I wrap my hands around his waist, holding him close to me as I press my face against his chest. At the risk of looking like a total weirdo, I take a deep breath and inhale him in. He smells so good. Woodsy, like he just spent the afternoon in a forest cutting down trees.
His strong arms surround me, and I just want to get lost in the feeling of being close to him. You’d think it’s been months, not just a few hours, since we stood exactly like this. I don’t know if I’ll ever get enough of him after being apart for so long.
“I missed you,” he whispers against the side of my head and I don’t hold back the grin that takes over my face.
It’s like he was reading my thoughts, knowing how much I missed being away from him.
“I missed you.” I smile, tilting my head back so I can stare at him.
He winks at me, pressing a kiss against my mouth. Running my palms over his firm chest, I wrap my hand around the base of his neck and hold him to me. When his tongue brushes along my lower lip, seeking entrance, I don’t even hesitate to let him in.
And just like that I’m lost in this moment with him again. When our lips break apart, we stand here with his forehead pressed against mine as we both work to regain our breath.
“How was your day?”
I wait for him to answer, all while thinking about how crazy I’ll probably look to him when I tell him how I literally couldn’t keep my mind off him all day. How I was tuning out my clients when they talked, thinking back about our time in the dining room followed by our long night together in his bed.
“Busy,” he says, running the palms of his hands over his eyes. The fatigue I noticed the night of the wedding is still there. It hurts a little thinking about how different his day probably was for him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Just a lot going on at the office. Then, the fire chief stopped by to talk to me about the fire at my mom’s.”
The mention of the fire piques my interest, as I pull him behind me into the living room. I urge him to sit down beside me on the couch, taking his hand waiting to hear what he says next.
Not liking the way we’re seated, he scoots back and picks up my legs so they’re laying across his lap before wrapping his hands back around mine. I rest my head on his shoulder, as I wait for him to continue.
“They confirmed it was arson,” he sighs.
Sitting up, I look at him. I know they were going to investigate it, and despite the worry in the back of my mind, I still expected them to come back with a different answer.
“Do they have any suspects?” Immediately my mind jumps back to our conversation about Krate and what he told me the other night. I imagine someone trying to hurt Sandy and it kills me to think about the extent they would be willing to go now to do so.
“They do,” he says, pausing as he looks at me. “Apparently they think it’s some kid who lives nearby. He was caught doing the same thing last month at a house down behind Brodie’s.”
“Do you believe them?”
He looks over at me, and I see the answers in his eyes. This is what is wearing on him. He doesn’t believe it for a second.
“Not at all. I can’t help but think it has to do with Krate and his guys. After that night he bothered you outside of Hudson’s, we think he’s been trying to send a message for us to back off him. We know something is about to go down, we’re just not sure what. He’s trying to scare us into backing down.”
“Graham,” I say, confirming my earlier fears. What lengths are they willing to go to try and get them to back down?
“Halle, do you trust me to always keep you safe?”
Squeezing his hands in mine, I hold them up to my mouth as I press a kiss against his skin. He leans forward and presses a kiss against my lips. I want to get lost in him right now. I want to forget about the world outside my doorstep and just stay here, just the two of us, forever.
“Do you trust me?” he asks, as our lips break apart.
“You know I do,” I whisper. I realize then that I do. Despite everything that happened between us before, I do believe he’s always done right by me. We may not always agree on what that means, but I do believe he wants to keep me safe and protect me.
“Good, I need you to trust me right now. I would never let anything happen to you or my mom. I’d go down fighting, I’d give my very last breath before I’d ever let anyone hurt you.”
Tears form in my eyes because even though I know without a doubt he means what he says, I hope it would never come to that.
He presses his hand against the side of my face, running his thumb underneath my eyes to catch a tear trailing down my cheek.
“Don’t cry, baby. You’re too beautiful to be crying.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, running the palms of my hands over my face. “I’m okay, I promise.”
Taking a deep breath, I flash Graham a hesitant smile as he moves my legs to stand.
“C’mon, let’s forget everything and go have some fun.”
He holds his hands out in front of me and I grab them, as he pulls me to stand with him. As soon as I’m standing, he wraps his arms around me in a hug as he whispers “I promise” into my ear before grabbing my hand again and pulling me alongside him over to the front door.
The excitement I had felt earlier feels like it’s been sucked right out of me.
“Do you think we should still go? What about your mom? Maybe we should go over and stay with her for a little bit.”
“Halle, I promise you she’s alright. I have eyes on her place right now. I need you to trust me,” he whispers.
Hearing him mention he has eyes on her right now, my mind drifts to when I was outside Hudson’s, the night I ran into Krate and how quickly it seemed like Maverick swooped in and ran him off.
I can’t help but wonder if he has eyes on me too. He just promised he would go down fighting to protect us both and to keep us safe. It dawns on me there are times when we are not together, and I wonder if he’s protecting me from a distance when that’s the case.
“Now c’mon,” he says, swatting at my butt as he winks at me. “Let’s get moving.”
My eyes narrow at him, challenging him which earns me a laugh. He’s in for it alright.
Standing in the entryway, I prop my foot up on the bench and slip on my shoe, leaning forward to tie it.
Glancing over my shoulder at Graham, I watch the way he stares at me. His eyes eat up every inch of my lower body. He’s always had a thing for my legs, that goes back to our days in high school.
Clearing my throat, his eyes dart up to mine and he realizes then he’s been busted. He doesn’t even argue how he was blatantly staring at me. Picking up my other shoe, I move to slip it on and bend forward once again to tie it.
“We’re not going to get very far if you keep looking at me like that.”
“Tell me, how exactly am I looking at you right now?”
“Like you want to bend me over this bench and forget every plan we had made for tonight.”
Without a word, his body is pressed against my back, leaving little room between us as his arms band around me holding me to him. One hand is wrapped around my lower body, skating along the waist of my denim shorts while the other is draped over my chest, his palm holding the curve of my breast in his hand.