False Start (Red Zone Rivals, #5)

by Kandi Steiner

And more than any of that, I wanted to hold her. I wanted to pull her into me, brush her copper hair from her face and ask what happened to my girl — because she wasn’t here now.

One thing I’d learned about myself over the last eight years was that I was much better at facing my trauma behind closed doors. I wasn’t the kind of person who found peace in facing my demons head on.

“I know you don’t need me,” he said, cutting me off. His eyes flashed with something achingly familiar when he added, “But I need you.”

If anyone in this world could make me crazy, it was this girl.

I wondered if as much as she fought me on it, she wanted someone to take care of her — even if just in this small way.

If I hadn’t asked him to play nice, I had a feeling my ex-husband would already be laid out on the ground. I couldn’t explain why that made me want to melt into a puddle, and also climb Kyle like a tree all at once.

It didn’t matter how I tried to downplay it. The truth was impossible to ignore. This changed everything.

I hoped she’d never remember what it was like to live without me ever again. I hoped she realized as much as I did that there was no going back.

I didn’t know what happened next, but I knew one thing for sure. From this moment on, we were a unit. From this moment on, it was us against the world.

It was her surrendering to me, and me kissing unspoken promises along every slick inch of her skin. I will protect you. I will love you. I will never leave you again. You are mine.

“I am and always have been hers. And being with her again, fighting through what we’ve had to, surviving what we did… there’s no one in this world I could ever want more than her. There’s no one who could ever make sense. She’s it for me. Period. End of story. She is… everything.”

“I love you, Mads,” he breathed, and when his jaw flexed with those words, when emotion made him swallow — it nearly broke me. “God, I love you fiercely. I love you in a way that would kill me if I wasn’t allowed to act out this love every day of my life.

And somehow, even with Marshall’s threat hanging over our heads, I knew I was safe in Kyle’s arms. I knew we would figure it out. I just knew.

I could see how nervous Kyle was, and it was the most adorable thing in the world. Here was this beast of a man who had just won an NFL game, and he was shaking in his boots at the thought of telling a six-year-old that he was about to be a big brother. It warmed my heart.

Because though our love is powerful and unending, it’s our friendship that has always been our lifeline, the roots that hold our foundation strong.”