“Luna,” came the deep, deep grumble of a voice.

“Fifteen seconds,” I tried to tell him as I told myself to stop. Stop.

Stop, Luna.

You’re fine.

Quit being dramatic.

You’re taking this too personal.

Stop it.

I’d swear I heard a muttered “Fuck” from somewhere too close, but I could never be sure.

What I could be sure of was the body that stepped right up to mine. The body that didn’t give me a chance to stop crying or even drop my hands because that body wrapped itself around my own. An arm curled over my shoulder, another right below it, draping itself across my shoulder blades.

The body was warm and hard and molded to mine, crushing my arms between us like they weren’t even there in the first place.

Legs and thighs pressed against me, and something warm grazed my cheek as gentle, almost delicate words filled my ears. “It’s all right, baby girl,” they started.

“You’re a good girl.”

“A nice girl.”

“The nicest.”

“Sweetest.”

And more tears just came right out of my eyes with each thing said into my ear, spilling over my fingers and wrists, down my arms as I stood there, letting my boss, a man who barely talked to me on a good day, hug me and tell me I wasn’t a sad, pathetic person who deserved to feel so small.

You’re such a dumbass, Luna, my dad had told me so many times, it sounded like he spoke the words into a tap that sent him directly into my brain.

“You got your ‘love you’ bracelet on. You’re all right.” The arm closest to the top, directly over my shoulders, tightened, and warmer, soothing words tried to drown the old ones away. “I’ve got you. I’m here,” the man holding me said.

He had me.

Maybe just for a minute. Maybe for ten. And even though I knew it was dumb and that I had no right to and I needed to get it together, I leaned into him. I went a little limp against his body, even tilting my head forward until it rested right between his neck and collarbone.

For one moment in time, I let Lucas Ripley hold me up while tears just dropped out of my eyes, making the ones I’d shed in my bedroom after my grandmother’s funeral seem like nothing.

All I had ever wanted was to be loved.

And one of the only people I had expected to give me that unconditionally for the rest of my life had let me walk right out of her place, without as much as just... talking to me about how school was going. Or work. Or anything.

We had driven all the way over here and….

One of the arms around me moved, and what had to be his hand landed on the back of my head, fingers dipping into my hair, running through the ends before coming back up to do it all over again.

“Ten more seconds,” I mumbled into my hands, into his shirt, into him.

“Ten more seconds,” he agreed into my cheek, his hand cupping the back of my head again.

I sucked in a breath through my nose and pressed my face even closer into the high point of his chest, feeling bones and hard muscles beneath it—a reminder that this man was immovable. Tough. Hard. Even leaning into him with more of my weight than I had ever let someone support, he held it without an issue.

His fingers worked their way through my hair to touch my nape.

Those rough, calloused fingers worked their way to straddle the back of my neck, to hold my head in place, right where it was.

Thea loved me. I knew it. But it didn’t feel like it. It didn’t feel like it.

“I just… I just….” I tried to say but couldn’t find the words.

“I know.” Those fingers kneaded my muscles lightly, the band around my shoulders tightening. “I know. You’re good. You’re fine.”

I was good. I was fine.

I sucked in a breath through my nose and nodded against him.

I was.

I had food. I was fine. I had everything I wanted and needed.

I wasn’t going to be upset over Thea.

I wasn’t.

I wasn’t.

I was good. I was fine. I was loved.

I was—

“Five more seconds,” I told him, knowing somewhere in the back of my head that it was more like five minutes after my initial request.

Those fingers went through the ends of my hair some more. “Five more,” that gentle voice agreed.

I sniffed, fighting the urge when more tears popped up in my eyes again. I was fine, I was fine, I was fine. But I still didn’t move. When his fingers went through my hair once more, I whispered, “That’s really nice, Rip,” hearing it sound all broken and chopped.

I was fine.

I would be fine.

“It always made me feel better when my mom would do it for me,” he told me, doing it all over again, so soft, so naturally. “Didn’t matter if I was scared or sad or mad; everything always felt better after she did it.”

It was hard to picture Rip as a little kid having his mom soothe him.

But it was even harder to picture that it was him soothing me right then the only way he knew how. Maybe. Possibly. I didn’t know. I was starting to think I didn’t know anything.

“She’d put me to sleep doing it too,” he kept going in that gravelly voice that felt like a secret itself. “Two more seconds?”

It wouldn’t be until later, much, much later, that I’d realize he had been teasing me.

But I still said, “Yes, please” as my sniffles stayed sniffles, but the tears slowed down.

I was fine. I was all right. I didn’t need to cry. This wasn’t going to kill me today, tomorrow, a week from now, or ever again.

So what?

So what if my sister had changed her mind after I’d driven all the way here?

So what if she had lied to me? I had lied a hundred times in my life.

I was fine.

But I still said, “One more.”

And Rip still replied, “All right.”

Sorrow so deep I didn’t think I was capable of, covered everything around me. The tips of my fingers, the tops of my hands, right between my shoulder blades, right at the center of me.

But I wrapped it up, the memory of my sister pretty much telling me to leave, and I threw it into the trash so it wouldn’t hurt me anymore.

I had no idea what was going on with her, but there was something. I could only hope it had nothing to do with me.

I was choosing to be happy. I wasn’t going to let this bother me anymore. I wasn’t.

“Thank you, Rip,” I whispered, still catching those notes in my voice that reminded me I had been hurting, and if I lingered on it any longer, I would again.

When the arms around me loosened a little, I dropped my arms from where they were between us. I was going to pretend like my hands didn’t shake—just a little—before I set them on his hips. Swallowing hard, I reminded myself I was fine. I was.

“Thank you,” I repeated, forcing myself to tip my head back so I could look him in the eye.

That brutally handsome face was focused down on me. Those blue-green eyes moved, looking from one of my eyes to the other and back again. The arms he had around me slowly dropped back to his sides, sandwiching mine where they were on his hips.

“You’re good,” he told me.

“I’m good,” I confirmed.

Those teal eyes still bounced back and forth as he said in that perfect, boss-like voice, “I know.”

Lifting my hands off his waist and trying not to make it seem like it was a big deal they’d been there in the first place, I used the backs of them to wipe at my face as I asked, pretty timidly, “What else did your mom do when you were upset?”

There was a pause and then, “She’d give me ice cream.”

I couldn’t help but smile a little at that as I dropped my hands and sucked in a breath through my nose.

I was fine. I was fine, I was fine, I was fine.

“That was probably the best ice cream ever, huh?” I asked him with a swallow. “But I’m starving, and if you don’t mind driving us, I’ll treat you to food and a hotel room for the night. I’m sure it’s way past your bedtime. I know it’s past mine.”

Hard eyes and a hard mouth watched me closely for a moment before nodding gravely. “I’ll drive.”