The Love Series Complete Box Set (195 page)

“Actually, I heard about your sister.” Austin’s voice is still laced with vehemence. “And I came here as soon as I could to check up on you.”

“I told you last month, I am done with you.” With harsh bluntness, I punctuate each word. I release Dylan’s hands and step into Austin’s space.

“But . . .” he opens his mouth, as if I haven’t heard enough.

Stepping infinitely closer, a sneer pulls at my lips. I all but growl at him to scare him away. Standing his ground, Austin steps closer rather than backing away. “What if I’m not done with you?” he yells in my face, shoving me backward.

My footing slips and the railing behind me gives way under my weight. There’s nothing to stop me from falling the fifteen feet to the ground.

“Shit!” Dylan curses, racing to my side. “Stay the fuck away from us.” He holds out a hand, keeping Austin back. I watch Dylan race down the stairs with more speed than is necessary. It wasn’t
that
big of a fall, so there’s really no reason for him to overreact.

“Are you okay?” His hands roam over my chest, up my arms, inspecting me for an injury. “Call an ambulance,” he yells at Austin who looks genuinely scared and not at all proud of what he’s done.

“I don’t need an ambulance. I’m fine, really.” Even though it was a decent fall, I try to avoid a big scene.

“No, you need help.” Dylan shoots down my attempt to dismiss his concerns.

As I try to move, the pain in my ankle is sharp and nearly unbearable. I try to sit up, slide back against the base of the stairs, but it’s difficult with only one foot. “My ankle. It’s broken.” I push back, the concrete sidewalk biting into my hands.

He helps me up. Sitting next to me, he gently combs his fingers through my hair. “Your head. Did you hit it? Are you okay?” Concerned words fly out of Dylan’s mouth and suddenly I realize why he’s gotten himself so worked up.

My head injury from when I was attacked. One more concussion and I could do permanent damage.

“It hurts, but I think I’m fine.” Dylan’s eyes dart over the rest of my body. When he seems satisfied that my ankle is my only serious injury, he pulls my hand into his.

Austin cautiously walks over to us. “They’re on their way.” He slides his phone in his pocket. “I didn’t mean to. I’m so sorry.” He squats in front of us, his fingers locked together in a tight grip.

His voice sounds honest and resigned. “Do you want me to call the police?” Dylan asks from my side, tipping his head at Austin.

The look Austin gives me isn’t one of shock, but one of understanding. He knows he’s wrong, but it’s not worth it. Pressing charges will only keep him in my life longer than he needs to be. “No,” I answer Dylan before directing my attention and my words back to Austin. “Just leave me alone. Leave us alone.”

The sirens of the approaching ambulance slice through the conversation. “Just go,” I say one last time to Austin.

He nods resolutely, and turns his back on us, hopefully for the last time.

“I really don’t need an ambulance. I’m fine.” Dylan stands next to me, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Yeah,” he pulls a face at me, “then stand on your own,” he jokes and relief washes over me. Knowing about Dylan’s trust issues, his inability to allow anyone in his life, made Austin’s reappearance so much more threatening than a simple misunderstanding.

Holding up my hands in mock-surrender, I say, “You win.” The EMTs come over to us, surprised that it’s just a broken ankle and not something more serious. Dylan explains to them my history of head injuries, demanding they make sure I’m okay.

The female EMT scans my eyes, asks me how many fingers she’s holding up and declares, “Pending further testing, it looks like you should be just fine. Mild concussion at worst.”

They load me onto the gurney and pain radiates up my leg like an electric shock. “You can ride with us, if you’d like,” she tells Dylan and he falls in line as they load me into the back of the ambulance. On the way there, Dylan calls Reid to make arrangements for him to bring us Dylan’s car.

A few hours later, I’m all set in a cast and pair of crutches, hobbling out of the hospital. Dylan takes me back to his place, under strict instruction to wake me up every few hours to make sure the mild concussion the doctor confirmed doesn’t get any worse.

Whatever energy I had left is quickly spent on getting situated in Dylan’s bed. “Sponge bath?” he jokes as he stands next to me.

“Maybe tomorrow, wiseass.”

Careful not to cause too much pain, he slides a pillow under my leg and gets me my meds and a glass of water. “These are just Advil. The doctor said you can’t have the strong stuff until tomorrow.”

