Chapter 13

The stiffness in my back the next morning told me that I was officially too old to fall asleep on the couch, even for just one night. Even when it was made even better by the fact that the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen had fallen asleep on top of me, and I'd woken up with the scent of her in my nose for the second morning in a row.

After she'd opened up to me about her work and how she'd loved being a therapist, we'd talked more about some of the toughest cases she'd ever treated and about how she'd dealt with them. I loved hearing her stories, and I'd kept asking her for more and more of them. Eventually she'd just bent over and laid herself down on top of my body, leaning forward to crush my mouth with hers in a searing kiss.

I didn't know how much time we'd spent like that, simply kissing, but I could've taken days just enjoying her soft lips and their interplay with mine. Eventually, when she'd broken off the kiss, we'd just gone back to talking, and I was amazed by how easy it was with her.

When she'd fallen asleep on my chest, I hadn't wanted to disturb her, so I'd just let her stay there, running my fingertips over the soft skin of her arms. It wasn't long before I'd fallen asleep too.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd fallen asleep that easily or slept that well. I tucked my fingers into the long hair that flowed over her back and ran the tips over her scalp, pushing just hard enough to get a reaction from her. She groaned, and the sound reminded me sharply of the other sounds that I'd elicited from her only two nights before.

"Macy," I murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

"Noooooo," she said, the word coming out plaintive, as if she was begging not to be disturbed.

"Macy, we've been here all night. Do you want to get up and go to bed?"

She lifted her head up from my chest, and her face looked so adorably bleary that I couldn't help leaning forward to kiss her. Her lips were soft with sleep, and they gave as I moved mine with them.

"Do you want to go to your bed, Macy?" I asked.

She looked around, blinking sleepily at the detritus left around us from the dinner she'd made. "We didn't clean up from dinner. I'm just gonna wash the dishes, and then I'll go to bed."

I couldn't help watching, entertained, as she got up from the couch and stumbled off toward the kitchen, but she was clearly so tired that she could barely follow a straight line. I got up and followed her, scooping her up into my arms and carrying her down the hall.

"I'm not letting you near my dishes until you can walk in a straight line. You'd probably drop all of them."

"Probably," she said, her head dropping back against my chest as she curled into me. I felt a pang in my chest as I held her, and when I laid her in her bed, she gripped my shirt tightly in her hand for a minute. I was tempted to lie down with her, but this was already getting dangerously intimate, so I softly unclenched her fingers from my shirt and headed back to the kitchen, where I started putting everything away from the night before.

As I thought about the career she'd been forced to surrender, I started feeling my fury rise again. I hated the man who'd forced her to give that up, more than I'd ever hated anyone.

The truth was that even though I'd spent years on my own, and contentedly so, she'd caused a major disruption to my equilibrium. And what was even more disturbing was that I wasn't all that upset about it.

When I'd first offered her the cabin as a place to stay until she felt safe again, I'd anticipated that I would feel crowded out of my home. That even though it was just the addition of one more person and she needed the place to stay, I'd just sensed that I would feel smothered in the house with her there, and I'd figured I'd be counting down the days until she left.

Instead, I was feeling more and more like catching her piece-of-shit ex would be a mixed blessing. When we found him, she wouldn't want to stick around anymore. She hadn't made it a secret that she thought I was a control freak and that she didn't have any time for my bullshit.

Well, it would be better that way in the long run. If she did want to stay, and I accepted that, then she would inevitably become a vulnerability. And wasn't that why I'd done all of this? Why I'd come out here from Nashville and left everything I'd worked for behind?

Everyone had called me crazy when I'd said that I was going to live in my uncle's old cabin in the Smokies instead of trying to stay on the force and put my name in for captain, but I just hadn't been able to face it. Not after everything that had happened with Neil.

No, this couldn't last. She deserved better than this—than me.

She deserved to be able to go back to her home, where she'd left behind her life and the job that she'd loved, and her mom.

She didn't need the former cop with too many demons to count.

I finished the last of the cleanup just as the sun finished cresting over the trees and put the coffee on as I thought of our next steps. It was clear that she hated being kept in the cabin, and I couldn't blame her. Anyone would get antsy if they were consistently told they couldn't go anywhere or do anything. And a woman as smart and active as Macy? Keeping her locked up was just asking for trouble.

Even though we'd reached our compromise the day before, I couldn't be sure that she would stay in the cabin, no matter how many times I told her that she needed to. She'd already left it twice, and I knew that she was probably trying to figure out a way around that restriction in her sleep.

I poured the coffee as I thought over the night before and the new level of intimacy we seemed to have reached. I hadn't had anyone make me dinner in years, and not only had she made me dinner, but it had been really fucking good. I really liked pasta Bolognese, and she'd made it perfectly. The fact that she'd done it had taken me by surprise, as for some reason I'd assumed that she didn't cook. Maybe it was the fact that she had such an intense career, in such a busy city, that I'd figured that she just didn't bother with it. The fact that she was so good at it, and that she'd bothered to do it for me, had been such a nice surprise.

I took the coffee over to the couch and sat down, leaning my head back on the sofa and letting the emotions wash over me. I honestly didn't know what bothered me more: the idea that I was actually getting close to someone or the fact that I liked it.

"You should've left the dishes for me to do."

I cracked an eye open and saw Macy standing above me with her arms crossed over her chest.

"How is that fair?" I asked. "You made dinner. It's my fault I didn't do it last night."

She went over to the kitchen and grabbed a mug, pouring herself a cup. I couldn't help watching her hips as she stood up on her toes to grab the mug and the surety with which she seemed to move around my house. And even though I valued my space, and maintaining it, I had to admit that I loved seeing how at home she felt in my house.

She brought the mug over to the couch and set it on the table, taking a seat a few feet from me. She settled into the couch, and I couldn't help wishing that she'd come closer, despite the fact that I knew I was asking for trouble. It wasn't a great idea. It would make me want her, and for longer than she was likely to stay.

Bucky came and jumped up onto the sofa, settling between us, and it was all too easy to imagine hundreds, thousands, more days like this.