She didn’t like this. “But—”
“They shouldn’t have involved you.” Abruptly he sat up, his back to her, his legs over the side of the bed. “Things are piling up. The robbery—”
“That wasn’t related.”
“Why not? Would professional robbers leave the money behind? And why did one of them isolate you?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. She’d often wondered the same things.
“Then you’re nearly run over, someone broke into your house, and now this.”
Scared, desperate, Merissa traced the tattoo between his shoulder blades, her fingertip outlining the wings of the heart and the thorns wrapped around it. I love you. She inhaled to tell him.
Armie twisted to face her. “The threats started with me, and they’ll stop with me.” He stood, leaving her hand to drop away. “But only if you’re out of the picture.”
Out of the picture.
Disbelief landed a blow to her pride, and to her heart. “You’re breaking up with me?”
Armie stared at her, his expression carefully blank.
An incredulous, nearly hysterical laugh bubbled up. “No, wait, we were never that set in stone anyway, were we? You wanted me to stay a convenient secret.”
Dark eyes flashing, he said, “You know that’s not true.”
“What is true, then?”
He ran a hand over his face, cursed, turned away, turned back and started over. “We don’t know how dangerous this could get and I don’t want you involved.”
“With you?”
“With any of it.” He stopped, inhaled a deep breath. “Hell, Rissy, I don’t even want your name dragged into it. So for your own good—”
“Oh no, you don’t!” She rose up on her knees. “Don’t you dare say avoiding me is for my own good.”
He didn’t break eye contact. After a long, very painful silence, he said, “This has all been a mistake. I should never have touched you in the first place.”
Dear God, how that hurt. She reached out to him. “Armie...”
“If I hadn’t,” he continued evenly, “if I’d been thinking only of you instead of me, you wouldn’t now be a target.”
The knocking of her heavy heartbeat rocked her body. Frantically she searched his face for a way to change his mind.
Outwardly, he looked unaffected, calm. Determined.
But in his dark eyes she saw so much. Armie cares, she told herself. So many times she’d felt his caring.
Damn him for being a misguided martyr!
Knowing him, loving him, she understood that he wouldn’t relent. Armie was the type of man who would go to any lengths to protect others. He honestly believed he’d brought the trouble to her doorstep and that by walking away, he’d take that trouble with him.
What she did next, how she handled this, might decide their future together.
She thought of how he’d protected her at the bank, literally putting himself in the path of a bullet. He would have died for her. She knew it, accepted it.
Unfortunately, he didn’t realize she felt the same about him.
She’d probably never be in a position to prove it to him, but she could stop adding to his angst. She could spare him her excesses of upset and show him that what he thought, what he wanted and needed, was important to her. Instinct told her to throw herself at him, to beg him to see things her way. But Armie deserved better than that. Right now he deserved her strength.
She slipped off the bed and stood before him. When he started to speak, she put a finger to his mouth. “The last thing I ever want to do is make things more difficult for you.” She couldn’t control her shaking or the quaver in her voice.
But she didn’t cry.
“So whatever you need me to do,” she promised, “I’ll do it, even if it means staying away from you for a while.”
“Rissy—”
“No, don’t try to convince me that this is permanent. I promise you, Armie, this whole discussion will quickly tank if you say we’re over for good.”
He wisely closed his mouth. Brows gathered together, he watched her warily.
Continuing, she said, “Personally, I think I’m always safer with you than without you.” She rested her palm over his chest, slid it up to his shoulder. “I think, together, we can handle anything.”
His gaze darkened—with guilt? Pain?
She couldn’t tell. “But this is your rodeo, your first fight, your dad, your past.” And your future. “If you think keeping your distance is the right move, we’ll play it your way.” She lifted her lashes to give him a direct look. “For now.”
“Rissy—”
“You have so much going on.”
He caught her hand and held on to it. “I don’t care about any of that.”
She waited, hoping he’d say it was her that he cared about, but the words never left his mouth.
Deciding not to push him, she released a tight breath. “You know that’s not true. You care about Bray. You care about others being hurt by past lies. And I think you care about winning the fight, whether you’ll admit it or not.”
He hesitated, dropped his head for only a moment before meeting her gaze again. “It’s starting to matter.”
His admission lightened her heart. For so long Armie had stayed contained by a wall of resistance, as if he somehow wasn’t worthy of all the love sent his way. He joked it off, teased and involved himself in sexual situations that could never possibly be intimate.
She wouldn’t fool herself; Armie indulged in wild sex because he liked it. But the outrageousness of it also shored up his superficial lifestyle.
Any small crack in that wall of denial might help to crumble it for good. Everyone who met Armie cared for him. He needed to accept that. He had to know that he deserved the best of everything, and that it was okay to want it.
If it started with him making a splash in the SBC, she’d be okay with that. “I’m glad.”
He put his forehead to hers. “I don’t want you hurt.”
Joy expanded. With Armie, that might be the closest he came to explaining his real motives in sending her away. “I know.” Enveloped in the heat of his body, she kissed him. “Let’s get through your fight debut, and then we’ll discuss this again.”
“It’s not going to go away.”
Neither am I. She forced a smile. “To make this easier on you, I’ll go without a fuss. But you have to promise me something first.” She spoke quickly before he could deny her. “If it’s not me, it’s no one. No other woman. You don’t get to push me aside out of concern, and then drag another woman into the—”
Armie hauled her in for a hard kiss. His big hands cradled her head; from thighs to chest, his hard body pressed to hers. His mouth moved over hers until her lips parted, then she felt the glide of his tongue and melted under the sensual onslaught.
Armie knew how to take pleasure—and how to give it. His kiss was nearly enough to make her forget everything else.
That is, until he turned her loose to ask, “You actually think I’d do that?”
His tortured voice broke her heart, and his ragged breath matched her own.