Chapter 1 - The Armor We Never Took Off
"What do you want, Claire?" Jonah asked, his deep baritone barely vibrating above a whisper against the plush carpet of the bridal suite.
"I want you to stop treating yourself like a bomb waiting to go off," I said.
My fingers remained pressed to his jawline. His skin was rough with evening stubble, burning hot against my ice-cold palms. Up close, his size was undeniably overwhelming. His broad shoulders blocked out half the room, and his hands were large enough to wrap entirely around my throat with room to spare. For hours, every crude remark from the reception had played on a loop in my head: my cousin Megan giggling about whether I’d survive the honeymoon, my uncle slapping him on the back with vulgar warnings to go easy on the china doll, my own mother sliding an anxious glance toward the exit. People looked at Jonah and saw a walking avalanche.
Yet sitting cross-legged on the floor, he looked like a condemned man waiting for a verdict. His chest rose and fell in rapid, shallow bursts, terrified that shifting his weight an inch to the left might frighten me back into the bathroom.
"You don't understand what happens when I forget myself," he murmured, his eyes searching the carpet between his knees. "I grew three inches in a single summer when I was fifteen. My hands got heavy before my brain knew what to do with them. That afternoon with Luke... I didn't even push him with bad intentions. We were just laughing about some stupid car magazine. Then there was this sickening crack against the iron vice of the workbench. The sound he made—gasping for air while blood flecked his lip—it plays in my skull every single time I touch anything fragile."
"I am not a piece of cheap lumber, Jonah," I said firmly, sitting down directly in front of him so our knees touched. "And you are not your father’s curse."
His father had carved that trauma into him with cold efficiency. Old Thomas Vance was a hard-bitten rancher who believed boys with heavy frames were dangerous beasts requiring constant discipline. The day Luke came home from the hospital wrapped in thick white surgical tape, Thomas didn't console Jonah. He dragged him out to the barn, forced him to drop his football gear into a metal drum, and set it ablaze. Men built like you don't get to lose control. You become a monster, or you learn to be a cage.
For twelve years, Jonah had lived inside that cage. He walked with his elbows tucked against his ribs in crowded grocery aisles. He yielded the sidewalk to teenagers. He spoke in low, carefully measured tones so no one would mistake his volume for aggression.
"I spent the whole reception watching you," I admitted, pulling his trembling right hand into both of mine. His fingers stiffened at first, instinctively resisting the contact out of fear, before slowly softening beneath my touch. "Every time someone cracked a joke about how small I am compared to you, your shoulders flinched. You weren't laughing with them. You were taking mental notes of every horrible thing they thought you might do to me."
"Because what if they're right?" he asked rawly. A solitary tear spilled down the ridge of his cheek. "What if I roll over in my sleep? What if I hold your wrist too tightly when I pull you out of traffic? What if one day I get furious, lose my temper, and break you the way I broke Luke?"
I leaned forward until my forehead rested against his broad collarbone. Beneath the fine fabric of his tuxedo, his heart hammered like a trapped bird.
"Look at me," I commanded softly.
He lifted his chin. His green eyes were red-rimmed and nakedly vulnerable.
"We are going to take off these stupid clothes," I said. "We are going to split that stale chocolate wedding cake on the nightstand. And we are going to sleep. No expectations, no performances, and no fear. But you have to promise me one thing."
"Anything, Claire."
May you like
"Stop apologizing for taking up space in the world. You’re my husband, Jonah. Not my captor."
That night, for the first time since we met, Jonah let out a breath that seemed to come from the very bottom of his lungs. We climbed into the king-sized bed, fully clothed in cotton t-shirts, leaving two feet of empty mattress between us. It wasn't the fiery, passionate wedding night our bridal party gossiped about downstairs in the hotel bar. It was something far rarer: a truce between a terrified woman and a gentle giant who had forgotten how to breathe. But as the clock struck three in the morning and rain began to patter against the high window, neither of us anticipated the storm waiting for us back home.
