Page 144 of Tracked
I grimaced, a mix of emotions hitting me. “I don’t know whether to be happy he’s gone or sad he’ll never see justice for what he did. Sad he’ll never see my sister thrive in spite of what happened.”
“It’s okay to be both.” His easy answer loosened the tension in my chest. “Are you going to bed?”
I looked up at him and shook my head. “No. I’m going home with you.”
Calder took my hand as we walked to the Airstream, our pace unhurried under the million-star midnight sky. There was no storm terrorizingtonight. Maybe Mother Nature knew there’d been enough terror over the last few days.
With every step, I heard my sister’s words echo: “Let him love you back.”
Maybe that was what I was doing—what I’d been doing this whole time. Every time I let him lead. Every time I took his orders. Every time I sank into the shelter of vulnerability and obedience ... I was letting him love me. I was trusting him to love me. To lead me. To take charge.
It wasn’t about control. It was because he was intentional. With his words. With his actions. With the whole of his character. And he’d always been like that. He’d always acted with purpose and made decisions with calm clarity.
That was why it was so easy to fall in love with him. Because, for someone who’d always carried everything on her own, he made it easy to step out of survival mode. Out of life and death. He made it easy to step into a space where there was room to breathe. To feel. To live for myself.To love.
“Calder.” I slowed to a stop, forcing him to stop with me before we’d reached the Airstream. His gaze met mine, and I felt the moment start to settle around it. Still. Calm. Magnetic. There was so much I wanted to say. We’d talked about what had happened at the compound, but just the facts. “Thank you for saving me.”
Now there was a storm, but only in his eyes. He released my hand, and his shoulders bunched and his arms flexed as he reached for my neck, nesting my face in his hold.
“When I saw you there ...” He didn’t need to finish. I knew exactly the moment he meant. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Not then. Not now. Not ever.”
For some reason, it hit different when a man who was capable of doinga lotof things—many of them of a violent nature—said those words.
“Calder.” I lost myself in his stare. “I love you.”
It hadn’t been safe to say those words.
It hadn’t been safe to say them first.
It hadn’t been safe to let love in.
Until him.
Now I could say them without worry. Without vulnerability. Because I could trust him to be who he’d always been: the man who made me feel safe enough to be me.
His voice came out raspy, the texture of bark on an oak tree, like it had been holding something living inside him for ages. “I love you, too, Tomb Raider.”
I shuddered as his thumbs brushed my cheeks, and then I tipped my mouth to his. The tenderness of his kiss quickly unraveled and unearthed that wildness hidden under his calm exterior. This time, there was no rain or thunder, no danger or risk. There was nothing but a hundred stars and a million possibilities all around us.
I locked my arms around his neck, and he deepened the kiss, his big arms wrapping around me and his hands grabbing my ass. I melted into him. Into his warmth. His strength. Into the promise of his mouth.
“So, what happens now?” I murmured against his lips when we came up for air.
His gaze danced over my face. “Whatever you want.” His forehead rested on mine, so when he turned his head, mine turned with him. “I can go anywhere,” he said, both of us looking at his Airstream. “I will go anywhere with you.”
My heart volleyed up into my throat. I was falling even more in love with a man who could both lead and know when to follow.
And how could I argue? He could, and did, go anywhere for business. He could easily come back with me to Phoenix and take cases from there without seemingly any change to his lifestyle. But there would be a change, and I’d been with him long enough to know what it was.
His RV was parked here, and whether he wanted to admit it or not, this was his home base.His home.And his family ... as dispersed and independent as they all might have been at times ... was here.
Did I even have a job to go back to in Phoenix? And even if I did, did I want to go back to it?
It wasn’t a simple question, or one that needed a decision tonight. Though, deep down, I felt as if the simple answer had been buried inside my chest for a long time.
“Right now, the only place I want to be is here. With you.”
He dropped his lips back to mine, kissing me roughly, hungrily, leaving no doubt exactly where he wanted to be.
