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“I guess I should get going.”
“I guess so.” Why did this feel so wrong, so melancholy? Why was the urge to roll to him and settle in his arms making her muscles twitch?
He scrubbed his hands over his face and head, over the new grey stubble covering his cheeks and scalp. “Yeah, okay.”
He sat up and swung his legs to the side of the bed. As he stood, Marcella watched him favor his bad leg, test it subtly before he put weight on it. Then he grabbed up his jeans and shoved his legs into them.
She stood up too, and slipped back into her robe. When he left the room, she followed and watched him pick up his clothes and put them back on, pushing his boxers into a pocket before he sat in her armchair to put on his socks and boots.
This felt wrong. Something was wrong. But she said nothing, because she didn’t know what to say.
He finished dressing and rose from the chair. Then he simply stood there, his eyes on her.
“I want to see you again.”
Marcella understood what he meant, but she needed to think, so she deflected. “You will. I come with Ajax. We’re a package deal.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Eight …”
He waved her off and came closer. “Marce, I know. I just … I want … I don’t know. Fuck!” He turned away, stared at the drapes closed over the front window. After a few seconds contemplating that absence of a view, he turned back to her. “Something’s different. It feels different. I want to figure it out. With you.”
She needed to fuckingthink, and she couldn’t do it with him looking at her like that, making her feel things she needed to sort through on her own. “Okay. I’ll call.”
Another couple steps, until he stood right before her, still staring down at her with eyes that had become two blue laser beams. “Do. Soon.”
He bent and put his lips on her cheek. Then he stepped back and went to her front door. Before he walked through, he looked over at her once more. “Happy birthday, Marce. I hope it’s a good one.”
And then he was gone.
Marcella stared at the closed door for a long time, holding her robe closed at her throat. She felt naked and sore and frightened.
And sorry he was gone.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Eight hissed as the hot water sprayed across his back and shoulders and turned them to fire. His back was a thicket of long red welts from Marcella’s nails, and his shoulder throbbed from her teeth. He was going to have to get the hydrogen peroxide out and tend to his shoulder. Mouths were filthy things. Even pretty ones like hers.
He felt fucking terrible. His head thudded, and his chest felt full of hot coals.
His dick did its Pavlovian thing, swelling full in the shower, but he was exhausted—and sore as hell—so he ignored it. Greedy asshole. It had fucked Marcella eighteen ways from Tuesday; it could go one shower without getting off again.
Plus, he wasn’t in the fucking mood. Leaning his forehead on the tile wall, he simply sagged there, letting the water run, trying not to think.
But his stupid brain would not shut up. If it would think in a straight line, maybe he could get control of it, but thoughts and feelings just spun around in there, and he could hardly catch one long enough to get a good look.
He felt different. He felt wrong. He felt fuckingterrible.
He needed something, something big had opened up a crater in him, but he couldn’t figure out what. He wanted to do right by the kid, but he had no idea what ‘right’ looked like. Marcella said now that he was in he had to stick, but was she right? What if he hurt the kid—his kid—just by being the same old asshole he’d always been? Was he supposed to be somebody different now? Change, at his age? How the fuck was that supposed to happen?
And who was he supposed to become?
And then there was Marcella. Last night, and this morning, something had happened. In and around all that fucking, something big had changed. What it was, or even where, he couldn’t see. But it had made that crater in his chest bigger, deeper.
It hadhurtwhen she wouldn’t talk this morning. Eight hated serious talk, especially with women, who were confusing as fuck, never said anything straight out, and expected guys to be mind-readers. Eight could hardly read his own mind, let alone some chick’s he didn’t care about.
This morning, however, he’d wanted to talk. He needed help knowing what to do, how to be, what it all fucking meant. And she’d shut him down. It hurt.
