A Steel Heart (Heart #2) Read online

  I hardly realized what I was saying between the cold meds and the beautiful man letting me touch him beneath me.

  “My favorite list is my very first. It’s my The One List. It’s a list of all the qualities the man who will love me forever will possess. The man I’ll love forever, too.” I grinned against Holden’s chest, thinking of my list. I felt silly and a little drunk.

  His hand stilled mine just as my fingertips dipped under the edge of his pants. “And what will he be like?” he said it quietly, almost like he didn’t want to ask, apprehensive. Almost like he was afraid of the answer.

  “Handsome, sweet, smart, brave, funny. I mean, I could go on all day here, Hold.” I giggled.

  With the arm that wasn’t around me, he grabbed one of my books off the bedside table next to us and held it up. “He’ll be like the guys in one of your romantic novels?”

  I looked into his eyes and smiled as best as I could from my position on his chest. “Absolutely.”

  He frowned down at me and that scowl made me want to press my girly parts against him. Too bad I was too sick and tired to move.

  “You know that’s ridiculous, right?” He scoffed and waved the book around. “Your dream man isn’t going to appear out of one of these over romanticized stories, Mae.”

  He said it roughly and direct, like he was trying to snap me out of some stupid girl’s fantasy, but I wasn’t any naive girl. I knew no one was perfect, but I also knew what I wanted.

  I used what little energy I had to force my head up. I leaned my arms against his chest and rested my chin on them. “I know that, Holden. I don’t expect my one to walk from the pages of one of my romance novels. Whoever this man is, when he comes for me, we’re gonna write our own story.”

  He stared at me seemingly confounded and I laid my head back to his chest, too tired to talk anymore, much less argue. But I laid there, sad for him. Didn’t he believe in true love? Didn’t he think he was worthy of being someone’s list? I was exhausted, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking one last question.

  “Don’t you believe in soulmates, Holden?”

  His chest moved up and down heavily beneath my head for a few moments before he answered.

  “Maybe, Mae. I don’t know.” He blew out a long breath and I looked up to observe him. He looked thoughtful, confused, even a little angry. “But if I did, I don’t think they would be something you can list or even predict. They would come when you least expect it.” He stopped long enough to use his fingers to tilt my chin up toward him so I could see his serious eyes. “And from my experience, they would be nothing like you’d think they’d be. They would be nothing you could possibly prepare for. They would be unexpected and surprising and nothing like you thought you wanted. And that’s what would make them beautiful.”

  Even as sick as a dog, my skin buzzed. My scalp prickled. And suddenly I wasn’t freezing anymore. I felt hot all over. Holden was a romantic. I would’ve never believed it if I hadn’t heard it with my own ears. And maybe he was right. Maybe my list was silly. Maybe I didn’t want that list. Maybe I didn’t know what I wanted. Maybe I’d only know when it came. I pressed into Holden’s side. Maybe it had already come.

  “You might be right,” I whispered. “But I still want it.”

  He pushed some hair off my forehead. “Want what?”

  “True love. Mad love. Deep love. The kind of love that makes you do insane things. The kind of love that makes you as angry as it does happy. The kind of love that hurts you as much as it heals you. The forever kind.”

  My eyes closed. I was exhausted, but I finished before dozing off. “Truly. Madly. Deeply. That’s what I want.”

  A twitching beneath me tore me from a deep slumber. I peeled my eyelids back from my dry, crusty eyes. Despite the crustiness, I was feeling a bit better.

  I noticed the room was slightly lit with the very beginnings of morning when I felt another twitch beneath me. I looked down at Holden’s sleeping face. The early light across his face. His torso moved a bit again under me, but I couldn’t stop looking at the gorgeous features of his face. Because an awake, scowling Holden was the thing that wet dreams were made of. But this sleeping giant of a man with his sweet face made me feel things I’d never felt before. Things I didn’t understand. Why did my heart hurt at how beautifully boyish he looked without that deep line between his brows, without the always present lines of his frown? His face was smooth. His high cheekbones seemed chiseled from stone. His forehead smooth and wrinkle free. His lips soft and full, and God, I wanted to run my tongue across those lips. But never in a million years would I ruin this moment, not even with a small kiss because never had this man looked so youthful, so free, as he did in that moment and I didn’t want it to end. I wanted to study this face and commit it to memory because I didn’t think I’d ever seen anything more devastatingly magnificent than Holden at peace. Because I was sure that’s what this was. And I wondered immediately if he ever felt a moment’s peace without sleep? If sleep was his only escape?

