Twisted(95)

“Come here.” When she didn’t move, he hauled her against his chest, tightening his arms until she gasped against his throat. Her tears came harder, racking her shoulders. He pressed his cheek against her head, rocking her as carefully as a child. “I love you with everything I am,” he whispered once her sobs began to slow. “You deserve the best, and I’m going to give it to you.”

She tipped her damp face up to his and drew her quivering thumb over his lower lip. “I love you too. And you’re the best I could ever ask for.”

He dipped his forehead against hers. “I’m going to stop. I promise.”

She nodded so quickly that he would’ve chuckled if he hadn’t been a deep breath away from tears himself. “Yes. We’ll do it together. Whatever you need. I’ll help you.” Her lips lifted hesitantly, the double rainbow bonus after a destructive thunderstorm. “I’m good at projects.”

Now he did laugh, hard enough to elicit the tears he’d battled back. He closed his eyes before they fell, but one snuck through, cutting a shameful path down his cheek. “I’m sorry. God, I’m so fucking sorry, baby.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. You gave up everything for me. Everything. Your brother, your parents. You turned your back on them to protect me and I let you down. I left you alone—”

“No.” He grabbed her face, shaking her more than he’d meant to. “Goddammit, no. You aren’t to blame for any of this. I did it. Me, Jazz. I knew what I was doing, and I kept doing it. I did it before the second night we were together. God, oh God, I even wanted you to try it too. So don’t you ever ever say that you did anything wrong. It was me. I’m the wrong one.”

“No.” She shook her head, tears streaming. Breath hiccupping until each stutter echoed in the pit of his chest like an aborted heartbeat. “I won’t let you face this alone. Let me share the burden.”

“You are. You’re here with me, and I can face anything now.”

“We’ll face it,” she said fiercely. “Like we face everything. Together.”

“Yes. Lila gave me an advance, and I’ll get square with the people I owe. This is almost over.” He gathered her in close and buried his face in her hair, smearing his tears in the silky strands. Hiding them like a humiliating secret. “Just don’t leave me. Please.”

“I won’t. We’re a team. Always.”

Drawing strength from her words and her solid warmth in his arms, he swallowed and edged back. “In my shaving kit in the bathroom, there’s a baggie. Flush it down the toilet. I don’t want to see it or know it ever existed.”

She didn’t hesitate. She slid away from him and rubbed her palms over her cheeks before climbing off the bed and marching into the bathroom. As small as she was, she brought to mind a fierce warrior, ready to do battle in her off-the-shoulder top and skinny jeans.

He closed his eyes at the flush of the toilet, imagining all that pretty powder draining away. And when she walked back to him and whispered, “it’s done,” he realized she wore one of his shirts, wrapping his scent around her even as she faced the reality of his failures.

She’d used her favorite vintage Sex Pistols T-shirt to mop up his blood. Whipping it off without a thought to try to take away his pain.

Inhaling a ragged breath, he nodded and pulled her close. He pressed his face against her breasts, the gentle thud of her heartbeat as calming as the sound of the surf coming in at high tide. Jazz’s love burned inside him now, and nothing else mattered.

He laid his lips on that steady beat, smiling as it sped just from his nearness. She scooped her hand through his hair, gently soothing, and he turned his mouth to her breast. He drew her nipple between his teeth through the shirt, drowning in her summery watermelon scent and the hint of cinnamon from the cabin’s soap on her skin. Those two smells shouldn’t have worked together, but on her they were the perfect mixture of spicy and sweet.

Pushing his hands under her shirt, he rolled it upward until he glimpsed her black-and-white bra. The tiny bow in the middle might’ve made it chaste, if not for the quickness of her breathing pushing her breasts up and almost over the tops of the cups. One flick of his fingers and they spilled free, hopelessly vulnerable, her skin flushing prettily before he closed his mouth around her nipple and sucked in earnest.

Her soft moan washed over him, barely loud enough to reach his ears. He slipped his hand between her legs and cupped her, relishing the pulse that built there too, a butterfly beat against his palm. He licked his way from one breast to the other, giving them both special attention, lapping at the taut peaks while their color bloomed from pink to a needy red. He continued down her belly, shifting onto his stomach on the bed, ignoring his aches and pains in favor of peeling away her snug jeans to reveal the boy shorts beneath.