Breaking Even(82)

I stop fighting him just so that he keeps his arm still. Great. This is not how I envisioned our next encounter. I wanted to be inflicting pain—not healing it.

For twenty minutes, Rye cups my ass with his good hand, kissing my neck the whole time, and I fight a battle of misery while keeping his wounded hand elevated and still.

“You’re back,” he says, trailing his lips down to my chest.

“Shouldn’t he be passed out by now?” I groan, feeling tortured and pissed.

“Rye won’t pass out for a while. He’ll slowly start sobering up. He seems to be finding a rhythm with groping your ass,” Ethan says, amused, and I glare at him.

Finally, someone knocks on the door, and relief washes over me.

“Thanks for doing this,” Wren says as a pretty girl with soft, strawberry blonde hair walks in.

She looks like she’s one of the sparklers almost, but she also looks like me. A mixture of the two—ordinary and extraordinary. If that makes any sense.

Who can make sense after being jarred awake at midnight to deal with the man who broke her heart?

“It’s not a big deal. I’ve done more for worse people,” she says coolly, but she smiles when she sees me.

“Girlfriend?” she asks as she drops down and pulls out a kit of her own, her eyes scanning the ever-wandering hand that is brazenly moving all across my ass.

“Ex-friend that he only used for casual sex,” I say, smiling tightly as she lets go an accidental laugh.

“You’re more than that to him and you know it,” Ethan says, frowning at me like I’m the one that ended things.

He’s as damn confusing as Rye. Maybe it’s the entire male populace that I can’t understand.

“No. I’m not.” I turn my attention back to her as she starts breaking out her packs of sealed sutures and needles. Or whatever they’re called.

But Rye starts moving his hand when she goes to touch him.

“Did you pack anesthesia in there?” Ethan asks her.

Wren hasn’t said a word since the cold greeting the strawberry blonde delivered. I have no idea who she is, but they apparently aren’t on great terms.

“That would be illegal. It’s not really my place to stitch him up either, but I suppose some things can’t be helped. Can you keep him still?” she asks, looking up at me. “I can deaden the place around the wound to keep it from hurting so much, but I need him to be still while I do that and stitch him up.”

I groan as Rye continues to be combative, and I hold his head with one hand as I look into his eyes. “Can you be still, please? We have to fix your hand.”

“Kiss me and I will,” he slurs.

He’s got to be kidding.

“We’re doing this to help you. Just be still.”

He moves his hand again, and Wren and Ethan both curse.

“Just kiss him and hold him still,” Wren growls.

Both the nurse and I turn to glare at him, and he quickly walks away, cowering as though we just pointed guns on him. She turns back to me while rolling her eyes. “Care to help?” she asks, her words meant for Ethan.

“He’ll hit a guy. Especially one that gets too close to her right now. Sorry. Not taking that chance.”

She looks at him at the same time I do, and he runs away, too

“Worthless men,” she grumbles. I wish I could call Maggie to come help, but he won’t let anyone touch him right now but me apparently. My confusing hell only seems to grow hotter.

“You’ll be still if I kiss you?” I ask him, and he immediately goes still.

“Yes,” he whispers, and that’s when I see a tear fall from his eye, breaking my heart in ways I didn’t think were possible.

I really wish I knew what was going on, but I don’t. And I never will. But he has to get his hand stitched up, and I never got to give him a goodbye kiss.

Looks like this is as close to closure as I’ll get.

My lips go to his, and I feel the nurse tug my hand away as she goes to work. Rye’s tongue slips into my mouth with familiar, expert ease, and his good hand goes to my hair as he pulls me closer, devouring me in a way that only destroys me more.

I always confused his passion for love. And now I remember why it was so hard to be strong around him.

My hands tangle in the soft strands of his short hair as I say a thousand words with this one kiss. Everything I’ve felt, everything I’ve wanted him to know, and every ounce of pain I’ve had all go into this kiss, and he moans while tugging at my small, thin shorts.

“Just a kiss,” I murmur against his lips, ignoring the tang of my salty tears as they start to invade.

He nods and moves his hand back up to my hair, and he kisses me harder, as though he’s saying all the same things I am. And it hurts. It hurts so damn bad that it feels as though the pain is manifesting into a physical mass inside my chest, pressing against me with a heavy force, and making it hard to breathe.