Borrowed pain mm romanti.., p.8
Borrowed Pain: MM Romantic Suspense, page 8
"I—" I started, then stopped. No joke came to mind. No deflection or clever quip to break the tension.
"This isn't about the investigation anymore," Rowan said.
"No."
Neither of us moved or looked away. The evidence wall loomed behind Rowan—nine faces staring down at us, including Iris with her intelligent eyes.
"I think we need to talk about what's happening here, Miles."
The rational part of my brain agreed. We needed to discuss professional boundaries, ethical considerations, and the complications of mixing investigations and attraction. We needed to step back, create distance, and acknowledge the electricity that crackled whenever we were in the same room.
My body wouldn't have it. "I'm going to kiss you," I said, the words coming out steadier than I felt.
Rowan's eyes searched mine. For a heartbeat, I thought he might retreat behind professional boundaries.
Instead, he leaned forward just enough to close half the distance between us.
Permission.
I bridged the remaining space, my hands resting on the solid warmth of his shoulders. The kiss started carefully, testing—lips brushing lips. I tasted the lingering sweetness of whatever he'd been stress-baking that morning—cardamom and brown sugar.
One of his hands cupped my jaw, and the fingers of the other hand threaded into the hair at the back of my head. The kiss deepened.
I let it.
My hands moved from his shoulders to his back, feeling the lean strength beneath his Henley and how his muscles shifted as he pressed closer. He kissed like he did everything else—with complete focus.
When we finally broke apart, I expected the familiar rush of awkwardness, the instinct to crack a joke and restore safe distance. Instead, I stared into Rowan's eyes, watching his pupils dilate.
His thumb brushed across my bottom lip, and my breath caught audibly.
"We should probably talk about this." It was so much more than that. One kiss, and I was ready to throw everything away for a man whose investigation could destroy us both. My license, my practice, my family's trust—all balanced on the edge of wanting him more than my own safety.
"Later," Rowan said, his voice dropping to that low register I knew from late-night podcast episodes. "Right now, I want to kiss you again."
The honesty of it—naked desire—wrecked my armor. Rowan was a man who wanted what I wanted.
"Yeah," I breathed, "later."
The second kiss was different—hungrier and less careful. Rowan gripped my waist, fingers pressing against my hipbone, anchoring me against him. His heart beat against my chest, fast and strong.
I was falling for a man as haunted as I was. The investigation had brought us together, but this—his hands in my hair and his breath against my lips—was something entirely different.
It terrified me that he could read me so easily. What happened when he looked past the humor and found someone who'd been pretending to have his shit together since he was twelve?
Chapter eight
Rowan
My hands still wrapped around Miles's waist, pulling him up tight against me. The warehouse hummed around us—monitors casting blue shadows, and the evidence wall looming with its gallery of faces.
I stepped back. Distance. I needed distance to think.
"We should get lunch." The words came out twice as steady as I felt.
Miles gazed at me. "Running away already?"
"Strategic repositioning." I reached for my jacket, draped over the desk chair. "I need to think, and I can't do that when you're—"
"When I'm what?"
When you're close enough that I can smell the spearmint gum on your breath and hear that unconscious humming sound you make when you're thinking.
"Distracting me."
Miles laughed. "Fair enough. You know any decent places around here?"
We walked north on Corson Ave, Georgetown's industrial bones visible beneath its growing skin of galleries and studios. Freight yards stretched to our right, shipping containers stacked like building blocks against the metallic sky.
Along the way, Miles pointed out a mural that transformed the side of a machine shop. His voice cut through the noise crowding my thoughts.
A Boeing transport rumbled overhead, casting shadows across the cracked pavement. Miles tilted his head back to watch it pass, throat exposed, utterly unconscious of how the gesture stole the air from my lungs.
This was the problem with wanting someone—you noticed every distracting detail. How a gentle breeze ruffled his hair or his mouth moved when he spoke, like he was tasting each word before releasing it.
"You picked an interesting neighborhood," Miles continued as we turned onto 12th Ave S. "Most people leaving federal service head for suburbs and safety. Houses with lawns, maybe a dog."
"Most people don't spend their nights investigating murder conspiracies."
"Point taken." Miles navigated around a cluster of brewery patrons spilling onto the sidewalk. "Though you could probably afford better than a converted warehouse on whatever savings you had."
"The Bureau doesn't offer pensions to agents who quit before ten years." It was more detail than I intended to share. "Everything I have came from selling my D.C. life and gambling it on podcast revenue."
Miles stopped walking. "You gave up your pension?"
"I gave up everything."
"For what?"
For Aiyana. For Lucia. For the possibility that some truths are worth more than financial security.
"For the chance to speak without asking permission first."
We resumed walking, passing Biagio's hand-painted window sign. The converted auto shop was industrial bones warmed by decoration, fairy lights where hydraulic lifts once stood.
"How about here?" Miles asked.
I automatically scanned the details: front door, emergency exit visible through the windows, clear sightlines to the street. The hostess kept glancing toward the kitchen—nervous habit or checking with someone? The businessman at table six had positioned himself to watch the entrance, and his newspaper hadn't turned a page since we entered.
