Tara asks, sitting down next to me on the bench outside of the emergency room.
I shake my head before looking over at her. “I have a son.” I close my eyes before opening them again. “I had a son,” I whisper, correcting myself bitterly. “I put him up for adoption when he was just hours old.” I look down at the floor, seeing small drops of blood on the tops of my shoes. “He would be about the age of that little boy. I’m so sorry I freaked. I…” I take a breath, closing my eyes. “I’ve never even thought about something like this happening.” I feel an arm go around my back and Tara’s head lean against my shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
I nod as tears fill my eyes. I never once thought I would have to help a child. I’m so stupid. “All I could think about when I saw that boy was my son lying there.”
“Honey,” she moans painfully, making me bite the inside of me cheek. Taking comfort from people is something new to me. Hell, having someone care enough about me to comfor
t me is something new to me.
“I think I need to leave for the night,” I tell her when I feel tears begin to fall from my eyes. “I’ll see if I can get someone to come in. I just don’t think I’m going to be a lot of help right now.” I breathe through my tears.
“Rach needs hours. She’ll come in. I’ll give her a call now,” Tara says softly.
“Thank you,” I whisper, wiping my face. I never cry in front of people. I was never allowed to show emotion like that. One of my mother’s favorite sayings was, “If you want to cry, I will give you something to cry about,” and she often kept her word.
“Go home and sleep, girl, and I’ll see you tomorrow,” Tara assures me, rubbing my back.
I stand, giving her a quick hug before I make my way to the front desk. I grab my bag and head out to the parking lot. Once I have my car door unlocked, I toss my bag into the passenger’s seat, get behind the wheel, and shut the door. I lean my head back and close my eyes.
All I keep seeing over and over is the little boy, his face bruised and battered from the car accident he was in. I can’t even imagine what his parents are feeling right now. I turn the car on, more tears filling my eyes.
I don’t even know how I make it back to Kenton’s. Once I let myself into the house, I quickly set the alarm before heading upstairs. When I reach the top landing, Kenton’s standing in his bedroom door. His shirt is off and the pajama pants he’s wearing are barely hanging on his hips. I look at the hand he has resting against his thigh, seeing that he’s holding a gun.
I look up at his face again. This time when our eyes meet, his are concerned. Something inside me snaps and I run to him, seeing surprise on his face right before I shove mine into his chest and my arms wrap around his waist as I sob loudly.
“Baby?” he whispers, pulling me harder against him. I’m grateful that he doesn’t say anything else for a long time; he just stands there holding me in his arms, offering me comfort. “Come on. Let’s lay down.” He pulls me with him to the bed, sets me on the edge, and then lays his gun on the nightstand before going to the dresser. I watch as he pulls out a shirt before coming back to me.
I take the shirt from him as he turns around, giving me a little privacy to change. I pull off my scrub top quickly, tug his shirt on, and then kick off my shoes along with my pants. I scoot up the bed as he turns back around. He climbs into bed and his big body wraps around me, holding me against his chest.
“Talk to me,” he says as his hand slides through my hair.
I take a breath, my heart beating out of my chest because of what I’m going to tell him. “When I was sixteen, I got pregnant,” I whisper, feeling his muscles tighten. “When my mom found out, she sent me away to a home for girls who were expecting.” Tears begin to fill my eyes again, so I squeeze them tightly, trying to fight them off. “The day I had my son, I got to spend two hours with him before they took him away from me.” I feel a knot form in my throat, making it hard to breathe. “I never wanted to give him up.”
“Fuck,” Kenton rumbles, pulling me closer to him. Feeling the strength in his arms gives me the courage to continue.
“A little boy was Life-Flighted in tonight.” I close my eyes, seeing the child in my head. “When I saw him, all I could think about was my son, who would be close in age to him.” I open my eyes and tilt my head back to look up at Kenton. I can barely make out his image with the moonlight shining through the window. “Sometimes when I’m out and I see a little boy, I wonder if it could be him. Logically, I know it’s not, but my heart still hasn’t accepted that he’s lost to me after all these years and I will never see him again.”
“I can’t imagine that’s something easy to accept,” he says softly, running a hand down my back. “Why didn’t your boyfriend help you find a way to keep your son?”
“He didn’t want me or a child. When I told him I was pregnant, he told me he didn’t want to have a kid and he was breaking up with me.” I cry a little harder, reliving the devastation I felt back then. “He was happy when my mom contacted him, telling him that she was forcing me to put the baby up for adoption and he needed to sign the papers.”
“That’s fucked up, baby.”
“I know,” I whisper.
There is nothing else to say. Kenton now knows some of my past—really, the worst of it—and I wonder what he’s thinking about as he holds me until I cry myself to sleep.
