But that sound…my God…what was that sound?
I could feel Grant’s stare boring into the side of my face, so I shifted my stance to square off with him. All the while, a thousand different thoughts banged around inside my head. Like dirty pigeons in a city park, all taking flight in unison after a wayward child escaped his mother’s grasp to terrorize them. Cacophonous, leathery wings flapped in thirty-six different directions inside my skull—all at the same time. I had to close my eyes and try to make the clamoring riot stop. With fingers pressed to my temples and eyes squeezed shut, I hummed as loudly as possible to drown out the sound.
“God! That sound—make it stop!” I looked to my hero for assistance, but he was frozen in horror too. He usually fixed everything else, but he just stood staring at me in panic.
“Make it stop!” I shouted again, gripping feverishly at my ears.
“Rio!” Grant shouted while trying to wrestle my hands down to my sides. What had started as a simple stress stopper, with my fingertips on the pressure points at my temples, had morphed into gauging at my hairline with my fingernails. Droplets of blood trickled down my face, under my jaw, and continued down my neck.
“Rio, stop! You’re hurting yourself!” Grant begged.
“Make it stop!” I shouted blindly. My vision was blurry, and that damn noise!
“Baby, please! Look at me! Open your eyes and see me.”
When I finally followed his commands, nothing made sense. The panicked look on his face was the most confusing of all. Jesus Christ, what just happened? My head was throbbing and hurting so badly. I carefully touched the source of the stinging sensation, only to pull back bloodstained fingertips. I shot my questioning look to Grant, but he was frozen with shock and dismay. He stared at me like I was a complete lunatic. And I’d seen the look before. I was definitely interpreting it correctly.
News flash: It never got easier.
But when the man you loved looked at you that way, a piece of your heart actually shattered.
Shit. I wasn’t in love with Grant. That’s not what I meant. I knew that. But I did love him. He represented all the good things in my life. All the things that grounded me and kept me fighting for the next day. Fighting for hope for a better day the following day.
Was I revealing all that in my gaze now too? Because when I finally built up the courage to search for his gaze again, I found it filled with nothing but sincere understanding and patience. His ocean blues were mesmerizing with their adoration, especially as he zeroed more of that energy in on me.
Oh, God.
I didn’t deserve this from him. Any of it. Not ever, really, but especially right now.
The more I let my insecurities run wild in my fucked-up, broken-down mind, the more I thought what I saw was really pity. “Why are you looking at me like that?” I snapped.
“Let me help you. Or more like, can you help me right now, Blaze?” He reached for my hand, and before I could think to pull away from him, he scooped it up in his own and towed me to the closest lounge chair.
We shared the bottom half of the chaise where Grant arranged us so we faced one another. Finally, he reverently kissed the center of my palm and then pressed it to the side of his face. His skin was always so warm and virile, and he let his eyes drift closed like he was getting some sort of comfort from my touch. Could that even be possible? Could I give anything to this incredible soul? Add anything to his world when all I seemed to do was take from him? Drain him of his kindness, energy, and light?
Without taking my hand from his face, he reached for my other one and repeated the gesture. I held his handsome features between my palms, and he rubbed his stubbled cheeks between the two.
“Wha-What are you doing?” I whispered, enraptured with watching our bodies restore one another.
“Mmmm.” He hummed low in his throat. “I just want to feel you touching me right now. I need to feel you. Sometimes the need is so strong I can’t think of anything else but feeling your hands on me, just like this.”
I rubbed small circles on his angular cheekbones with my thumbs, and he leaned into my touch even more.
“Your touch calms me or something. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. I just know how I feel. And it’s not a sexual thing. It feels more like a spiritual thing, as lame as that sounds.” He squinted his eyes, and I was utterly floored by his honesty.
“It’s not lame. It’s beautiful. I’m honored to be able to give you something you need, Grant. You give me so much, so often. If this is something I can do for you—something that makes you feel good—then I’m more than happy to do it. It’s not like touching you is a hardship.” I laughed a little, trying to lighten the heavy conversation.
“I’m terrified you’re going to vanish before my very eyes,” he said, looking directly into my soul.
“And that would be a bad thing?”
“Rio…”
His honesty gave me the courage needed to take the final leap that he had been waiting for. Though honestly, I felt more like sprinting for the rail and diving into the ocean instead. “I’ll go talk to someone when we get home,” I muttered quietly. I found his gaze in the dim light of the moon and held it, waiting for the impact of my declaration to wash over him.
Grant’s eyes widened, and he sat forward. It might have even been comical to watch as an outsider. Unfortunately, I just felt worse for how badly he wanted me to do this one thing. And how equally badly I didn’t want to do the same thing.
“You really will?” he asked with an eagerness he didn’t try to disguise.
“Shit, Tree. Don’t look so enthusiastic. You’re going to make me paranoid you’ve been thinking I’m a crackpot all this time, and you’ve just taken pity on me.” I gave him a playful side-eye, but I knew in my heart I meant every single word.
Of course, he saw right through it. “You listen to me, Rio. Katrina. Gibson.” With each part of my name, he moved deeper into my personal space. He crowded in until we were chest to chest and there wasn’t room for a playing card between us.
“The only thing I’ve ever thought about you is how incredibly smart, funny, brave, kind, and—fuck me—sexy as hell you are. Am I making myself clear, woman?”
I just gulped and nodded. The sultry way he was looking at me now, and grinding his very hard dick into me, robbed me of any sort of coherent thought.
“So do you trust me now, Rio? I’ve never hurt you, have I? Everything and anything I’ve ever done where you’re concerned has been with your best interest at the front and center. Has it not?”
“Yes. Yes, of course, it has.”
“And do you trust me? I didn’t miss that you left that answer out the first time,” he said with a wink.
“I do,” I answered solemnly.
“I really think talking to someone will help you, baby. I wouldn’t lead you into something that I thought would bring you harm. Do you believe me when I say that too?”
I pulled in a long breath on purpose. He needed to see that this challenge was harder to answer than his others. And hello, talk about a buzzkill. This fit the bill way too well. On the few occasions I’d given mental health professionals a whirl, it had never been a great experience.