His hand slid up my neck to my jaw and his thumb glided along my lower lip.

“You just find you, baby?” Tate asked.

“Not exactly,” I answered.

“Then what exactly?” he pressed.

“I…” My teeth bit my lip, tagging the pad of his thumb which he didn’t move so I released it. “My brain just suddenly started paying attention.”

“To what?”

“To you.”

His brows went up and his thumb swept along my cheekbone. “Wanna explain that?”

“You’re beautiful,” I whispered and watched his face change, surprise was there but it was soft, not astonished… moved.

“Ace,” he whispered back.

“I saw you,” I kept whispering, “at the hotel, meeting Neeta –”

Tate cut me off. “Know that, babe.”

“I know,” I replied. “But you don’t know that I hated Neeta instantly when I saw her throw herself in your arms. Pure jealousy. I didn’t know you, I didn’t know her. I just took one look at you and I…” I stopped speaking, suddenly embarrassed and more than a little scared and my eyes slid away. I would have moved my face but his hand tensed against my jaw.

“Keep talkin’,” he urged.

“I can’t,” I said softly.

“Baby, I think you don’t get this but you’re safe here.” His hand left my jaw and both arms wrapped tight around me, giving me a squeeze at the same time pulling me up so my face was level with his. “You’re safe, Lauren,” he murmured and my eyes came back to his. “You weren’t safe with him but, honey, swear to God, you’re safe with me.”

I felt the tears smart in my eyes and my lower lip quivered so I pressed them together.

“Keep talkin’,” he repeated, I took a breath in through my nose and nodded.

“You were far away,” I whispered, “it was night, I could barely see you…” I hesitated. “But you still took my breath away.”

His eyes closed and his hand slid up my neck into my hair and he put pressure there so our foreheads were touching.

“Christ, Laurie,” he muttered.

“The next day,” I went on, “I saw you walk into the bar and you were so beautiful…”

His eyes opened and his fingers tensed against my scalp. “All right, maybe you can quit talking.”

I ignored him.

“That’s why it hurt so much.” My voice was so quiet it was barely audible. “What you said. You being you, looking like you, breathtaking…”

“Stop, Lauren.” His voice was a growl.

“I’m not throwing it in your face, I’m just saying –”

He interrupted me again. “I know what you’re sayin’.”

I put my hand on his chest and told him softly, “Tate, you’re all that.”

“Baby –”

“And you like me.”

“Shut it, Laurie.”

I moved my head, sliding my cheek against his beard so my lips were at his ear, my arms went around him and I whispered, “So maybe I’m a little bit of all that too.”

I found myself moved suddenly, landing on my back with Tate’s body covering mine, his head up and his hand back at my jaw.

“You were all that before me,” he declared, his voice again a growl.

“Tate –”

“My guess? You been all that for awhile.”

“Captain –”

“Shitty luck, stupid decisions… I lost a lot in my life. My Mom left when I was a kid. Thought I’d live life high, playin’ football and that dream was dead almost the second it began. Then my Dad died. Mixed up with Neeta, with Bethany, havin’ Jonas and thinkin’ I finally got a hint of sweet only to have it come along with a lot of fightin’ and headache and broken promises I was f**kin’ stupid enough to believe. I haven’t had much of all that. All I ever had I had to fight for, pay for or do penance for because I jacked up. Then you walk into my goddamned bar lookin’ for a job.”

“Tate –”

His thumb came to my lips and put pressure on.

“Shut it,” he whispered.

“Okay,” I said against his thumb.

“I don’t define you,” he told me.

“I know, but I –” I started and his thumb, still against my lips, pressed gently so I shut up.

“You’re not found because you found me,” he went on. “You think that you’re still lost.”

I didn’t speak.

Tate did. “I wasn’t here, you cuttin’ ties and gettin’ out from under him, you woulda found your way.”

He stopped talking so I chanced speaking.

“Can I say something now?” I asked against his thumb and he moved it away, rolled to his side and brought me to facing him.

Then he said, “Yeah.”

“You’re right,” I agreed. “But –”

“No buts about it, Ace.”

I put my fingers to his lips and asked quietly, “Can I say what I need to say, Tate?”

He didn’t speak or nod, he just waited.

So I spoke. “I would have come back to me, eventually. It’s just that, it so happens I found myself with you leading the way.”

“Laurie –”

I moved my hand and replaced it with my lips.

“Thank you,” I whispered and then I kissed him, doing it hard and putting feeling into it, a lot of it, as much as I felt for him and what he’d given me. And what he’d given me was huge.

He’d given me me.

I pushed him to his back, slid on top and kept kissing him with Tate kissing me back.

Eventually, I lifted my head to look at him and Tate’s hands slid into my hair, pulling it away from my face and holding it behind my head.

His eyes were on the fall of hair that escaped his hands and curtained my left eye then they came to mine.

“You got great hair, babe,” he muttered.

I lifted a hand so my finger could slide along his hairline then all of them glided in.

“You do too,” I replied.

One of his hands left my hair and became an arm wrapped around my upper back, his other hand cupping my head and both brought me back down to him.

“I have to frost the cake,” I whispered.

“In a little while,” he whispered back.

“And make dinner,” I continued.

“Later.”

“Captain –”