An insidious whisper enters my brain.Maybe this was all a mistake. It couldn’t be as easy as he claimed. Nothing ever is.I don’t want to believe that, though. I can’t believe it.
Still, somehow, I shore up my poise and lift my chin high. “I can’t do this with you right now.” I don’t bother turning around when I speak. If I do, I might not be able to walk away from him so I can break down in private.
I stride to the apartment door but Cannon is right behind me. He slams his hand on the steel panel, stopping me from opening it before my fingers grip the handle.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
A tremor rips through my body.I have to get out. He can’t see me break.The thought repeats over and over in my head, and my mouth runs off without taking any cues from my brain.
“I don’t know. But I can’t sit here knowing that the answer to what happened to my father could be in this file, and you’re staring at the pictures and won’t tell me what I need to know!”
God, now I sound like a fucking bitch. But I can’t rein it in.
Over the past few days I’ve had to make so many split-second decisions, and now I’m wondering how many of them were wrong. Even more, I’m wondering what price I’ll have to pay to fix them.
“Would you let me explain? You’re so goddamned stubborn,” he says, his breath wafting past my ear.
Another part of me, thebigpart that wants to be as close to him as possible, tells me to lean back. Press into his body. Let his strong arms wrap around me so that instead of seeing me break, he can hold me together.
“What? What could there possibly be to explain?” My voice threatens to crack, and the two warring factions inside me are threatening to tear me in half.
I know I offered to let go of my search for answers before, when the guilt of lying to him about my identity came out.And I meant it.But he also said he’d help me.Did he mean that?
Before the uncertainty takes me to my knees, Cannon grips my shoulders and spins me around to face him.
“Hey!” I screech in protest, but Cannon locks me in the circle of his arms, preventing me from doing anything but staring up into the burning heat of his hazel eyes.
“Do you really think the only reason I give a fuck about what happens with the photos in that file is to prevent you from finding out what happened to your father? No. Memphis, I’m trying to fucking protectyou.I will lose my goddamned mind if something ...” He draws a deep breath, bites his lip as if he’s enduring a tremendous amount of pain, and the intensity in his face is wild. “I’mnevergoing to let anything fucking happen to you. Period.”
Cannon’s words, filled with such emotion, hit me harder than the instinct to run and hide ever could. They shake me loose of the skeletal grip of my fear, and my shaking subsides.
Because he loves me.
And I love him, and I almost ran out on him the first time things between us got the least bit rocky.
That’s not me. That’s not how I’m built.I take a slow, deep breath, and my purse hits the floor with a thump. The file follows it.
When I throw my arms around his neck, the anguish on Cannon’s face fades and the heat in his eyes burns in a new way.
Good.Because he deserves better than what I almost did.
“I’m so sorry. I just—”
He brushes his lips across mine, silencing the rest of my apology before I can get it out. “Baby, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to protect you. Just fucking let me.” His forehead lowers to mine. “Not even you can stop me.”
The hands that were trapping me against the door spear into my hair as his lips crush against mine, taking my mouth and conquering all.
All the fear.
All the worry.
And every damn last scrap of control I thought I had.
17
Cannon
She’s the most maddening woman I’ve ever met in my life, but she’s all fucking mine and I’ll never let her go. Memphis wraps her leg around my hip, locking our bodies together as I take the kiss deeper, desperate for the taste of her on my tongue.