But Ham’s arms got tight, his legs tightened around mine, and he said quietly, “Settle, cookie, and please, God, listen.”

Something in his tone, the intensity of it, made me still.

Ham felt it. His arms loosened but one hand started stroking my back and that, too, could make me believe I could take Ham as he came.

“I didn’t talk about it, not back then with you, ’cause no need to get into that kind of shit with the way we were. But I was with Feb like I used to be with you,” he shared.

I closed my eyes again and rested my forehead back on his collarbone.

Ham kept stroking my back.

“Feb’s different though, baby. She’s not like you. Even in the beginning, you gave you to me and I had all of you, even when I was gone. I knew that. I knew it wasn’t fair. But I wanted it, it mattered to me, so I kept it. Feb never gave herself to me. I didn’t have it in me to be the man you needed me to be back then. Feb didn’t have it in her to be that woman to me.”

“But you wanted that,” I stated, my heart breaking, my mind thinking I should have fought harder when he carried me to his bed.

His hand slid up my spine and curled around the back of my neck. “No,” he declared firmly. “I wanted from her what I told myself I wanted from you. And I got that from her.”

I said nothing.

“That shit went down with Lowe choppin’ people up and the feds had to contact me ’cause I was a target. I called her, her man answered. Not gonna lie to you. That stung.”

I pressed my lips together but stayed still and quiet.

“She’s a good woman,” he whispered, his fingers at my neck tensing, his arm around me giving me a squeeze. “Can’t lie to you, baby, ’cause it’s true. Wish I could. Wish I could make this easier. But I’ve fucked up so much of my goddamned life, I gotta do it right when I straighten it out.”

That didn’t exactly make sense.

Before I could ask, Ham kept going.

“We had good times, her and me, and the way she was, I suspected that would never end. Never figured she’d settle down. I was the only one she had, though, and she’s a good-lookin’ woman so I suspected there’d be a time when she might hook up with someone else but not settle down. I thought I had that, that safety with Feb, and would never lose it. When I did, it did a number on me, and that was before Lowe caught up with me.”

He paused but I said nothing so he carried on.

“When that conversation went down, I’ll never forget it, the last thing she said was, ‘You find another, don’t watch her walk away.’ All I could think was how many times I’d forced you to watch me to walk away. ”

Thinking he still was carrying a torch for February, that was not what I expected to hear.

So much not, my eyes opened.

“And then it got worse. I thought about the one time I’d watched you, when you’d done the same as Feb, somethin’ I knew you were eventually gonna do, walkin’ to somethin’ you deserved to find, a man who would make you happy. And how I stood there watchin’ you walk away and thinkin’ how easy it was to walk away from you ’cause I did it always knowin’ I’d be back and how much it fuckin’ killed watchin’ you do it, ’cause at the time, I didn’t think I’d ever have you back.”

Oh my God.

“Ham—”

“February Owens is a good woman. She was good to me. I was good to her. And I care about her. But she was never gonna be mine, and it sucked, losin’ her, but thinkin’ on it, I knew that deep down from the moment I met her. And that’s precisely why I started it up with her. But, cookie, you were mine from the moment I met you. That mattered to me. I took care of it as best as I could, until I came to a place in my life where I could give you what you should have and lucked the fuck out you were available for me to give it. And that’s the big difference you gotta get.”

I tried again to cut in. “Darlin’—”

It didn’t work.

“And I don’t like thinkin’ about her because, like I said, it sucks losin’ her. Her man is not the kind of guy who wants me checkin’ in. But I gotta tell you, it’s more. And it’s more in a fucked-up way only because a man lost his mind and went on a killin’ spree in her name. She lost people she cared about and not in a quiet, slippin’-away kind of way. She watched someone get shot. She saw a friend of hers die. She’s gotta live with all that and do it with reporters and writers breathin’ down her neck, knowin’ movies are gonna be made of that mess and documentaries are gonna air on TV. You care about someone, you wanna be there for them and this is a time when I’d wanna be there for her. I can’t and, baby, that stings, too.”

“Babe—” I tried again.

But Ham kept going.

