Staking His Claim

He needed to try now. When the explosion on the second floor had propelled him back against the marble wall, when he wasn’t sure he’d make it out of the building with the rest of the officers, he’d thought of her. When he’d gone the opposite direction from his team, heading to the bank to finish his assignment of bringing down the target and giving the hostages their freedom, he’d thought of her. Oddly, he’d thought of her playing the accordion. Her husky singing voice, the way her cheeks had been stained pink the entire time. How she’d lifted her chin and kept playing. He’d failed that girl. He’d had his opportunity to tell Brent that he wanted to be with Lucy, permanently, and he’d f**ked it up. He’d let his bullshit insecurities get in the way. He could never get that moment back.

If she’d let him, though, he would spend every ounce of energy making it up to her. If she still wanted him after she knew about all the ugliness he kept inside. If she still thought he was worth it. Worth her. So many ifs, not nearly enough certainties for someone like him who kept everything in its neat little compartment. Lucy couldn’t be compartmentalized. That scared the shit out of him even as he craved finally being set free from the grueling requirements he’d set for himself.

Take it slow. Don’t scare her. Matt glanced over, commanding himself to say something, anything, to banish the wariness from her face. “Gigawatts.”

Her mouth opened and closed. “Huh?”

You are a moronic ass. “I rented Back to the Future the other night. It was good.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Completely implausible, but good.”

She stared at him. “Why did you rent it?”

Matt almost shrugged off her soft question before remembering his resolve to be honest. No more ignoring things that made him uncomfortable. Not if he wanted a chance with her. “I wanted to be around something you like. I wanted to think of you.” Lucy looked dumbfounded. Too much too soon. Reel it back. “Changing the past. Fixing mistakes…I wish I could do that sometimes. You know?”

Her expressed grew shuttered. “Mistakes you made with me?”

Matt thought of the way he’d missed his moment in Quincy’s to claim Lucy. The rough way he’d taken her the first time. His denying her pleasure in the park. “Yes. With you.”

God, he hated not being able to read her. She normally had her heart in her eyes at all time, but right now, when he needed her to be an open book, she’d slammed herself shut.

Keep going. “There’s a lot more I would fix, though.” He paced to the other side of the kitchen, fighting the compulsion to kiss her, distract them both from the conversation.

“Like what?”

Matt searched for the right words, thankful when Lucy filled the silence he let stretch too long. “When I was fourteen,” she said, “my father bought me a dress to wear to my first high school dance. It was horrifying…Day-Glo orange really has no place on a dress.” She popped a grape into her mouth, chewed and swallowed. “So I used my allowance to buy a different dress. One that didn’t look like bicycle reflective gear. It was such a relief, I thought, but when I walked down the stairs, my father looked so disappointed. Crushed.” She lifted one shoulder. “I would go back in time and wear the orange dress. If…gigawatts.”

How did she do it? Disarm him so easily while casually eating a grape? He sighed. “Mine is a little worse.”

For a moment, she seemed to be wrestling with herself. Then she reached over and flipped the light switch on the wall, casting darkness over the kitchen. “Sometimes it’s easier with the lights off.”

She was right. Already a little of the weight had eased from his chest. Not all, but some. He needed more, though. Needed to be closer to her. Hoping she wouldn’t find it strange, he rounded the table to where she stood leaning against the counter. She stayed perfectly still as he rested his hands on either side of her on the counter and fit their bodies together. Automatically, more of the tightening in his upper body lessened. He laid his cheek against the top of her head, enfolded her in his arms and inhaled deeply.

Lucy.

…

She tried, really tried, not to relax against Matt. A near impossible feat when he was holding her like he might break otherwise. He still hadn’t said anything to clarify his intentions, leaving her with a now-familiar sense of confusion, but the urge to comfort him couldn’t be denied. She had the sense that he needed to unburden himself and God help her, she wanted to be the one he did it with. It would ruin her. Instinctively, she knew that. Closed off, Matt was irresistible to her. Once he’d revealed himself, she’d be sunk.

Unfortunately, she’d always been a little reckless. Just never before with her heart. Something told her the consequences would be far worse than being cuffed and stuffed in the back of a police car.

When Matt’s fingers skimmed up the back of her neck and cradled her head, she couldn’t hold herself back anymore. Her body softened like melted butter against the hard angles of his, eyes closing when he sighed as if relieved.

“Baby.”

Lucy’s heart squeezed. “Talk to me, Matt.”

“You asked me what I would change. If…gigawatts. Funny thing is, I don’t even know what I would do to fix what happened.” Matt swallowed audibly. “Tommy, my best friend. We joined the service together. Deployed and were stationed together, too.” A beat passed. “If he’d been acting differently since we arrived, I just assumed it was because of where we were. The danger involved.”

It felt necessary to slip her arms around his waist, so she did. His heartbeat was slightly accelerated against her ear, but somehow reassuring nonetheless.

“It was a roadside bomb. I was driving, he was walking outside the vehicle with three other men. If had been the day before or after, it would have been me. He would have been driving. The randomness of that…”

He cleared his throat. She could feel his hesitation to go on, his guilt and grief. It was palpable in the air around them. “You never know what to expect in that kind of situation, watching your friend die. You couldn’t know.” A pause. “I didn’t expect him to tell me with his last breath that he’d been sleeping with my fiancée.”

Lucy pulled back, trying to keep the horror from her face and failing. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting him to say. It hadn’t been that. “Oh no, Matt.”

“He loved her. I could tell. And I realized…I didn’t. Not like he did.” His voice took on a faraway quality. “How selfish is that? He must have hated me.”

“They were in the wrong. Not you.”

Matt looked down at her, then away. “No. I was young and ignorant. I couldn’t see what was right in front of me, and I ruined two lives because of it.”

“How can you believe that?” she whispered.

He didn’t answer her. “I tried to work it out with her, even though I could tell she blamed me for Tommy. Hates me for it. I just thought I owed him, after…”

“God, Matt.” His reaction to her initial deception came back in a blinding rush. The anger on his face when he confronted her outside the party. I don’t tolerate liars. Suddenly everything came into startling focus. I’m a liar in his eyes. He can’t tolerate me. “You really one-upped my orange dress story,” she choked out.