  I ran one finger over the sharp line of his nose and down to his plump lips, paying special attention to the scar above his eye. I wondered at it. I wondered about his leg. How far up it was gone. How it happened. When it happened. I wondered about a lot of things as I stroked his face, careful not to wake him, but knowing I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to touch him like I’d been wanting.

  I studied his long torso, only feeling slightly embarrassed about how I’d climbed on top of him last night.

  No regrets, I told myself. Only happiness.

  I couldn’t help but bite my lip at the pure manliness that was Holden. His body was solid and healthy and utterly beautiful. I knew he was ashamed of his prosthesis, but as I looked him over, I knew there wasn’t a thing about him to be ashamed of. He was utter perfection and I wouldn’t change a hair on his growly over-the-top head.

  A whimper and another twitch drew my eyes back up to his face. The line between his eyes was back. His eyes moved rapidly beneath his eyelids and another whimper eased past his lips. I heard what sounded like the grinding of teeth.

  His head moved back and forth on the pillow, cushioning it and his lips pulled back, bearing his clenched teeth.

  “No! No!” he ground out and all of a sudden he thrashed on the bed beneath my body.

  And that’s when I realized what was happening. He was having a nightmare of some kind.

  I had no clue what was happening. I’d never in my life experienced someone having such a violent dream. So I did what came natural to me. I grabbed his thrashing head in my palms and leaned close to him until our noses were only inches apart. “Holden, wake up,” I cooed down at him. “Come on, honey. It’s me. Mae.”

  Still asleep, he tried to pull his head from my hands and his large body moved back and forth on the mattress. His face had now become slick with sweat, his twists and turns in my queen bed more violent, knocking my headboard against the wall behind us. His hands clutched at my bedding like they were his lifeline.

  My pulse pounded throughout my body. His dreams terrified me and I wasn’t even there. I didn’t know what to do, so I climbed on top of him, straddling his big body as best as my legs let me. I laid my head right in the center of his chest and wrapped my arms tight around him to keep him from moving too much. And I begged and begged.

  “Holden, please wake up. Please.”

  I squeezed harder. “Come on, baby. Wake up.”

  I lifted my head, still squeezing his torso, and kissed his right cheek. He stilled a little, so I kissed the other side, too. Then his forehead. Finally brave enough, I kissed the corner of his mouth. My teeth ached at the sweetness in that kiss.

  “Wake up, honey,” I whispered right into his ear and I knew the moment he did, because he went silent beneath me. Finally still.

  I sagged against his body but didn’t move, my warm cheek pressed to the scruffy heat of his, my lips up against the shell of his ear.

  “You’re awake,” I
said softly right into that ear.

  His hands left the tangles of my sheets and ghosted up my thighs and past my hips to my waist, where he wrapped his forearms around.

  “Yes,” he confirmed.

  He hugged me to him and I let him, because the big lug needed a hug and who was I to deny him. I found I was having trouble denying this man anything lately.

  “Does that happen a lot?” I asked, already knowing the answer, but hoping I was wrong. He cleared his throat. “Every night.”

  I wrapped my legs and arms tighter around him. I didn’t care how heavy I was. I needed a hug now. I couldn’t bear it, his suffering. It hurt me on a level I never expected.

  And I’d been wrong. I’d accused him of sexing it up every night and all this time he’d been having nightmares. Was this some sort of post-traumatic stress from the military? I didn’t know. Holden told me hardly anything and I knew little to nothing about this sort of thing. I felt helpless and wrong. I thought of the banging of the headboard on the wall between our beds and my heart fell. I was so terribly wrong for accusing him of something he wasn’t doing that was none of my business in the dang first place.

