A/N: This story is seven chapters and completely finished! We're in the home stretch now!

Previously:

"Want me to stop?" she asked softly.

His head thunked back on the sand as his fingers tunneled into her hair, clutching her head. "Only if you want to see a grown man cry."

Chapter Six

Steph didn't have to open her eyes to know where she was. On the rug in front of the living room fire Ranger had built in the wood stove, held in his warm, strong arms. Being touched and kissed, hearing his low, husky voice murmur things in her ear that made shivers rise on her spine, she felt like her old self.

Not lonely.

Not worried that her heart might never feel full again.

Not struggling just to make it through her next breath, instead she was … happy. Full of hope.

It'd scare her if she could muster the energy for it, but at the moment she was sated and exhausted in a way that completely excluded thinking. That was good because she didn't want to think, didn't want anything to pierce this lovely protective layer he'd given her, or she might have to remember that being with him had been a sheer accident of fate.

And temporary.

A warm, callused hand smoothed up the back of her thigh and her exhaustion vanished. "Careful," she murmured into the delicious spot between his throat and shoulder. "My lover is here."

The hand came down on her butt in a light smack that made her laugh. She tried to roll away but Ranger held onto her.

For the moment, she remained herself harshly. It's always only for the moment. Because his love came with a condom, and if she found her way to his bed, she'd have to leave it eventually… And all that goodness inside her heart shriveled at the memories. The truth. His truth. Her entire heart was open to him, but his wasn't to her. "Ranger—"

"Shh." He gathered her in even closer. Stroking the hair from her face, he pressed his lips to her temple and breathed her name. Breathed it again as she drifted off in his arms.

#

Ranger woke as Steph carefully slid out of the bed. With dawn nothing more than a purple tinge in the far eastern sky, he propped up his head with his hand, watching as she tried to pull the corner of the sheet from beneath him. She had the rest wrapped around her already. "Where are you going?"

She went still, and he knew. Damn it, he knew because his heart gave one bruising kick to his ribs. "You're running," he said flatly.

"Actually, I'm walking. Or trying to." She tugged on the sheet. "Let go."

He could let go of the sheet, but he found he couldn't let go of her. He'd been wrong to think he ever could.

"Damn it, Ranger."

He fisted his hand on the sheet and gave a yank, and the thing came off her entirely. "There," he said. "You're free."

Nude, she let out a sound of pure exasperation and shot him a look that said 'grow up'. Her sweet little ass sashayed across the room, where she bent for her clothing. He could see a bite mark he'd left in the crease where her thigh met her buttocks, and felt an odd possessiveness that was going nowhere. He could leave all the marks on her he wanted, she still wouldn't be bound to him. Not by hook or heart. And at that thought, his own heart suddenly ached like a son-of-a-bitch. He rolled to his back and stared at the ceiling. "Well hell if I'll watch you walk away."

"Why not? I've watched you walk away from me plenty."

At that, he rose from the bed and moved to her. She stood before him in a pair of panties, holding a camisole tank top in front of her breasts. He took it out of her hands and tossed it behind them. "I didn't want to walk away," he said.

"I was driving you crazy, I know." She went back for the top, then stepped into the it and yanked it up, fussing with her straps. "I tend to do that to a person."

His heart caught at the look of pain on her face. "Babe, you were with Morelli."

"I could go on about that, about how you pushed me there, about how you weren't available, but that would demean what I had with Joe, and I won't do that. But we both know the truth. I loved you. You, Ranger, every single annoying part; your stubbornness, your fierce loyalty, how smart you are, how brave. I even love the way you protect me because you can't help yourself. And how you snore when you're tired—"

"I do not."

"Every part of you," she said again in that terrifyingly soft and final voice. "Can you say the same?" Without waiting for an answer, she walked out of the bedroom.

He followed her to the living room, where she was digging through her duffel bag. She pulled out jeans and shimmied into them. She was putting on her t-shirt when he found his voice.

"I love you," he said quietly.

She stared at him. "But?"

"But … I haven't always had the luxury of acting on it," he admitted.

She let out a pained breath and turned away.

He stepped into her, pressing his chest to her back. "It's been far more important to me to have you safe, Babe. I want you alive and well and safe."

Stepping away, she zipped up her bag. "I want the same for you. But I'm not going to do this again, the emotional fall-out of the morning after. I just can't. It hurts too much."

"What if things are different now."

She stared at him. "Since when?"

Since last night, though he hesitated to tell her that. She would think he was full of shit, that he'd taken too long to straighten his head out of his ass.

And she'd be right.

He had shitty timing, but last night in the water with her, staring into her gorgeous blue eyes, he'd seen his present, his future, there in her gaze for the taking. He'd woken with things crystal clear for the first time in a very long time.

Steph thought he could read minds, that he was Batman. But he wasn't, and hell if he knew what and how to tell her what she needed to know. "Babe. Steph—"

With a shake of her head, she tore free and shut the door behind her with a finality that frightened him more than anything else had.

A/N: Only one more chapter to go, and all will be resolved, I promise. Thank you so very much for your reviews, they have made my week.