Exhaustion takes over, and despite my best efforts to fight it, sleep wins.

“Hey.” A gentle shake at my side rouses me from sleep. Dylan is resting on one elbow, his face tired and worn out.

“What time is it?” I shift, my voice a groggy mess.

“Just past midnight. How do you feel?”

I take stock of everything. My head is more than okay; only a touch of pain remains. My ankle on the other hand is fucked. Not wanting to make him more worried than he already is, I simply say, “I’m fine,” and smile softly at him.

“I called Rachel and let her know what happened,” he explains as he fixes the blankets over my lap.

“Thank you,” my hand covers his, stilling his movements, “not just for calling her, but for taking care of me, of her, for understanding before with Austin.”

“Shh,” he picks up on the rising emotion in my words, “just relax, Con. There’s nowhere I’d rather be right now. Get some rest. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

He wakes me up twice more throughout the night, following the doctor’s instructions to a T. When the smell of bacon and eggs wafts into the room sometime around ten, my stomach growls in protest, waking me from my deep sleep.

Moments later, Dylan is walking through his room, a tray full of food in his hands. “Hungry?”

“Starved.” He sets the tray on my lap and sits next to me, pulling his plate on his own lap. “Thanks,” I manage around a mouthful of food.

There’s no room for conversation as I devour my breakfast. Dylan looks on in horror as I clear my plate in less than five minutes. “Dude, calm down.”

“Whatever.” I laugh as I swipe a piece of toast from his plate. “You better hurry before I start on yours, too.”

After he clears our plates, he helps me in to the shower, making certain that the plastic shopping bag is carefully wrapped around my cast. Stubbornly, not once does he take the bait at my longer-than-needed touches or hotter-than-hell stares. “Cut it. You’re hurt. I’m taking care of you. That’s all. No fooling around.” I can tell it takes all of his effort to keep a straight face as he helps me step into a pair of boxers.

I give Rachel a quick call while Dylan gets dressed. She’s ecstatic that she’ll be discharged from the hospital in a day or two. When Dylan comes back with the good pain meds in hand, I end the call with her, telling her I’ll be up there later for a quick visit.

“Before you take these,” Dylan says, sitting next to me and dropping the pills into my hand, “I have something I need to say.”

“Okay.” I’m leery to say the least, his tone quiet and somewhat uncertain.

A deep breath of air fills his lungs and he looks at me. Something dances in his eyes. With a trembling hand, he brushes my hair out of my eyes. “If someone would have told me that you’d walk into my life and turn it completely upside down, I’d have told them they were crazy.” He drags my hand into his and brings it up to his mouth. “For far too long, I was far too happy to keep everyone on the outside. And then you came along, and for the first time in so long, I felt something.”

“Me, too.” Tugging at our hands, I bring them to my mouth, feeling the shaking in his hands relax marginally.

“I was too afraid to let myself love anyone, thinking that I’d lose them somehow. The fear of loss kept me closed off from my own life. And now, with you . . . it’s not like that,” he pauses, looking for the right words. “What I mean is,” he clarifies, focusing his deep blue eyes on mine, “that with you, it’s not about being afraid of losing you.”

“I’m
that
easy, huh?” I joke. The look of growing frustration on his face tells me I’ve misunderstood him, and that now is not the time for jokes.

“No, that’s not what I mean. I’m petrified of losing you. When you fell yesterday, the only thought I could put together was one of sickening concern.
What if he hits his head? What if he’s permanently injured? What if he blacks out and never comes back?
But then, when I saw you were okay, the
only
thought going through my head was that there was no way in hell I could ever go through the rest of my life without you.”

His words cut through me. Stripping me bare, they reflect the exact same way I feel about him.

“You see, with you, the thing that scares me isn’t the thought of losing you. What scares the shit out of me is not having you in my life in the first place,” Dylan says, softly.

He lowers his face to mine, cradling my jaw, and searching my eyes. “I love you, Conner. You brought me back to life simply by just being here. And I don’t ever want to picture a life that you’re not a part of.”

With the softest of caresses, he strokes his thumb against my lower lip before pressing his own in the same spot. As his forehead rests against mine and our breaths mingle in the small space between us, I inhale him. This sweet, angry man who turned everything I thought I knew about my own life completely upside down.