  “So no sexual shenanigans?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood, but also so I could make my way into an apology.

  Holden let go of my waist and his hands landed low on my hips. I wiggled against him because his hands felt a little too good there.

  I felt him shake his head. “Nope. Sorry to disappoint your overactive and very, very dirty imagination.”

  He didn’t have that wrong.

  I chuckled and lifted my head and then my body so I was sitting up and finally looking down at him, but when I sat back on my knees, I felt a very large bulge against my behind. My apology flew the coop at the feel of his hardness.

  Holden groaned even as he gripped my hips harder, his eyes closing softly. He lifted his pelvis and ground up against me hard, letting out another hard grunt before rolling us over until he was on top. He was settled between my thighs but completely still, his inquisitive gaze boring down on me. His eyes eating me up with questions. But I didn’t know what they were asking, so I didn’t have any answers for him.

  “I should go?” he said softly, questioningly but not breaking our hypnotic eye contact.

  I barely heard him. He was hard. Between my legs. His mouth was so close to mine. His eyes were burning through me. And between my legs ached like I’d never experienced before. I was on sensory overload.

  “Okay,” I breathed back at him, not quite sure what I was agreeing to, but hoping it was something good.

  He pushed off me quickly, leaving me feeling cold and bereft and completely confused. What had happened? Was Holden attracted to me beyond friendship? That weapon in his pants said yes, or was it just a case of morning wood?

  I sat up, ready to ask him a few questions myself when he said, “Call me if you need anything,” before leaving the room.

  I heard the apartment door close a minute later and laid back in my bed against my pillow, Holden’s manly smell still there, torturing me. I needed something all right. Wink wink. And even though he’d left me a worked up mess, I couldn’t help but think of what had happened in the whirlwind of the last day.

  I thought about how he’d taken care of me. How he’d talked to me in the dark like we were old friends. And then I thought of his dreams. No, his nightmares. I thought on that sweet boyish face he sported when he was sleeping. And I worried for him. It hit me, then. Oh, God. My Holden. No, he didn’t even get peace in his sleep. And it shredded me.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about Mae. I couldn’t stop thinking about her smell, her hugs, her laughter, her ridiculous jokes. Her lips. How they’d kissed the corner of my mouth awake the day before.

  I shook my head at myself as I made a protein shake before my walk. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep. I hadn’t meant to. I knew what would happen. I never slept without going back. Without visiting my demons, my worst nightmares. The fucking incessant memories that wouldn’t go away and that seemed to always haunt me.

  For once I was hoping Mae still wasn’t feeling up to walking because I wasn’t ready to face her yet. I was embarrassed about my nightmare, but mostly I was terrified of the way I felt when I’d woken up next to her. Well, under her really. I’d run out of her apartment like a big fucking scaredy cat because I was. I didn’t like how she made me feel. What she made me want. Because I knew I couldn’t have any of it. Mae wasn’t for me.

  She had a list, for fuck’s sake, and I was willing to bet that a washed-up army ranger with one fucking leg wasn’t on it. I rubbed my hand over my chest. It hurt.

  My Mae, she was shiny. New. I was old. Worn-out. Beyond battered and used up. I had nothing to offer her. Some other man would come along and he’d be the list. He’d be as youthful and vibrant as her. He’d take her from me. I wouldn’t get our walks. Our talks. He’d kiss her lips. The very ones I couldn’t stop thinking about. The thought fucking killed me.

  I drank down my shake quickly and loaded my cup in the dishwasher, thinking of how messy Mae’s apartment had been compared to mine. She’d probably think I was a neat freak and I smiled thinking about the jokes she’d make about how clean I was. I’d grown used to smiling when I thought of her because I couldn’t seem to help it.

  I opened the door to my apartment and stepped out into the hallway, not at all expecting to see Mae and the neighbor boy there waiting. They were both wearing tennis shoes and Will was holding a water bottle.

