I fumbled with my key ring, my hands shaking so bad I wanted to toss the whole thing at him, but I still needed my truck keys to drive. When I finally got the house key off, I kissed the girls on their cheeks and ran out of the restaurant. This was it. This was the last time I could put myself out there for her. If she turned from me when I got there, it would be over. I would always love her; she would always be the girl I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with. But there are only so many times you can handle heartbreak with someone before you have to start protecting yourself.

I was at the airport in no time, but the only nonstop flight had just left, and the earliest they could get me there with the different connecting flights was seven hours. At least it was faster than driving. Handing over the card without a second’s hesitation, I paid for the ticket. I got strange looks from the woman at the ticket counter and the TSA agents when they realized I didn’t have a bag, but I didn’t care. I just needed to get Cassidy.

CASSIDY

CONNOR OPENED THE door as soon as I started knocking. “Hey, everything okay? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you called, but I was surprised you wanted to . . . come . . . over . . . holy shit.” He breathed the last words and his pale blue eyes slowly danced over my body before coming up to meet my gaze. “Cassidy, you look amazing.”

I looked down at my light purple threadbare racer-back tank and tiny black shorts. “Oh, um, thank you.” I knew how he felt. He was wearing a pair of gray slacks and a black button-up shirt with a gray tie. The tie had been loosened quite a bit, the top two buttons of his shirt undone, and his sleeves were rolled up to his forearms. He looked delicious. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Connor and I had ended up talking at the coffeehouse for hours that Wednesday, and though I hadn’t seen him since then, we’d talked and texted every day. Sometimes about our pasts, sometimes about my fears with Gage, his fears that he’d never find a woman who understood his past, and other times just to get to know everything about each other. I’d never been able to talk to anyone like I could talk to Connor. I’d thought I could talk to Tyler and Gage about anything, but after meeting Connor I realized there was something about our sharing our past that brought us together on a level I would never have with either of them. There was something about it that was just . . . nice, and wanted.

He opened the door to his apartment wider to let me through, then shut and locked it behind us. “So what’s going on?”

“Are you going to work? Or am I interrupting something?”

He huffed a laugh and grinned crookedly. “No, I just got home after being on for thirty-six hours.”

“Oh my God, Connor! You need to go to sleep, you shouldn’t have let me come over.” I started toward the door. “Wait, thirty-six hours? Why were you talking to me? You should have been working. Was I keeping you from your job?”

His smile softened and his pale blue eyes seemed to dance as he took a step toward me and wrapped me in his arms, pressing his forehead to mine. “I only talked to you when I had free time. You didn’t interfere. I got the confession I needed, and we told the family this morning that the killer was caught.” I inhaled audibly and his hand came up to brush my cheek. “You, Cassidy, could never be a bad distraction. When we had a minute, you were there for me to talk to; when we took breaks to eat or drink coffee, you were there. When I felt like I needed to take a step back from the case to clear my head, then go back in fresh, you were there. Now I’m home, and you’re here. Honestly, I can’t remember a time in my life when I was as happy as I’ve been since this last Wednesday.”

My heart was pounding and the butterflies in my stomach were full force, which I was starting to think was the norm when it came to Connor. I let my fingers brush under his eyes, having just noticed the dark circles there. “You need to sleep, Connor,” I whispered.

“I will.” His lips brushed against my wrist and I actually had to force down a whimper. “Is it okay if I change?”

I leaned away from him. “How long have you been home?”

He pulled me back and rested his forehead against mine again. “Long enough to take my jacket off.”

“Connor—”

“Cass, seriously.” He chuckled and lifted his head, only to press his body closer to mine. “When you called twenty minutes ago, I floored it to get home because I knew you were going to be right behind me.” His deep voice dropped even lower when he continued. “I wish I could come back to this every time.”

My breaths started coming quicker and my eyes dropped to his lips before I could force them down to the knot in his tie. How was it possible to be so completely in love with someone but have this kind of a connection and chemistry with someone else at the same time? I’d felt this connection the moment I’d first seen him almost four years ago, but I hadn’t had Gage at that time. To have it come back instantly while with Gage was incredibly confusing. I don’t know when my hands had dropped to his neck, but I slid them to his tie and focused on undoing the knot and slowly sliding it off. Connor didn’t move once, he just continued to stare at me. I looked down at the tie in my hands, then over to the dining room table, where his jacket sat on one of the chairs. He released me and walked over to the table with me right behind him. I laid the tie on top of the jacket as he started taking things off his belt and putting them on the table. Handcuffs, badge, phone, gun.