Miles watched my face. "You're doing it again."
"Doing what?"
"Threat assessment over linguine. We're having lunch, not infiltrating a hostile facility."
"Same principles apply." I pulled the door open for him. "Situational awareness keeps people alive."
"And paranoia stops them from living."
Miles pushed open the door, releasing garlic-scented air and the murmur of conversations in multiple languages. The hostess looked up from a reservation book held together with duct tape.
"Two?" she asked, already reaching for menus.
"Somewhere quiet if you have it," Miles said.
She led us past couples sharing wine and families debating antipasti selections, toward a table against the back wall. Perfect positioning—clear view of all entrances and emergency exit within ten steps.
"This work?" she asked.
Miles cut me off. "Perfect."
She handed us menus and disappeared. Miles settled into his chair and opened his menu.
I stood for a moment longer.
"The kitchen staff isn't planning an ambush," Miles said quietly. He reached out and touched my wrist.
The sensation anchored me, pulling me back into the present moment.
"Sorry. It's hard to turn off."
"I know." Miles withdrew his hand. "I'm used to it from my brothers, but maybe you could try? Just for today?"
I sat down. "I can try."
Our server appeared and set down a basket of breadsticks that smelled like rosemary and sea salt.
"Something to drink?" she asked.
Miles pointed at the wine list. "The Chianti Classico—food-friendly?"
"Pairs beautifully with our sauces, cuts through the richness."
"Make it a bottle. We're walking." Miles glanced at me. "Unless you prefer something else?"
When had anyone last cared about my preferences? "Chianti's fine."
After our server disappeared, Miles broke a breadstick in two, offering half across the table. It tasted of herbs and butter.
The server returned with wine, going through the ritual of pour-and-taste. Miles nodded approval, and she filled both glasses with liquid the color of garnets.
Miles lifted his glass. "To tactical miscalculations."
"Such as?"
"Dinner dates with podcast hosts. Kissing former agents in converted warehouses." His eyes met mine over the rim. "Whatever this is that we're pretending isn't happening."
The wine tasted like dark fruit. It warmed my throat, slightly loosening the tension between my shoulder blades.
"Something wrong with agents and hosts?"
Miles grinned. "I've always had questionable taste in men."
Our appetizer platter arrived—antipasti scattered across scarred wood. Miles efficiently assembled bites.
"That questionable taste must come with stories."
Miles speared an olive. "Nothing as interesting as federal conspiracy investigations. What about your history? Dating life can't be straightforward when your idea of small talk involves unsolved murders and government cover-ups."
"Busted. Surely, you noticed my conspicuous lack of dinner companions."
Miles laughed. "Don't ask my brothers how long it's been since I brought someone to the weekly family dinner."
"That surprises me."
Miles ignored the comment and launched into a description of charming domesticity. "Last Sunday, we got into this massive argument about healthcare infrastructure." He reached for a breadstick. "Matthew started getting worked up—you know how paramedics get when you question their protocols."
Miles straightened in his chair, breadstick held like a professor's pointer.
"'Ladies and gentlemen,'" he began, voice taking on a slightly nasal, authoritative tone. "We must address the systemic inefficiencies in our current medical response paradigm. The data clearly indicates suboptimal resource allocation during peak demand scenarios."
I choked on my wine.
Miles maintained the character, waving the breadstick for emphasis. "'Furthermore, we need comprehensive analysis of workflow optimization protocols—' and here's where he always does this thing with his free hand, like he's conducting an orchestra, 'with particular attention to ergonomic considerations and personnel fatigue mitigation strategies.'"
"What was he actually trying to say?"
Miles grinned. "That the hospitals are understaffed and the new scheduling system sucks."
I laughed again. "He really talks like that?"
"Gets worse when he's passionate about something. Last month, he spent twenty minutes explaining proper spinal alignment during family dinner because Ma's dining chairs were 'ergonomically suboptimal for extended postural maintenance.'"
The image of grown men discussing chair ergonomics while their mother served dinner struck me as both absurd and deeply enviable. I admired a family that stayed connected. Mine had long since scattered hundreds of miles apart from each other.
Miles's smile faltered slightly. "Matthew means well, but sometimes I wonder if his need to fix everyone's medical problems is because nobody could fix Dad's. The smoke inhalation was too severe." He shook his head. "Family dinner gets complicated when everyone's carrying professional guilt."
Our entrees arrived—homemade pasta, mine with a red sauce, and Miles with white.
"When did you last see your family?" Miles asked.
"Christmas. Phone call."
"That's it?"
"Two brothers—one in New York and the other in Costa Rica. My parents retired to Naples, Florida. They all think I'm wasting my education on conspiracy theories instead of respectable employment." I twirled the pasta on my fork. "They're not wrong."
Miles set down his fork. "You gave up everything to share stories about people unfairly facing the impact of crime."
"Because I haven't actually exposed anyone yet. I'm still sitting in warehouses talking to strangers about patterns that might not exist."
