My passion-filled cries echoed off the shower room tiles, exciting Lachlan, his lovemaking turning savage.
It wasn’t just desire. Or want.
It was need.
And it soothed the ache in my chest as much as it inflamed the hot ache between my legs. Because he was becoming necessary to me.
And I wanted to become a necessity to him too.
29
Lachlan
Those stunning golden, green, brownish, bluish, gray, ever-changing hazel eyes looked up at him as he moved inside her.
Robyn.
Something primitive, something base within him, recognized her as his.
She belonged to him.
But he was at war with that part of himself, even as he tenderly took her for the second time that night, now in the privacy of her bedroom.
Every time the warring side that wanted to run took hold of him, he’d hear her words again, see her hurt, feel it deep in his bones.
This person came after me too. He actually killed someone. And I’ve barely seen you. I’ve been alone in my room every night since. While you were taking care of her.
Robyn Penhaligon was the toughest woman he’d ever met. He teasingly called her Braveheart, yet beneath the banter of endearment was sincerity. But she wasn’t invulnerable. The scars on her chest proved that.
And he’d abandoned her when she’d most needed to feel safe.
The thought was a painful scrape through his gut.
“Robyn,” he murmured her name like a plea and kissed her as he reached between their bodies to torment her like she tormented him.
At the sight, sound, and feel of her climax, Lachlan couldn’t hold back any longer. His hips jerked hard against hers, and he shuddered through his own release.
Spent, he fell onto his side but refused to let go of her. Despite their harsh argument earlier, Robyn turned into him. No barriers. No holding back.
She snuggled her face into his throat and while he liked her there, Lachlan needed more. Tipping her chin back, he kissed her again. Soft but deep.
Possessive.
Fuck.
He broke the kiss and swallowed hard.
Not since his father’s death had he felt so lost at sea.
“I was shot by a drug dealer,” Robyn announced randomly.
It took him a second, but Lachlan realized, no, it wasn’t random.
His fingers trailed down over her chest to the scars.
She was offering … herself.
His breath caught.
Reject the offer and run? Or stay … for once?
Their eyes locked, and the thought of hurting her was worse than any war battling inside him. “When?”
“Just over a year ago. It’s why I left the force.”
Swallowing hard against a vision of some junkie bastard shooting her three times in the chest, he choked out. “Tell me.”
And so she did. When she got to the part about her heart giving out, dying on the OR table, his own heart nearly stopped.
“You left because a job you didn’t love wasn’t worth your life?” he guessed.
Robyn hesitated, and he tensed at the crack in her voice. “That’s what I tell people.”
Turning her face to him with a gentle prod of his fingers to her chin, his voice was like sandpaper as he asked, “What’s the truth?”
Tears brightened her eyes, shocking him into utter silence. She looked heartbroken. “I killed the guy who shot me. His name was Eddie Johnstone. A drug dealer from East Boston. I’d never killed someone before, and although it was self-defense … it took me a long time to work through. I’m not even sure I have properly. My therapist said it will take time.”
A deep ache emanated from his upper chest. “Jesus, Robyn. I’m so sorry. But you must know it wasn’t your fault. And he was a criminal.”
“He was. He wasn’t a very nice guy. But he had a sister and a mother who loved him, and I took him from them.”
“He almost took you from your family.” From me.
“I know.” She reached up to caress his cheek through his beard. “I’m getting there. Slowly but surely. But I never want to be in that position again.”
Lachlan realized she had been put in that position again—when the masked attacker broke into the trailer. He tried not to think too hard on that and asked, “You see a therapist?”
Robyn nodded and talked about the months after the shooting. Bending his head, he pressed soft kisses to her scars as she told him about her recovery, about the therapy, the nightmares she still had sometimes, and about her sister abandoning her when she needed her.
He raised his head and saw the pain of that abandonment buried in the back of her eyes, and vowed he would never lose sight of that vulnerability in Robyn again. He knew better than anyone that often those who seemed the strongest buried their pain a little deeper than the rest. Sometimes those who seemed the strongest needed the support of others more than those around them ever realized.
Past boyfriends, Mac, Regan, even her mother … they’d failed to make Robyn a priority.
Lachlan suspected it was the thing she craved most, even if she couldn’t admit it.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” The words were out before he could stop them.
Instead of flinching from his concerns, Robyn reached up to stroke his cheek, her fingers rasping against the bristle of his beard. “Tell me why you don’t want anything more than casual. Please.”
It was something he’d never said out loud before.
Something he wasn’t too proud of.
And to confess it to Robyn, the most fearless person he knew … “You’ll think less of me.”
“Try me.”
Pulse racing, the urge to remove himself physically from her was strong, and as if she sensed it or felt his increased heart rate, she slid her leg over his, her strong thigh trapping him.
It was hard to want to move after that. “I’m not you, Braveheart,” he admitted. “I might have played an action hero on the screen … but I’m afraid I’m a bit of a cowardly bastard.”
“I don’t believe that.”
He huffed bitterly. “I … I lost my mum. Then I
