Bossman(60)

I pointed out the obvious. “Umm…you’re already awake. I don’t think that would help with this morning’s nightmares.”

“Maybe not, but there’s always tomorrow.”

I smiled, leaned back, and lifted my shirt over my head. Pressing my bare skin to his, I asked, “Better?”

“Sure is.”

We stayed like that for a good ten minutes, our breaths synchronizing in the quiet, dark room.

“Peyton’s dad took off when she was little, and her, her mother, and her two sisters ate all their meals in a shelter for a while. When Peyton got older, she wanted to give back, so she volunteered at a few local soup kitchens. She made friends with this one guy, Eddie. He had issues with people coming too close to him, so he refused to sleep in the shelters. Eddie was being harassed by a group of teenagers. They’d show up at night at a homeless camp—where a lot of people who had nowhere else to go slept—and start trouble. It was a game they played. Every few days he’d come in with a gash on his head or bruises.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Yeah. Peyton went to the police, but they didn’t do much. Eddie didn’t speak more than a word or two here and there, and Peyton couldn’t let it go. She started following him at night to see where he was staying, thinking if she gave the police more specifics they might look into it further. I told her it wasn’t safe, but she didn’t listen. The day of our engagement party, Eddie showed up at the shelter with a broken nose and two black eyes. Peyton had figured out where he was staying, and went down there that night to see if she could pry more information out of others since Eddie didn’t talk much. She was supposed to wait for me at the train station.”

“Oh God.”

“I found her a few minutes too late. Eddie was cradling her and rocking back and forth, sitting in a pool of her blood. Knife wound. She must have gotten in the way of their game of beating up homeless people.” He took a deep breath in and out. “She was gone before they got her in the ambulance.”

My throat burned, and tears stung my eyes as they slid down my face.

Chase must have felt the wetness on his back. “Are you crying?”

The passage from my chest to my lips was clogged. It was hard to speak. “I’m so sorry that happened to you, Chase. I can’t even imagine what you went through.”

“I didn’t tell you to get you upset. I wanted you to know so there’s nothing between us. I hate that the nightmares came back at all, but this is the first time I’ve felt anything more than physical for someone since Peyton, and I don’t want to screw it up before it even has a chance to get started.”#p#分页标题#e#

“You’re not screwing things up—just the opposite.”

Chase turned, pulling me from behind him onto his lap. Pushing a piece of hair behind my ear, he said, “I’m not the hero your brother is.”

My eyebrows drew together. “What are you talking about?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t keep Peyton safe.”

“Keep her safe? What happened wasn’t your fault. How could it be?”

“I should have been there with her.”

“Chase, that’s crazy. You can’t be with someone twenty-four hours a day to protect them. It’s not like you put the knife in the killer’s hand. People need to take responsibility for their own protection. That’s why I’m the way I am. My own experiences have made me even more aware of that. ”

Chase looked into my eyes, like he was searching for sincerity. When he found it, which of course he did because I’d meant every word I said from the bottom of my heart, he nodded and kissed my lips gently.

He exhaled, and I actually felt the tension leave his body. Checking the bedside alarm clock, he said, “It’s not even five o’clock. Why don’t we try to get some sleep?”

I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate or not, but I wanted to make him feel better, get his mind off of the sadness of the past. Neither one of us could change what had happened in our lives, but we could leave it there and move forward and continue to live. My eyelashes fluttered before I spoke from beneath them. “I’m not sleepy.”

“No?”

I shook my head back and forth slowly.

The timbre of his voice dropped. “What did you have in mind?”

“Maybe a little of this.” Dipping my head, I kissed his pectoral muscle. Working my way up, I alternated between gentle licking and sucking until I reached his jaw. My tongue trailed from one end of his beautiful mouth to the other, planting a soft kiss at the corner of his lips.