“So I don’t wanna talk about her because I lost her and she means somethin’ to me. But it upsets you so there it is. The thing you gotta take from all this is, Feb is not you. She was never an option. She would never be where you are right now. She wouldn’t give me that. And I always knew that. I also always knew, from the first time I said good-bye to you, that I was a special kind of fuckwit for doin’ it because I was drivin’ away from the best woman I’d ever known. And years have passed, Zara, and you’re still that woman. It’s just that now, I’m never gonna drive away. I’m never gonna leave you and I’m not gonna let you leave me.”

He stopped talking finally, but I couldn’t start.

I didn’t know what to say.

What I did know was, being the best woman he’d ever known was a lot better than his just caring about me. And his vowing he was never going to leave me wasn’t shabby either.

But he still had not told me he loved me.

Then again, I was Zara Cinders and until I was old enough to go out and make friends, only one person in my life loved me truly, completely, and unconditionally. And, even though she stepped up repeatedly to take beatings meant for me, eventually made me watch her go through a junkie stage, through empty hookup after hookup that didn’t mean a thing, and finally made me watch her essentially die, she never stopped loving me.

So I should probably learn to take what I could get.

“You with me on all this?” he asked when I said nothing.

“Yes,” I answered and I felt him let out a long, silent sigh.

I said no more. Ham didn’t either.

Then he did.

“You fight nasty, cookie,” he stated gently.

“Yeah, I do. When what I’m fighting about matters,” I replied.

“I get that,” he said. “What I don’t get is that you were in no state to start a conversation about Feb. You had to read I was not in a place where I wanted to talk about that, and you still threw it in my face, which was not cool.”

He was right.

However, he was also wrong.

“That mattered,” I declared and his hand came to my chin, moving it up so he could catch my eyes in the dark.

“All I’m sayin’ is, in future, wait for your right time and give me the same. Yeah?”

Seriously, I hated it when he was gentle and reasonable when I didn’t feel like being the same.

So I laid it out why I wasn’t.

“Ham, you’re the one for me and it doesn’t feel good knowin’ you don’t feel the same.”

“What?” he asked.

“You heard me,” I answered.

“Jesus,” he muttered, rolling into me so I took on a lot of his weight.

“Ham—”

“Cookie, quiet,” he ordered, his voice jagged and at that tone, I didn’t know what to expect so, even tired, I pulled all I had left close and braced. “Please, baby, I know a lot of shit is swirlin’, but pay some fuckin’ attention.”

“I am,” I snapped because I damned well was.

“Get this,” he stated, his voice not jagged any longer, but suddenly harsh. “That bitch walked into our home.”

The shadow of his face dipped close to mine, a move so swift I held my breath.

“Our home,” he repeated, saying that like the space we rented was sacrosanct. “And I don’t give a shit if that woman finally did right. My girl and I were fightin’, it was intense, it didn’t feel good for either of us, she takes off to blow off some steam and opens the door to my ex?” He shook his head. “No. Fuck no. I don’t give a shit she drives for hours to show me she’s changed, she wants redemption. Zara, babe, you do not open the door to our goddamned house and be confronted with that shit. Not ever. Not if I can help it.”

I’d been wrong. Rachel didn’t have the power to push Ham to extreme emotion.

It was me having to deal with her that had royally pissed him off.

But Ham wasn’t done.

“She showed me how it felt to be stripped of power when she aborted two of my children. Then she pops by out of the fuckin’ blue to do right.” He said the last two words with extreme sarcasm. “And in doin’ that strips my power fucking again by makin’ it impossible, unless I acted a bigger dick than I was or got physical, to shield you from that. The only thing I could do to protect you was hold you close and that is not cool. Not in any way.”

I was right.

His not being able to protect me was what pissed him off. And he didn’t put his arm around me because he needed me. He did it because he thought I needed him.

Okay, maybe I’d been a bit of a moron.

Ham still wasn’t done.

“The point I’m makin’ is, I do not feel that way about anyone, Zara. I’m a good man and I’ll take a friend’s back but no one gets that shit from me. Not ever. Not since Rachel. Not Feb. Not anyone. But you. Now, are you finally gettin’ how you need to start payin’ attention?”

“Yes,” I whispered because, finally, I was.