However, after I’d seen the terror carved into Bowen’s handsome face, knowing I’d put it there shattered me in so many ways. Though, if I were being honest, it confused the hell out of me too. Aaron had been visually shaken, but Bowen’s reaction was a different story altogether. He just shut down, leaving behind a husk of the man I knew.
I’d seen him frustrated and annoyed. Hell, I’d even seen him angry when I’d first started pursuing him. But I’d never seen him like this.
The way he shook.
The desperation with which he clung to me.
The hollowness in his eyes alone was a physical blow.
I could only assume it had something to do with his past. Most definitely related to losing his fiancée. But I still didn’t know the specifics of that to figure out what had triggered him or why he’d reacted so strongly to me being a few hours late. A few hours in the middle of the afternoon no less. Maybe if it had been three a.m. and I’d disappeared on the way home, but it was barely seven. I’d been tied up at work later than that before.
None of that excused me from fault though.
The rain was still coming down in sheets, so when we pulled into his driveway, he hit the remote for his garage door on the visor and we went straight in. He turned the truck off, clicked the button to close the garage behind us, and unbuckled his seat belt, but that was the only move he made to get out.
The silence was killing me. Every instinct I had told me to fill it with profuse apologies, but they weren’t what Bowen needed. Still, I had no idea what he did need, and I had a sneaking suspicion he didn’t even know himself.
All I could do was sit beside him, my hand in his, waiting for him to figure it out.
He blankly stared at the windshield, his chest rising and falling with labored breaths for so long that the light in his garage clicked off, plunging us into darkness.
Only then did he speak.
“I thought I lost you,” he confessed so softly that it was barely audible.
In the dark, I could only make out his silhouette and wished like hell I could get a better read on him. Bringing our joined hands to my lips, I inched as close as the damn center console would allow. “God. I am so sorry. You’re not going to lose me. I swear.”
“I did though,” he said, his voice filled with gravel.
“No, you didn’t.” Fuck the console. I climbed over it, wedging myself in the small space in front of him to straddle his lap. “I’m right here, Bowen.” I took his hand and rested it over my heart. “Do you feel that? I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. This is where I belong.”
“It could all go away,” he said in the dark, the tone in his voice a dangerous combination of fear and anguish but mostly dread.
Helplessly, I sat there, not knowing what to say to comfort him, to make him believe that, although what he was feeling was real, the panic and the tragedy he was living—or, rather, reliving—wasn’t. And before I could come up with something, he continued, still without moving an inch or reacting to me the way he always did.
“I don’t know if I’ll survive all this again. I don’t know if I can make it out on the other side if you ever—”
“Shhh,” I interrupted before he could spiral even farther down into the abyss. “Don’t. Don’t do that.” I cupped his cheeks, noticing that my hands were now shaking too. “Can you do something for me? Right now?”
Seeming to almost snap out of the anxiety attack that was gripping him like a vise, just to possibly help me, he immediately answered, “Anything, babe.”
His breathing hadn’t quite regulated, still jilted and uneven. So that was where I’d start. Replacing my hand, I paired my cheek with his so that we were at one another’s ear.
My chest against his, I slipped my arms around his back and quietly said, “Breathe with me.”
His pulse raced against me.
Nervous sweat coated his skin.
His strong body trembled in my embrace.
“Please. Let’s do it together,” I whispered against his jaw. “Deep breath in.” I inhaled, and he tried to do the same. Although his was shaky and not nearly as deep. But he was doing it.
Only thirty minutes ago, the man in my arms had been ready to burn the world down because he hadn’t been able to find me. I could certainly walk through the flames with him to the other side.
“Good. Now let it go. Breathe out.”
Had I known that the feeling of his exhale was going to caress my ear and my neck the way it did, I might have thought better of being so close. Nevertheless, I’d have to put a pin in the erotic sensations Bowen gave me—at least until he was feeling better.
