“He’s going to find us,” she whispered, and tried to look past where my arms were blocking her line of sight.
“I waited for you at the coffee shop. I was fucking terrified that something had happened to you. And then you didn’t show . . .”
“Please, Knox. You have to leave,” she tried to speak over me, but I kept talking.
“. . . there was no call; nothing. I went by your house, but—”
“You went by my house yesterday?” she asked, her tone matching the horror on her face.
“Yes, but there was another car there, so I thought you had company. Jesus, Low, I know most the time you won’t be able to use that phone, but you can’t pull the shit you did yesterday. You can’t say you need to talk to me in person, then not show and not fucking let me know that you’re okay,” I said. “I needed something . . . anything.”
She’d stopped trying to get me to leave and stopped looking for her husband, but I couldn’t stop talking. I hated that after vowing to never waste another minute with her, I was doing exactly that, but I had to get everything out.
I cupped her cheek and leaned close enough that my nose brushed hers. Her mouth parted when she inhaled softly, and my eyes zeroed in on the action. I pressed my body closer to hers and had to remind myself repeatedly that we were in a store when she blinked slowly, then looked up at me under her thick lashes. My beautiful Harlow.
My tone was low and rough from having her so close but keeping myself from taking any more of her. “Do you know what it’s like, living every day not knowing if you’re okay?” I brushed my thumb across a single tear that had slipped down her cheek and whispered, “Everything about your situation scares me. I’ve never been more scared of anything in my life. Not while running into a house on fire, not while rescuing people; nothing. You, knowing he’s hurting you, the possibility of losing you . . . Harlow, I spend every day on edge, ready to break at the littlest thing.”
“I’m so sorry,” she choked out. “I never wanted you to get caught up in this.”
I looked at her in confusion. “Caught up in . . . Low, I love you. I would do anything for you; I want to take you away from this. I’ll do anything to get you out of this. This isn’t some hardship; it just kills me that you won’t let me help.”
“You think this isn’t hard for me, too? Seeing you, knowing that you’re there and willing to help me after what I did to you all those years ago. I’ve been worried I wouldn’t see you again, but I can’t do this to you. I can’t let something happen to you or your family! When were you going to tell me that you have a daughter?”
My head jerked back. “What the hell? Daughter? What are you talking about?”
“That girl you were holding,” she said as she gestured her head toward the end of the aisle, her tone now defeated. “Why didn’t you tell—because you didn’t have to,” she mumbled to herself.
“Natalie?” I balked. “Harlow, I saved her from a fire last week; she’s not my daughter.” I shook my head, and my lips tilted into a smirk as I took in Harlow’s crushed look. Leaning in so my mouth brushed against hers as I spoke, I said, “I love that something like that made you as crazy as the fact that you’re married makes me.”
One of her hands fisted in my shirt against my stomach and pulled me closer. “That’s not funny.” Her lips were barely touching mine, and even though her hand was still pulling me close, I could see the fear in her eyes.
“It isn’t,” I agreed, and pulled back. “But it was good to see nonetheless. You still haven’t told me about yesterday. What were you going to say, and why didn’t you ever text me again?”
Harlow blinked a few times, like she was trying to gather herself, then shrugged helplessly. “Collin took my purse right after I got off the phone with you. It had both my phones in—” She quickly stopped and gasped, her eyes widened as she looked around her. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Collin’s here, I completely forgot. I can’t be near you. He has to be done talking to Ren by now,” she mumbled to herself.
If it weren’t for the facts that the woman I loved was freaking out over her abusive husband finding us, and that he’d taken away all my communication to her, I would have smiled knowing that I could make her forget about everything else.
Though I’d already pushed our luck enough, I pulled her close once more. “Quickly, Harlow. Does he know about our phone?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Good, please if you can, let me know how you are when you get your purse back.”
Her head was going back and forth to look all around us, but she nodded. “Of course, I—”
I gripped her chin and brought my mouth down to hers. The kiss was quick and hard, but she still stumbled toward me when I pulled away. I would’ve given anything right then to have more time with her. Relaxing my grip on her chin, I ran my thumb over her bottom lip and whispered, “I love you, Low.”
“To the stars,” she vowed.
Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to release her and walked away. It didn’t take long to find my crew; they were still lingering in the produce section, not even trying to act like they hadn’t been watching everything between us.
“Pete’s over here talking about the fortieth girl he’s fallen in love with, Knox finds random women to make out with in the store, and I can’t get girls to stick around for the third date. I think I’m doing something wrong,” Jake, one of the guys on my crew said. I laughed.
“Maybe because women want a man who is big enough to make them feel protected, not so big that they’re afraid he’ll suffocate them if he rolls over in his sleep,” Pete suggested.
“They love this,” Jake countered quickly, and slowly flexed, making every woman in the produce section stop to watch.
I rolled my eyes and turned to start grabbing what we needed, busying myself so I wouldn’t search out Harlow again.
“If you’re done putting on your show . . .” Pete trailed off in an annoyed tone as he gestured at Jake. “You’re over six and a half feet tall and have muscles on top of muscles. You’re a freak, dude. You look like you could kill someone just by thinking about it. That is why you can’t get someone on a third date. You scare guys by looking at them, and you scare women when they think of getting into bed with you.” There was a silence before Pete continued, “What the hell are you doing?”