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or anything else, so I pulled my legs up to my chest and let the wave of emotions I was experiencing take over. I was done fighting against what I knew I would eventually have to deal with anyway.

 
 
 
 
 
Twelve
     
     
    Ky
    There were at least a million different things that I wanted to say to comfort her or even just make her feel a little bit better, but my ego got the best of me. I was here to do a job. She was a job, and I wasn’t about to put her safety in jeopardy for the ridiculously juvenile and hormonal needs I wanted to fulfill.
    I stood about midway up the stairs staring up at the hallway that led to her room, playing out at least a dozen different scenarios. I wanted her in a way that I hadn’t felt in quite sometime, and a part of me wanted to get to know the amazing woman that hid beneath that tough exterior.
    About ten minutes later, I decided that nothing good would ever come of me walking up those steps. As much as I wanted to be there for her, I knew I couldn’t. So instead, I made my way into the darkened kitchen and retrieved what my body had been craving all day. I took a long pull from the bottle and then another. Before I knew it, the entire contents of the bottle was now cooling my insides.
    I opened the fridge to reach for another when I heard a familiar sound. I quietly made my way over to the bottom of the stairs, listening for the sound again. When I heard it again, I slowly started making my way up the steps. Her faint cries pulled at my heart and I found myself closing in on her door. My hand went up to knock, to ask for permission to enter, but something inside of me took over and before I knew it, I was standing inside of her room.
    She was tucked in a fetal position on her bed and my heart sank. The realization that so much had happened to this poor girl in the last seventy-two hours sunk in, and I felt for her. What she was going through couldn’t be easy to deal with, and my shitty attitude on top of it all, didn’t help I’m sure. She still hadn’t heard me come in either that or she was choosing to ignore me. I stepped in her direction just as her muffled cries began again.
    Without any further hesitation, I gently picked her up in my arms and slid underneath her. She never looked up at me. The only acknowledgment I received was when she pressed her face firmly into my chest as her tears soaked through my shirt. I closed my eyes, breathing her in , as I wrapped my arms around her fragile frame that was now curled into my side.
    She smelled of almonds and coconut and I instantly committed the smell to memory. For the first few minutes that I held her, I didn’t know exactly what to say or do. I was afraid of scaring her off wit h words, so I let my hands say what I couldn’t. I brushed the hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear, and then followed the length down her back. As much as I was soothing her, I was soothing myself as well.
    When her crying stopped and she hadn’t made a sound, I just assumed she had fallen asleep, but I wasn’t ready to leave her just yet. Holding Lyndley this way ignited something inside of me that I had missed. Every time her breath grazed my skin beneath my shirt, I shuttered. There was something so poetic and so intense about this girl, and I found myself intrigued by her every action.
    My fingers were tracing her hair down the middle of her back when her low voice caught my attention. “I miss him.”
    Without her having to say another word, I knew exactly who she was talking about. “I know, and I’m sorry that you have to go through all of this. We’re gonna catch these guys.”
    “How can you be so certain?”
    It was a good question, and one that I had been asked far too many times. I was never one hundred percent certain, but there was a reason I chose the profession I did. I liked to get the bad guys and make them pay, and this case was no different. “Cause I always get the bad guy.”
    I felt her body sha ke below