Page 48 of Fallen Crown

“I don’t know what to say,” she says. “But I’m here.”

“You don’t have to say anything.” My throat is raw from trying to hold back my tears. “I’m glad you’re here.”

I couldn’t bring myself to call her, and I’m not sure who told her. Even though leaning on her as hard as I’ll likely lean tonight is dangerous for our training partnership, potentially lethal for our friendship, I want her here. The more time we spend together, the more I’m starting to realize I want more from her than she’ll ever be able to give me. For whatever reason, she doesn’t want to divorce Enzo—maybe she really does love him that much—but she can’t deny there’s something between the two of us too. Whatever this something is, it’s powerful. Whenever we’re together, it radiates off her, and my chest aches with it. It makes no sense, but it feels like she’s supposed to be mine.

Mine.

A possessive, dangerous thought that’s bound to lead me into trouble. The problem is, I saunter into trouble with my eyes open and a smile on my face. I might not be capable of smiling right now, but I’m definitely aware of what I’m getting myself into by letting her in the door.

She steps into my suite, and she takes my hand, lacing her fingers with mine. At the chairs near the fireplace, she eases me into one.

“I’ll get you some water,” she says.

But when she tries to leave, I tighten my grip on her hand. She glances at me over her shoulder, and I recognize the indecision in her expression. The right action is to let her go. She can get me a drink and sit in another chair. We can talk like adults and pretend this current between us doesn’t exist—hasn’t been building for months. Maybe that’s what she’d prefer, but none of that will satisfy me tonight.

I tug her into my lap, and she doesn’t resist. She wraps her arms around my neck and buries her face in the crook, and we both release a long, pent-up sigh. The weight of her against me somehow lessens the grip of grief that’s been almost crushing since Dr. Bennett confirmed my father was gone.

Sometimes I remember what Jag told me a few weeks ago, about love being all-consuming. I’m not there yet, and maybe I won’t get there. Our friendship would be so much easier if I didn’t. I’ve been entangled with a few women before—never serious—and those obsessive feelings Jag mentioned have eluded me.

With Tucker, I didn’t call her to come tonight. I didn’t ask her to be there today. She’s a want, not a need.

But God help me, as I breathe in her peach shampoo, I understand it’s getting to the point where I don’t want to be without her. It’s going to take every last scrap of willpower I possess to keep the blurry line between us still visible when she’s literally in my bedroom.

Technically, she hasn’t cheated on Enzo, but would I be okay with what’s been happening between me and Tucker if I was her other half? Not a fucking chance. No way. I also wouldn’t be in America when my wife needed me either. Those are observations I won’t be voicing. Any time I bring him up, she slides away from me, as though the mere reminder of him is enough to make her crave distance from me.

I don’t want any distance tonight.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.

“I don’t know.” I’m not sure what I’d say. How do you explain what it’s like to watch someone you love die? It’s not something anyone can understand until they experience it. There’s no way empathy can extend that far. The entire day has been awful and permanent and soul crushing.

“What do you need?”

Instead of telling her, I scoop her tighter against me, and I rise to my feet. On my way to the bed, her arms grow tense around my neck.

“Brice,” she whispers.

The way Tucker says my name, I get the sense that if I pushed her at all, she’d give in to me, that maybe she’d want to explore what’s been building between us too. The idea of burying myself in her and forgetting today happened is really fucking tempting. But I haven’t had a drop of alcohol—despite the fact that I thought I’d be drunk by now—so my judgment isn’t poor enough to blow up my life even more. Whether or not she’d say yes doesn’t change the fact she’d regret it. Hate me for asking. Hate herself for agreeing. One night would destroy us.

The Brice I was before Maren Tucker entered my life would have been out drinking, gambling, and fucking these feelings away.

This Brice, the one who has Tucker cradled in his arms, who’s going to lay her on the king-sized bed and resist the urge to run his lips across every inch of her skin, just wants to lie beside her and feel it all. I don’t want to run from any of this when I’ve got her.

“That’s not what this is, Tucker.” I mean, it could be, but I’m not stupid enough to ask or imply. “I just want you beside me.”

When I lay her on the bed, there are goose bumps on her arms, and the expression on her face is hard to read. I crawl up her body, and she runs her hands along my arms to clutch my biceps. We’re face-to-face with her underneath me, and I’m tempted to kiss her. Skim my lips across hers, coax her to respond. My body aches with desire. I want to cradle her ass in my hand, press my erection against her core, and hear her moan in pleasure as I grind against her. Her breath hot in my ear, my name on her lips, the scent of peaches swirling around us.

“Brice,” she says.

Except there’s nothing sexy about the uncertainty in her voice this time. I’m on the cusp of fucking things up between us, and while I might be too deep in my own complex feelings to recognize what I’m so close to doing, Maren isn’t.

I move to the side of her, and I lie on my stomach with my head against my crossed arms, and she turns her head to look at me, but she doesn’t shift her body toward mine. We’re still in the danger zone, where one wrong move might set us both on fire.

Without her body as a distraction, thoughts of my dad creep in—the room, the bed, what he said to me before they put him under—and tears prick at the back of my eyelids. I pinch the bridge of my nose hard to keep the tears at bay. Perhaps alcohol, gambling, and sex would have been the better bet. All these feelings for her and for my dad are going to wreck me.

Tucker turns onto her side, and she swings her leg over mine. While she rests her cheek on my bicep, her palm makes circles on my back over my T-shirt, but she doesn’t say anything. Unable to resist, I kiss the top of her head.

I used to think reserved people were a bit boring, and I certainly didn’t think Tucker’s brand of quiet confidence was anything to brag about. How wrong I was. There is no one else I’d rather spend tonight with. Her ability to be in a room without demanding anything from me is actually pretty special. Rare, even. Since I’m usually so switched on, most people don’t like me the way Tucker does. She laughs at my brashness, but she almost seems to relish these silent moments more, where part of me seems to speak to part of her on an entirely different wavelength.