  She smiled easily at me if a little apprehensively. “Mind if we have company for our walk today? His mom got called into work.”

  I looked down at the little interloper. I narrowed my eyes on him as Mae pushed him forward. A man was already here to steal my girl. And he was a little more youthful and vibrant than I had bargained for.

  “This is Will.” She looked down at Will and then pointed at me. “Will, this is Holden. He’s a friend of mine.”

  Will’s face screwed up at me in disgust and then looked back at Mae. “But he’s a butthole,” he said point-blank.

  Goddamn kids and their honesty. I guess I deserved it. I was a butthole to him the few times I saw him.

  My eyes latched onto a sputtering Mae that was squatting down in front of Will, gorgeous ass in the air. “Do not say butthole. It’s not a nice word. And I promise Holden won’t be a butthole today. He was just having a few bad days the last time we saw him.” She eyed me over her shoulder like I’d better be on my best behavior before turning back to Will.

  I couldn’t help but check out her ass bent down in those leggings. Mae had the body of a fucking goddess. The very idea that she thought I called her fat was just plain outrageous. Yes, Mae was soft and thick in all the right places, her body voluptuous and just fucking perfect in every possible way. I wanted to put my mouth on every damn inch of it.

  “He’s checking out your butt,” the munchkin ratted me out.

  She paused for a second before standing at full height and turning to me, her cheeks flushed pink like how I imagined she looked right after a good orgasm. Fuck. I would’ve adjusted my hardening cock behind my pants, but the kid was still eyeing me pretty hard. She glared at me with raised eyebrows, but I wasn’t a liar, so I just shrugged my shoulders.

  She looked back and forth between us. “Okay,” she breathed out, clearly deciding to ignore the fact that I wasn’t going to deny checking out her ass, and looked back at Will and then at me again. “We’re gonna have a great walk today. Because I’m with both of my boys.”

  I almost smiled as we made our way down the stairs. I was one of her boys, but so was the kid. Will? Was that his name? I didn’t know many kids at all. I didn’t really have any family besides my sister and she didn’t have any kids. I looked over at him, studying his small hand in Mae’s. He was cute, I guess, and he smiled a lot at my girl. I could see why she was smitten with him.

  “I’m hungry,” Will chimed as soon as our feet hit the sidewa
lk outside our building. Not even two feet into our walk and the kid was already complaining.

  We stopped right in front of Letty’s.

  “Do you think you can wait until we get back from our walk with Holden?”

  The kid glared around Mae, drilling holes in me before turning pitiful eyes back to her.

  “I don’t think so. I’m really hungry,” he whined, beyond heartbreaking. Mad acting skills, this one.

  Mae turned back to me. “I’m sorry, Hold, just go on without us. I’m gonna get Will some breakfast.”

  I looked around her at the kid who was ruining my perfectly good morning. And he was smiling at me. The little shit. He was trying to push me out. Nope. Not gonna work. I’d faced plenty of terrorists in my career. A tiny one wasn’t going to take me out.

  I glared back at him and raised my hand to push a strand of hair behind Mae’s ear, enjoying touching her far too much. “Nah, I’ll join y’all. I could use a coffee anyway.”

  She looked shocked and I didn’t know if it was from my touch or from the fact that I’d offered to stay with them.

  “Great.” She smiled and opened the door to Letty’s.

  I grabbed the door over her head and held it open. “Ladies first.”

  She walked in with a very mad little boy behind her. He glared at me as he walked by and then used his pointer finger and middle finger on his right hand and pointed to his eyes and then at me before going through the door.

  What the hell was that? Was he saying he was watching me? This was almost fucking comical.

  I ran my hands through my hair at the craziness I’d gotten myself into as I took a seat in one of the booths, knowing I needed a haircut. Was I really competing with a little kid for the attention of a woman? The little schemer made sure to grab Mae’s hand so that she’d sit on his side of the booth. He looked smug as they sat across from me, but I didn’t mind. From here, I had the perfect view of my gorgeous girl. I mentally berated myself. I had to stop thinking of Mae as mine.