I need to get Atticus comfortable cohabiting with him right the hell now, before I become a basket case over it. I check the time and it’s a little early for bed but there’s nothing else I need to do, so I head up there anyway. Maybe it’s the kisses from Aodhan, but I feel like I need to confirm that Atticus hasn’t changed his mind.
That seeing it up close hasn’t stopped him from wanting me.
I pass Noah on the stairs and I try not to get pissed about the bloodshot look of his eyes. I’m going to have to speak with Morrison about cutting down his supplies, he can’t just spend all of his days here moping and high.
We already have one of those, I can’t take two.
When I get to my room, Atticus is waiting in the armchair there, his shirt unbuttoned and a hand rubbing over the mottled scar tissue of his chest. It looks as though it should have killed him and, though I don’t find it offensive, I glance away quickly.
I can’t take any more panic right now.
“Are you feeling okay? Are you up to date with your medications? I should call the hospital, check in to see when you’re next due for a checkup. We should pick out a physician too,” I say, moving over to my closet and stepping into it without shutting the door.
I can practically hear his teeth grinding from here but that’s kind of the point. Soon he’ll be healed up and snarling demands at me for my own safety. I’m milking this moment for all it’s worth because I’m also going to do everything in my power to ensure it never happens again.
I will wipe our enemies off of the board through whatever means necessary.
“Forget about it, I’m fine. There’s more pressing issues that we need to talk about, Avery.”
This is it.
This is where he ruins it all over again, I’ve been through this with him a dozen times already.
I slowly strip out of my jacket and blouse, standing in front of him in my favorite bralette. One of the many upsides of having a smaller cup size is how versatile the lingerie options are.
Lips struggles a little more.
His eyes don’t drop down to the skin I’m revealing, which feels a little insulting but I don’t let that show. “Like what? Which parts are so important that we need to talk about them right now instead of just enjoying each other for a minute?”
“Holden. Bingley. You running off to cut deals with Arias that will have Amanda gunning for us all.”
I hold up my hand as I tick a finger off for each solution. “Holden is dead, thanks to Lucy’s show of loyalty. He was a rapist piece of shit, so no skin off of our noses. Bingley is dead, thanks to the knife I pushed into his gut. Again, pedophile piece-of-shit rapist, so another job well done.”
His jaw flexes and then he grinds out, “And Amanda?”
I smile at him as I unzip my skirt, letting it drop to the floor and leaving me standing there in a simple black thong. “She’s a little tied up right now. So tied up that I don’t need to think about her until tomorrow, when I’ve had enough sleep to look her in the face again. You should know me better than to think I’d just leave her to chance—she was dealt with before my plane landed in New York.”
He stares me down for a minute and when it’s clear he’s fuming and not going to have any input any time soon, I bend over to pick up my skirt, folding it and stashing it away and when I step back into the room he’s standing, stripping out of his button-up shirt efficiently.
He’s still too injured for sex, I’m sure of it, but I wouldn’t mind lying around with him for a few hours and enjoying being together. I’m a glutton for it now.
When he moves to drop the shirt down onto the seat, I head for the bed, ready to lounge around and bicker over the deaths we have lined up a little more, but Atticus steps into my path.
He’s spent too long stuck in a bed, so I’ve forgotten just how much bigger than me he is, his shoulders are close to twice the span of mine and when his hands come up to grasp them, there’s a tiny moment of softness, his fingers caressing the skin there in a loving gesture.
His eyes are still hard and unforgiving.
“Atticus—“ I start, but he swallows my words with a kiss, pushing me backward until he’s pressing me into the mattress, following me down until his body is covering me.
I kiss him back, wriggling underneath him in an attempt for some friction, but with his legs on either side of mine and his chest pressed against mine, there’s no room for me to move.
Then his hands take my wrists and pull them over my head, his weight on his knees so he doesn’t crush me. I gasp for air, trying to force my brain to work, but he’s unrelenting, using a low tone as he drawls at me, “Maybe once I’m done with you, you’ll stop fussing after me as though I’m on death’s fucking doorstep.”
His fingers bite into my wrists from where he’s holding them but I don’t attempt to pull away because, for one, I don’t want to hurt him.
I also desperately want him, however the hell I can have him.
When he fusses with my wrists for a second, I move a little before he takes my lips again in an obvious distraction, but it really does work. His kiss is unforgiving, his teeth taking hold of my bottom lip and nipping it so sharply that I taste blood. My thighs clench at the pain, my brain is wired for the pain-pleasure and all of the blurring lines that he has for me.