I wake up feeling cocooned in warmth. It takes a few seconds for last night to come back to me and to remember that I willingly climbed into bed with Kenton. I can only imagine what he thinks of me now. I try to lift my head, hoping I can sneak away from him, but his giant hand is wrapped around my hair, holding me in place. Between that and his leg over mine, I can’t move at all.
“You’re not sneaking out on me.” His voice is gravelly with sleep, and I close my eyes, trying to think of what I need to say.
“I’m sorry about laying all that stuff on you last night.” I hide my face in his chest.
“I’m glad you came to me. I’m sorry about your son. I can’t even imagine what you’re going through.” He takes a breath, pulling me closer to him. “If you want, I can find him for you.”
“What?” I ask, caught off guard.
“It’s what I do, baby,” he says completely seriously, and my heart does a double thump at the sweet offer.
“It was a closed adoption,” I whisper, tears filling my eyes again.
“Doesn’t matter.” He shrugs.
“What do you mean?”
“I have ways of finding people. You say the word and I’ll find your boy for you.”
The building tears begin to fall as I think about finding my son. Then I wonder what I would even do with the information. Would it hurt more knowing where he is? Could I even handle it?
“I don’t know,” I mumble. “I would like to know if he’s happy, but I don’t know if I could handle seeing him or knowing where he is.”
“I get that.” He gives me a gentle squeeze. “You don’t need to decide right now. The offer has no time limit on it.”
“Thank you.” I unconsciously rub my face against his chest, breathing in his unique smell. His warmth and smell have me wanting to get even closer to him.
His hand in my hair pulls my head back as the leg he has over mine moves to between my legs. His eyes search my face for a long moment before his face lowers and his mouth gently touches mine.
“I can’t get enough of your mouth,” he says against my lips, kissing me again. The hand I’m resting between us starts to inch towards his torso, but I stop myself. “Touch me,” he says, grabbing my hand and pulling it to his chest.
His skin is so warm, and the light scattering of hair he has on his chest prickles against my fingers. His hand on top of mine moves to my hip then down the curve of my ass, pulling my hips closer to his. I can feel his erection hard and long between us. I start to breathe heavily; I feel like I can’t get enough oxygen into my lungs. My hand on his chest travels up to his hair at the back of his head, running it through my fingers as his mouth travels from mine, down my cheek, and then across my neck, the scruff on his jaw scraping against my sensitive skin.
“Jesus, you smell good,” he rumbles against my throat as his tongue touches me there. I tilt my head farther back, pressing my thighs together, trying to alleviate the ache that is building between my legs. “Shit,” he groans.
My eyes open and I look at his face, wondering why he’s stopping, and then I hear his phone ringing.
“Don’t lose that look,” he orders as he quickly twists his upper body away from mine before turning back over, holding his phone in his hand. His eyebrows go together and he shakes his head, sliding his finger across the screen. “This better be fucking good,” he growls, looking at me. His eyes narrow on me when I hear Justin’s voice say something about pulling the stick out of his ass, making me smile. “Do not fucking encourage him,” he says, shaking his head when I laugh harder after hearing Justin
yell through the speaker that Kenton stole me away from him and he’s going to find a way to win me back.
“Did you call for a fucking reason, or are you just callin’ to piss me off?”
I can’t hear Justin’s response, but I can tell that Kenton doesn’t like it by the look that comes over his face as he listens.
“Fuck,” he clips, dropping his head. “Yeah, I’ll be there soon.” He pulls the phone away from his ear before dropping it to the bed next to my head. “I gotta head out.”
“Okay.” I bite my lip, wondering what I’m supposed to do. This whole thing feels surreal to me. I don’t know if I want to kiss him again or run away and pretend like nothing happened.
“You gonna be okay?”
His question hits my chest and I feel my face go soft at his concern for me. “I’ll be okay,” I assure him quietly.
“You workin’ tonight?”
“Yeah. I feel bad about what happened last night and leaving early. I don’t want them to think I’m flighty. I really like working there,” I say, absently rubbing the sheet between my fingers.
“Did you talk to Tara last night?” I nod yes and his fingers run over my cheek. “You’re good then. That bitch is crazy. She would never let them think less of you.”
“Don’t call her a bitch,” I say defensively.
“I mean ‘bitch’ in the nicest way possible.” He smiles, dropping his face towards mine.
As soon as our lips touch, his hand goes to the back of my head, holding me to him while controlling the kiss. When he pulls his mouth from mine, I can’t help the whimper that escapes.
“When’s your next day off?” he asks through heavily panted breaths.
“The day after tomorrow,” I reply just as breathlessly.
“I’m taking you out.”
“Like a date?”
“Exactly like a date.”
“Um…” I say, not knowing how to respond.
“It’s not up for debate. We’re going out.”
“Excuse me?” I narrow my eyes. “You need to ask me if I would like to go out with you.” No way am I going to let him boss me around.
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