“I’m not as good with words as you are, but know that I love you, too.”

With hands and hearts joined, we fall asleep, a sense of peace that, before this moment, was foreign to both of us, covering us like the warmest of blankest on the coldest of nights.

He lets me nap the rest of the day away and before we go to the hospital to visit Rachel, I take a chance. Based on all the things we said earlier, I feel pretty confident about what I want to ask, but based on Dylan’s history, I’m also scared shitless.

“Rachel wants to move out.” I toss that out there and wait to see if he has anything to say. Slowly, Dylan turns from the kitchen sink, his hands covered in a soapy foam.

“Okay,” the word drags, filled with uncertainty. With my good foot, I kick out the chair next to me.

Dylan rinses his hands and dries them as he sits. “I don’t want her to have to start from square one.” It’s a lame front, one that I think he sees right through.

“And . . .” he prompts me to fill the silence.

Stammering, I try to come up with the right combination of words to say what I want to, but I fail miserably. “I . . . would you . . . uh . . .”

Cupping a hand to his ear, he leans across the table. “I can’t hear you. You need to speak up.” His playfulness is not appreciated right now. Ass.

Rather than continuing to taunt me, he stands from the chair and pulls a small box out of the cabinet above the sink. “I was going to give this to you last night. But then that happened,” he points down to my busted ankle. “I hope this is what you were getting at.” He slides the box over to me as he sits back in the chair.

I lift the top on the box and my pulse jumps, pure elation shooting through my veins. “Now, I was just planning on giving that to you so you have it. Figured it would make things easier, but,” he pulls the key from my hand, twirling it between two fingers, “now, it means a lot more.”

“Yeah,” I tilt my head, taking in the sight of him nervously confessing his feelings. “How’s that?”

“Move in with me.” It’s not a question, but more of a plea.

Dumbfounded, I simply stare at him slack jawed. I had a feeling that’s what he was going to say, but hearing the words had an unexpected effect on me. Mistaking my silence for unwillingness, Dylan rakes a hand through his hair in frustration as he shoots up from his chair. “It’s too soon. I knew it.” His words echo around the still-silent room.

Using my good foot for balance, I awkwardly stand from my chair. Gripping his shoulder, I spin him around to face me. “When I moved here, I had two goals in mind. Open that gym.” I lose my balance and Dylan helps me sit. Some of the tension that was in his face moments ago softens as he sits across from me.

“And the other?” There’s a scared caution in his words.

“To find you.” He flashes me a look of disbelief and his eyes scream, “oh really? Tell me more,” with no little sarcasm.

“Laugh at me all you want.” I pull his hands into mine. “I may not have known it was you I was supposed to find. Coming here and starting all over, quite literally from the ground up, was the scariest thing I’ve ever done. And I’ve willingly stepped into the octagon with guys who would make you shit your pants if you ever ran into them in an alley.”

We both laugh for the briefest of seconds before the weight of what happens in to good people in dark alleys sinks in.

“I’m ready for this, for us. I don’t need more time to know how I feel about you, to understand how you feel about me.”

“But what if it doesn’t work out?” Suddenly, Dylan is questioning even his own motives.

“What if it does?” I pick the key up from the table, the cool steel imprinting itself in my hand. Everything about it seems right. It feels like home.

I angle my head forward, pulling his close to mine. With a strong hand wrapped around the nape of his neck, I lean into his mouth and claim it. Shocked by my ferocity, his lips separate and our tongues dance together in the most erotic of ways.

He pulls back, breathless and lusty eyed. “Now if that didn’t convince you how I feel, how much I mean for this to work, then you’re just gonna have to wait for my ankle to heal so I can show you in some other, more demonstrative ways.” I waggle an eyebrow at him and he laughs, leaning his forehead back against mine.

“Okay,” he murmurs. “You win. I’ll let you move in with me.”

“Huh? Wait . . . didn’t you . . .” I stumble over my words as he laughs at me, playing me. I shove at his shoulder and he feigns injury.

When the goofiness settles, I drag his hand up to my mouth one last time. “I can’t promise it’ll be perfect, that things will always be easy, but I will promise to try my best to make them that way.”