God, she’d agonized at the loss all those years ago. Eventually, she found the only way to cope with total isolation was by locking her emotions down and ignoring her need. Her refusal to let the solitude affect her helped her survive the complete disconnect from everyone and everything she’d ever known. Now, sitting there, the locks broke and relief flooded her.
“It feels so good.” She didn’t need to elaborate. She’d felt his loneliness.
Rock wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in so her cheek rested on his chest.
“I missed it so much,” she whispered. She wasn’t alone anymore. Laila tried to swallow around her tight throat. But with her next breath, her composure fractured. Hot tears streaked down her face. When he squeezed her tightly and shushed her, his massive arms weighing heavily and giving comfort, she cried harder. He rested his cheek on the top of her head and rocked her tenderly.
Mortified, she started to pull away. “I’m sorry.”
He pulled her into his side. “Nothing to be sorry for.”
She gave up trying to hold it all in.
Chapter 4
By the flickering light of the video screen, Laila cried in Rock’s arms. He held her, stroking her hair and shushing her. His chest was tight and his stomach swam with a queasy feeling of foreboding. His earlier conversation with his father replayed in his head and his commitment to this woman who had so little and needed so much solidified.
He absorbed her weight as she burrowed into him, desperately clutching the material of his tear-dampened shirt. She was starved for the unconditional acceptance and physical touch they’d grown up with.
“Lie down. Put your head in my lap.” His voice was gruff with emotion, even to his own ears. She tilted her head back and gauged his expression with hope-filled eyes. His heart broke for her, and not able to face her pain, he had to look away. She stretched across the soft leather of the couch, her head pillowed by his thigh. He sought to ease her misery through the continual movement of his hands, trailing his fingers along the exposed skin of her arm and smoothing her hair away from her face. Her sobs subsided into an occasional hiccup.
Soon, his hand at her waist moved with the rhythmic rise and fall of her breathing. She seemed smaller than she had when she sat across the table from him at the briefing. Her coconut-scented hair drew him closer and made his mouth water. Tonight, instead of her professional attire, she wore a tank top and lightweight shorts. This was a side of her he hadn’t seen.
He’d barely survived a year outside the Amber Zone. The pervasive hush here seemed amplified, especially when he’d first arrived. It was the complete opposite of the life they’d been used to. Amber was full of noise, of people, of sex. And, it was safe. Even with all those people crammed into tiny little spaces, he’d never felt safer.
Until a person lived in an environment where pitfalls and perils were everywhere, truly understanding the monumental effect safety, or lack of it, had on a person’s life wasn’t possible. Laila had been living without that particular state of being for five years. A year of it had fundamentally changed him. The citizens of Sapphire and Emerald didn’t hide their true feelings regarding Ambers. How many times had their prejudice left her alone and ostracized? No wonder she’d lost it. He was one friendly face in a sea of nefarious humanity.
A fleeting whisper caressed his consciousness. What had she been like before?
This changed everything. He would keep her safe, try to calm her fears and soothe her suffering. And she was suffering, even though she tried exceptionally hard not to show it.
In sleep, the ugliness of her pain vanished. She looked peaceful now. Her thick chestnut hair, gathered at the back of her head with a band, curled over her shoulder. For hours, he ran his fingertips through the heavy strands. Closing his eyes, he absorbed as much as he could of the year’s worth of touch he’d missed. He memorized the feel of her smooth skin under his work-roughened hand. Appreciated it. Having Laila Lewis sleeping in his arms was a comfort to him, too. With the exception of the time he’d examined Jordan’s amputated limb, this was the first time in an entire year he’d deliberately touched a woman. He absorbed as much as he could of the touch he’d missed.
Was he enough of a bastard to inflict his twisted brand of care on this innocent? Laila reminded him of Journey, and she’d done well in the tightly controlled world he lived in. He didn’t really have a choice. He knew no other way and didn’t really have the inclination to change.
He spent the night watching her sleep and mentally lambasting himself for the direction he would take her life because it wouldn’t be an easy path. As the sun rose, chasing away the shadows from the room, Laila finally stirred. Without opening her eyes, she murmured, “I’m sorry about last night. It’s been years since I cried because I missed Amber. I guess I had a lot more bottled up inside than I thought.”
Rock brushed the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone then down, across her bottom lip.
She peeked up at him. “Forgive me?”
He mustered a smiled. “Forgiven.”
“Oh.” She pushed up from his lap, suddenly looking wide-awake. “Today’s a training day.” She stood and stretched. “I need to take a shower and change.”
“Take your time. I planned on starting with the basics today. Tomorrow our strict nine to five training schedule begins. You’ll have to wear clothes you can move in and shoes you can run in.” He perused her body for what had to be the thousandth time in the last few hours. “No skirts.”
“What time are we leaving?”
He unfolded his stiff body and glanced at the oversized clock hanging over the wide, arched entry to the kitchen. “About an hour?”
“Okay.” She stopped near the front door. “But today you can only have me until two. I have an errand to run after that.” Instead of leaving through the front door as he’d expected, she turned and trudged up the stairs to the second floor.
The second floor he’d never been to.
He walked to the bottom of the steps, intent on saying something, but heard a door shut and water running. He stood frozen, mouth hanging open.
When he’d gotten to Emerald, he hadn’t even wanted to look at a bedroom. He hadn’t wanted the acres of mattress spread out on either side of him as he slept. At least when he crashed on the couch, he could fool himself into thinking the cushions at his back were a soft, warm body.
He grabbed the handrail, hesitated then walked to his downstairs bathroom and snagged two clean towels.
As he climbed those stairs for the first time, he left a piece of his past behind. It was time to take his first steps in a new direction.
He knocked then opened the only closed door on the landing. The big, fern-colored bathroom had a slanted ceiling with a skylight that bathed the room with morning sunlight. “I brought you some clean towels.”
“Thank you. Do you have any shampoo? There isn’t any in the bottle.” Her vague form moved in the steam behind the pebbled shower glass.
“Yeah. I’ll get some.” Downstairs, he rummaged around in the cabinet underneath his bathroom sink and found the items he thought she’d need.
Back upstairs, he put the toilet paper on the tank and set the soap, shampoo and conditioner just inside the shower door.
“Thank you,” she called.
He straightened and looked over his shoulder. “Get used to it. I’ll be taking care of you from here on out.” He didn’t wait for her to answer or offer an opinion to that statement, just closed the door behind him.
Rock stood on the landing at the top of the stairs. There were two doors on the right and one to the left. He went left and found the master bedroom