And one of the people who read it was Boone.

“And I know,” Boone continued, “you’ve owned that house you want to flip for nearly a year and it hasn’t even been fully demoed. If my dad was here, he had a daughter, that was something she wanted to do, and life got in the way, he’d be there every weekend, pulling out carpet drenched in cat piss and cutting stone to fit French doors.”

I had a great mom. I should be down with that. A lot of people didn’t have either parent give a shit about them.

But the way Boone described his dad made me long for a great dad.

“So, the baggage I carry not weighing you down yet?” I asked miserably.

“My best friend from the military got out around the time I did, came home to his wife and eight-month-old baby, struggled silently for six months without saying dick to anyone, then blew his brains out in his truck in their garage.”

My entire body swayed back in shock and pain at his words.

“Baby,” I whispered.

“Whitney, his wife, found him.”

“Oh my God,” I breathed.

I couldn’t imagine.

I didn’t want to imagine.

I didn’t even want to know this, but more, know Boone was living with this.

“Her first call was to me. I got there before the cops did.”

He’d seen his friend like that.

Oh God.

“Boone.”

“I’d hold a woman down in ways she liked when I fucked her. And I never could really get off in bed unless I was in control. But that shit went overdrive, and stayed overdrive, after I did what I did, saw what I saw, and lost what I lost in the service, Kathryn. Sometimes, it’s gonna be natural, a need to connect with you and dominate when we do. And sometimes it’s gonna be therapeutic, a need to control and release.”

No threat of me passing out now.

I was getting a lot of oxygen due to me breathing heavily at all he was laying on me.

“So how do you feel about that baggage?” he asked.

“I think our morning has been way too heavy to face any longer without coffee,” I answered.

“That isn’t what I’m looking for, honey,” he replied softly.

I knew it wasn’t.

Shit!

Where did I go with this?

I started with, “Okay, with all that’s happening, I’m sure you haven’t missed I’m a pretty strong person, Boone.”

“Your shit plus my shit equals a fuck ton of shit.”

With what he’d just given me, I was seeing he was not wrong about that.

“If you promise not to break, I won’t either,” I told him.

“I can’t promise not to break.”

Oh boy.

I took a moment to process that as I took him in.

Boone, all that tall, muscled commando goodness, warning me he could break?

I had entirely no clue how to deal with that and my next words shared I didn’t.

“Boone, baby,” I whispered.

“It’s getting real and it’s doing it fast with us, Kathryn. You’ve got your shit. I’ve got mine. But yours is external. Mine is internal. It’s also external with buds who are dealing with the same load as me, and after losing Jeb the way we did, I’ve made a promise to be there for them, same as they have for me. And I’m dedicated to that. You and me made this decision to give us a shot, and so you don’t bear the burden of thinking your baggage is going to point me to the door, you need to go in with your eyes open because it might be you who needs to walk away.”

“You liked my outfit yesterday,” I reminded him.

“Yeah,” I confirmed.

“And you told me,” I went on.

“Baby, I give good boyfriend and I know you’re gonna like what I do to you in bed. But compliments on how you dress are not gonna light the dark times.”

“How dark does it get?” I asked hesitantly.

“I know guys who have it worse, and for the most part, I feel I got a lock on it or an outlet to let it go if that lock feels like it’s slipping. But if it gets loose, it’s not a trip through the light fantastic.”

Lamely, I flipped out a hand. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I don’t either. I just know you need to know what you’re headed into so if this doesn’t work out between us, I didn’t fuck it up from the start by keeping that from you.”

“Okay, well, we have that. I’m out there with my crap, you’re out there with yours. That might not be a meet-cute start that leads to us ice skating together and sitting close in a park staring into each other’s eyes, holding cones while ice cream melts down our hands and heartwarming trips to the pound where you get me a puppy we both know we’re going to raise together all in a montage with ‘You’ve Got the Love’ playing over it. But it’s what we’ve got. And outside my mom, no one has ever even offered to stand between me and the shit of life, and you did that not half an hour ago. You did it without hesitation just offering to answer the phone for me. So I guess the only thing I’ve got to say right now is, I’ll take it.”

Boone just stood there, deceptively casually, leaning against the jamb.

But his eyes were hot on me.

“Oh, and you have an insanely gorgeous body. So seriously, there’s a lot a girl will put up with just as long as you grace her doorway in nothing but your skivvies.” I ended that with a shrug.

I then cried out in surprise when he came at me, and at first, I had no clue how to respond.

Retreat was out, seeing as, in that little bathroom, there was nowhere to go.

I would find I didn’t want to go anywhere.

He caught my head in his hands and his mouth came down on mine hard.

He kissed me harder.

He did this pushing me against the sink so it dug into my back.

I did not care.

Not even a little.

I cared less when my panties were drifting down my legs, because he’d pushed them down.

Nope.

I didn’t care.

Because with that, I knew where this was going.

I also wanted to go there.

Nope again.

I couldn’t wait to get there.

And I hoped to God we got there fast.

Which meant I rejoiced when he lifted me by my ass and put me on the edge of the sink.

I knew better than to pull his cock out as a demand for him to give me what right then I needed really, really badly. And I knew this, what with how he was, and how I was.

So I communicated that by digging my nails in his ass.

He lifted his head, caught my eyes, his were glinting, near-black with dilatation and turned on, my womb contracted at the sight, and he grunted, “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I breathed in answer.

“Baby,” he growled.

I got that too.

It was a question.

One I answered swiftly.

“I’m on the pill. Clean. You?”

“Yeah.”

His hand was between us only a second before I felt him searching with the head of his cock.

He caught and then he grabbed my wrists, lifted my arms, transferred them into one of his hands, leaned into me and pressed them against the mirror behind me.

He did this as he slid inside.

Oh…

Yeah.

I closed my eyes and my head fell back, hitting glass.