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I began to tremble, or maybe that was her. I couldn’t tell. I cupped the back of her head in one hand, anchoring her body to me with the other, and inhaled deeply for the first time in months. The scent of her shampoo filled my nose, and I nearly groaned as a sense of peace washed over me. One by one, every muscle in my body began to relax.
This was where I was meant to be, with her in my arms, the feel of her against me. It was home. No matter where I was in the world, as long as she was in my arms, I was home.
Her fingers fisted in my shirt for a flash of an instant before she was pushing me back, her blue eyes turning to ice. “What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded, setting her guitar case on the floor and throwing the music in my chair from earlier, making my cap fall to the ground. Putting her hands on her hips, she glared up at me.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I had no words to explain why I was there, and for a second, I was concerned for my ability to form a cognitive thought, let alone speak in a full sentence. Swallowing hard, I cleared my throat and tried again, still eating up the sight of her.
She looked beautiful. All long limbs, alabaster skin, and flashing blue eyes. I wanted to pull her back into my arms, hold her there until I could breathe without it hurting. But everything about her was screaming at me to stay the hell away. Rationally, I knew it was going to take more than an “I’m sorry” before I had her back. But my fucking heart didn’t understand why the one person who belonged solely to me wasn’t in my arms where she belonged.
“Let’s take a coffee break, Mason,” Shane told his son as he got to his feet.
“Mom won’t let me have coffee.”
“How about a hot chocolate break instead?”
“Heck yeah!” Jumping up, Mason took his father’s hand, and they left the room without looking back.
Kin stood there, her nostrils flaring as she silently seethed. I deserved her anger, welcomed it. Because as long as she was pissed, that meant she cared, damn it.
“Well?” she snapped after another minute passed with me still unable to figure out how to make my voice work.
“Where were you?” It came out harsher than I realized, accusatory, and it was only then I realized how pissed I was at her.
She left, didn’t give me a chance to explain everything better, to fix what I broke with us. I knew it was all my own fault, but Kin wasn’t one to just run away from a problem. Hell, she stayed with her father and stepmother even after all the hell that woman put her through, simply because of a promise Kin’s mother made her make when she was on her deathbed.
“You don’t need to know,” she told me, her voice so cold I was surprised the room didn’t frost over. “We’re not together anymore, so where I am at any given time of the day isn’t any of your business.”
I stabbed my fingers through my hair. “I’ve been worried, damn it. We’ve never spent more than a day without speaking in some shape or form, and you have made it impossible to so much as get you to answer a damn email.”
“I know
how to take care of myself, Jace. It’s something I’ve had to do for a long time now. There was no need to worry, especially since you no longer have that right.”
“Stop fucking saying that!” I exploded. “I have every right. I love you!”
She flinched, stepping back from me. “Maybe once upon a time you did. Somewhere along the way, things changed.” She lowered her eyes, swallowing hard before whispering, “I’m still trying to figure out where.”
“Kin, baby…” I crossed the distance between us. Cupping her chin, I tilted her head back, my eyes drinking in her every feature. With the exception of those dark circles telling me she hadn’t been sleeping well, there wasn’t a sign that any time had passed since the last time I saw her. “Nothing has ever changed about what I feel for you.”
She jerked back, pain flashing in her eyes as if I’d physically hit her. “Then that is exactly why it all went wrong. Every day, I loved you more than the day before. Every goddamn day, I woke up beside you, I fell a little deeper for you.” Tears spilled over her lashes so quickly I didn’t have a warning. She angrily scrubbed them away as they trailed down her cheeks. “I loved you so much, Jace, that I loved you more than myself.”
My heart cracked a little more with each tear that spilled, but hearing her say “loved” and not “love” rocked me to my soul.
Chapter 9
Kin
I didn’t think it was possible for Jace to hurt me more than he already had, yet there I stood, my heart hemorrhaging from the direct blow he’d made to it. I felt like I was exsanguinating, as if I might actually die from the pain at the realization that Jace actually didn’t love me as much as I did him.
I sucked in a breath, trying to make the pain stop, but there was no way to escape it.
“Kin, that’s not what I meant. Baby, I… I… Fuck, why can’t I find the words to fix this?” he groaned, scrubbing a hand over his jaw before raking his fingers through his hair.
“Let’s face it, Jace,” I told him, blinking back the tears that just kept coming. “What we once had is over. You keeping secrets from me showed me just how far off course we have really gotten.”
“No. I can fix this. We can work through this.” He went to grasp my hand, but I pulled back. “Counseling. Yeah, that’s it. We can go to counseling. Whatever you want, baby. Anything.”
“I asked you to go to counseling with me back in January,” I reminded him in a tired voice. “You couldn’t be bothered. It’s too late, Jace. I’m done.”
