The Broken One (Falcon Falls Security, #2)

by Brittney Sahin

She’d grown up on a ranch with a bunch of cowboys. She wasn’t quite as fragile as he may have made her out to be in his mind.

No, in his eyes, she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

“But I don’t need you thinking I rejected you in the past because I didn’t want you. That’s the furthest thing from the truth.” And there he went again with the truth.

“Jesse, I’ve wanted you since as far back as I can remember. I’ve always wanted you, and you have to know that.”

“You deserve to be with someone whole, Ella Mae. And I’m about as broken as they come. Far too many pieces for me to ask you to try and help put me back together.”

“But, Ella,” he said around a swallow, “the last thing in the world I want is to reject you tonight. Because I do want you. I want to throw you on the bed and fuck the ever-loving daylights out of you. And then do it again and again and again.” His cock strained in his pants at the image he’d laid out for them both to absorb. “The last thing you need to be thinking is that I want to reject you. But saying no is something I need to do. It’d be wrong of me to give you false hope. I’d be an asshole.”

One particular problem? Ella Mae Hawkins and her recent desire to speed date her way through Birmingham.

Ella was innocent and sweet, and Thatcher was, at best, a necessary evil.

“Because you can’t help yourself. You’re curious. You like to . . . fix things.”

A weekend of sex that had alternated between spicy and sweet. A weekend during which his hands had touched every inch of her body, and he’d worshipped her skin like the finest silk beneath his rough palms.

“Every time he’s shown me a shred of hope, he immediately yanks it away. It makes me crazy. And it’s why every other day I feel like . . . like I’m losing my mind.”

“He keeps breaking my heart. Smashing it into pieces as if he wants me to be damn near as broken as he claims to be,”

“All I know is that I’m thirty-five, and I’ve spent most of my life in love with a man who I can’t be with, and somehow, someway, I have to get over him.” She sniffled. “I really do hate him, even though . . .” I still love him.

“The man has had more than half his life to miss me. Fourteen years in the Army, and even when he left the military and returned home, he was always coming and going.”

“You don’t have any say about what I do, Jesse McAdams. And I don’t recall asking for your permission.”

“And I didn’t think you could ever forgive me once you learned the truth. I have a lot of blood on my hands. And I’m still . . . broken.”

“The kiss after we say our I do won’t be fake. And I’ll be damned if the one thing Brian’s had that I haven’t happens for the first time in front of an audience.”

“Remember what kind of man you’re fake marrying. Remind yourself of who I am.”

“We’re playing pretend, Ella Mae, but there’s nothing fake about who I am. And who I will always be. A danger to you.”

She was now going as Ella Mae McAdams.

Jesse wanted to knock down the door, pull her into his arms, and take away all the misery and pain he’d caused her. All he’d ever wanted for that woman was happiness. And to be free from harm.

“Sometimes, we give our trust to the wrong people. People we’d never think would betray us,” A.J. said, and Jesse whirled to face his friend, feeling a bit gutted by the comment. A.J. held up a hand.

“The only one messing with my head is you.”

“You know what you’re doing to me, Ella Mae,”

“Then let’s get that kiss out of the way. It’s meaningless to me, but if you want our first kiss to happen in private before our last one in public tomorrow, then so be it.”

He’d already screwed with Ella’s heart three years ago, and Zoran was proof of the fact it might never be safe for him and Ella to be together. For real, at least.

“There’s one thing you and I have never lacked, despite every other issue . . . and that’s chemistry, darling.” His last sentiment floated on a breath, and that breath was like a preview of the kiss to come.

“I think you two should be together. For real. After the mission is complete, and you’re no longer a target for some psychopath and his revenge plot, nothing would make me happier than to see my best friend and sister together.”

“Because Jesse did more than break my heart. I think he broke me too. He broke so much of me,” she cried. “And I’m just not sure if he can help me put the pieces back together.”

“I’ve always known you were the one, Ella Mae. There’s never been anyone but you,” he said slowly. “You were with me in Iraq even though you didn’t know it. I had your picture with me. Always. Yours was the first face I looked at when I woke and the last face I saw before going to sleep.”

“My heart has been with you whether I was overseas or at home,” Jesse went on, his voice full of emotion. “It’s always been with you. I’ve always loved you, and I always will. No matter what.”

“You’ve always had my heart. I gave it to you long ago. And no matter what, you’ll have it until the day I die.”

My fake husband doesn’t want me enough for himself but also doesn’t like to share.’”

“You wrecked me. Destroyed me long before tonight. And now I have this chance to go to Paris and finally get you out of my head, and we’re going as husband and wife. God hates me.

“Maybe that’s because there’s nothing left to say. Maybe we’re both broken, and we can only ever exist together in that world of anger. Or the one of lust.”

“Because I want you, Ella Mae. More than you can possibly know.” He was certain she understood his confession went beyond sex. “And I won’t have our next time be on this plane with everyone out there.”

“How I feel about you, and how I have always felt about you is more real than my own existence,” he rasped while erasing the last bit of space between them, and without hesitation, he cupped the back of her head. He looked deep into her eyes and added in a hoarse voice, “It’s so real that in three years, I haven’t so much as touched another woman.”

“But I can’t change the fact I’m terrified something will happen to you because of me.”

“I don’t know if I made this clear,” Ella began around a sniffle, “but I accept you for who you are and who you were. And I want you. Every part of you. All of it.” Her tears fell freely now as Jesse pulled her onto his lap. “I just want you, and I don’t care about anything else. Please, please don’t run from me. Not again.”

“I don’t deserve you, but I don’t want to give you up.”

“I always want you, Ella Mae, but I won’t use you, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

But she hadn’t shared her body and definitely not her heart with anyone. And now he knew. But what would he do with that news?

There wasn’t a chance in this life or the next that Jesse would survive the loss of Ella. But he refused to let himself imagine any scenario that didn’t result in her being over a hundred when dying of natural causes. And he had to go first.

She didn’t want to see Jesse come apart, though, not when she’d spent the morning witnessing him piece himself back together. His walls had come down, and he’d handed her his heart.

And now it was Ella shaking. The idea of Jesse being used as a martyr to bring down a criminal . . . not an option.

“I’d do anything to protect Ella,” Jesse cut in, his tone venomous.

His father was the first one to break him, wasn’t he? And now she wanted to kill the bastard herself for ever hurting the man she loved.

She couldn’t believe she’d spent years being angry at Jesse without so much as a clue as to the enormous amount of pain and hurt he’d kept bottled up and buried deep inside.

“I’d take all the beatings in the world every day for the rest of my life if it meant protecting you from this mess.”

“I’m sorry it took me so long to find my way to you. To try and piece myself back together to be the man you deserve.” He quietly added, “I didn’t know if you could love someone so broken back then.” Ella nearly startled at his last comment, and she pulled back and swiped her hands over her cheeks, willing herself to pull it together. “Loving someone unconditionally means you’re there for them at their highs and lows.”