Miles flinched.
"Strangers?"
Fuck. "Miles, I didn't mean—"
"It's fine. Good to know where I stand in your risk assessment."
I reached across the table, touching his forearm. "I'm sorry. That came out wrong."
He looked up. "Did it?"
"Yes. I'm not good at this. Being with people who aren't sources or suspects. You scare me."
"I scare you?"
"You make me want things I've convinced myself I don't need. Family dinners, inside jokes, and someone who cares whether I eat actual food."
Miles was quiet. "Tell me about before," he said finally. "What made you want to hunt patterns in the first place?"
"My grandfather. Joseph Ashcroft. Thirty years with the Bureau, worked organized crime in Chicago." I remembered his calloused hands guiding mine across newspaper clippings. "When I was eight, he'd show me crime reports buried on page six. Missing persons, unexplained accidents, and suicides that didn't add up."
"And you saw patterns."
"I saw questions nobody was asking. Grandpa Joe would say, 'The story they print is never the whole story, kid. Your job is to find the parts they left out.'"
Miles leaned forward. "So you joined the Bureau to follow in his footsteps."
"I joined because I wanted to be the person who asked the questions nobody else was asking. Took me seven years to learn that asking the right questions doesn't matter if nobody wants to hear the answers."
The server approached with coffee service. Miles accepted—public acknowledgment that whatever was happening between us had moved beyond professional collaboration.
"What about you?" I asked. "What made you choose trauma therapy?"
"My father died when I was twelve. House fire—he went back for someone who didn't make it out."
Understanding clicked. "You became a therapist to process your own trauma."
"I became a therapist because I understood survivor's guilt. Also, I saw how my family dealt with loss. My brothers threw themselves into dangerous careers—fire, SWAT, and emergency medicine. They chose to run toward other people's crises instead of processing their own."
"And you chose to help people process theirs."
"I chose to help people find ways to live with the weight instead of being crushed by it. Different approach, same impulse to fix what's broken."
The parallels between us were obvious—two men who'd turned the trauma others experienced into professional missions, carrying other people's pain because we'd never learned to put down our own.
"Heavy conversation for lunch," I observed.
"Better than small talk." Miles wove his fingers together with mine. "For the rest of the afternoon, can we not be investigators? Can we be two people who had lunch and want to spend more time together?"
The server returned with a single plate—perfectly constructed tiramisu, layers of coffee-soaked ladyfingers, and mascarpone dusted with cocoa. She set it between us with two spoons and a conspiratorial smile.
"Compliments of the kitchen," she said.
Miles accepted the spoons without releasing my hand. "Thank you."
She disappeared back toward the kitchen.
"So we're a couple now?" I asked.
"What would you call this?" Miles lifted his spoon, cutting into the dessert. The first bite made him close his eyes, a soft sound of appreciation escaping between his lips.
"I don't know what to call it," I admitted.
"That bothers you. Not being able to categorize something."
"Everything else in my life has clear parameters. Sources, suspects, allies, threats. You don't fit into any of those categories."
"Maybe I don't have to."
The restaurant hummed around us—conversations in multiple languages, the distant clatter of kitchen equipment, couples sharing wine and ordinary Friday evening intimacy. Normal sounds that felt foreign against the backdrop of my usual isolation.
Miles ran his thumb over my knuckles where our hands rested beside the dessert plate. "You're analyzing this. You don't have to solve this like a case, Rowan."
"Solve what?"
"Whatever's happening between us. You don't have to analyze it until it makes sense or fits into your existing framework. Sometimes things are what they are."
I reached for my cup of coffee, and my fingers trembled.
"You're scared," Miles observed.
"I'm always scared. It keeps me alive."
"No, this is different. You're scared of wanting this."
The accuracy of his assessment stole my breath, but it shouldn't have been a surprise. Miles had advanced training in reading subtext.
"I haven't done this in a long time," I whispered.
"Done what?"
"Sat across from someone and wanted them to stay." It was tactical suicide, revealing a weakness to someone who could exploit it.
"How long?"
I thought about empty apartments, takeout containers, and the thousands of conversations that never moved beyond professional necessity. "Since before the Bureau. Since before I learned that caring about people makes you vulnerable to manipulation."
Miles was quiet momentarily, thumb still tracing patterns against my knuckles.
"Maybe another thing to try today—wanting this, without calculating exit strategies."
He was describing stepping off a cliff. It would require being just Rowan—not the federal agent, podcaster, or man with the evidence wall. I had to reveal the person underneath all those defensive layers.
"I don't know how to do that anymore."
"Neither do I, but maybe we could figure it out together."
I lifted our joined hands, pressing my lips briefly to his knuckles. "For today."
Miles's phone buzzed against the table between us, the vibration traveling through the wood and into my bones. He glanced at the screen, the relaxed contentment draining from his face.
"Unknown number," his thumb hovered. "Could be a client." I watched his face, reading the decision playing out in real time. "Crisis doesn't respect lunch schedules."
