“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 f**kin’ 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 f**kin’ blue to do right.” He said the last two words with extreme sarcasm. “And in doin’ that strips my power f**king 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.

Ham still wasn’t done.

“Then play close attention to this. A man is not what he says, babe. He’s what he does.”

Was he saying what he actually wasn’t saying… but was?

“You care about me,” I stated quietly, testing my theory.

“Fuck yeah, Zara. I care about you enough to lay roots with you. I care about you enough to fight for your nephew with you. I care about you enough to make babies with you.”

His hand grabbed mine, yanked it up, and pressed it flat against his shoulder where the smooth, puckered skin of the ugly scar left by an ax marred his flesh.

“I care about you enough to take another one of these if a man was comin’ after you. Both my parents are dead. I got no siblings. I got no roots. The only thing I got, the only thing I realized months ago I’ve had for a long f**kin’ time, is what I’ve kept as close as I could until I was ready to take it all the way, and that’s f**kin’ you.”

That was me.

“I think maybe I’ve been kind of a bitch,” I blurted.

“I think you want what you gotta learn I’ll give when I’m ready to give it, honey,” Ham replied. “And until I’m ready to give it, you gotta pay attention so you’ll know you have it already.”

I had it already.

Like I thought when I was talking to Cotton.

Ham had never told me he’d loved me.

But he’d shown me.

That meant he loved me.

Man, oh man.

“Okay, now I think I need to kiss you and, maybe, go down on you to make amends for having my head up my ass,” I shared.

His body relaxed, the mood in the room shifted, and he dropped his forehead to mine.

“Sweet offer,” he murmured and the firm was out of his tone. It was filled with tender. “But I’m in the mood to go down on you. You get how you get when I do, we may switch it up and while I’m givin’, so are you. But you get distracted when I got my mouth on you at the same time you’re suckin’ my c**k so I think it’s best one of us stays focused.”

And I had him back.

All that, fighting, heartbreak, Ham laid it out the way Ham always laid it out, I find I’d been a moron and he doesn’t rub it in my face or make me pay in any way.

He’s back to joking.

And offering to go down on me.

“You know I love you.”

I said it and then I couldn’t breathe because suddenly the entirety of Ham’s bodyweight was pressing into me. But only for a moment before he rolled us, taking him to his back, me on top of him, and he shoved my face in his neck with his hand cupping the back of my head even as his other arm continued to squeeze the breath out of me.

And finally, I paid attention.

So I said not a word. I just let everything he was saying to me without saying it flow through me.

It felt beautiful.

His hand and arm relaxed and his voice was soft but jagged when he replied, “Yeah, baby. I know.”

I tipped my head back and kissed the underside of his jaw.

Ham bunched my nightgown in his fist at my ass, murmuring, “Get this off, cookie. You might be tired but not too tired to sit on my face, which is what you’re gonna do right now.”

Usually, when Ham gave an order while we were on mattresses, I did what I was told mostly because I got a lot out of it.

This time, I deviated from Ham’s plan by shifting up and laying a hot, heavy, wet one on him.

Ham let me and he did this by participating fully.

It was sweet.

It was hot.

And I paid attention to that, too.

Then he let me go so I could take off my nightgown and sit on his face.