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He’s shaking with tension, with anger, and I should be scared, he’s like a powerhouse about to explode into action and violence.
But somehow I’m not. He’s not angry at me, but for me, and it’s sweet. “Because you kept them at bay anyway. They’d see you and run. They knew you hung out with me and stayed away.” I put a hand on his coiled biceps, tug him back. “You protected me, even if you didn’t know it, back then.”
He lets out a breath. Looks sideways at me, his gaze uncertain. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“You wouldn’t lie about that?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
He lies back down, his handsome face
thoughtful. “I fucking hate that I didn’t know about it, and I hate even more that it happened to you.”
“It was years ago,” I tell him gently.
“But the scars don’t fade easily,” he whispers, and just as a bad suspicion creeps into my mind and I want to ask if he was also hurt in the past, he says even more softly, “Can I hold you?”
I can’t speak, my throat clogging up.
This boy.
A nice boy, Mom said. A good boy.
But he’s more. To me.
“Come here.” He stretches out his inked arm over my pillow, and after a second’s hesitation I roll on my side and snuggle up against him. “Yeah, like that. Comfy?”
His voice rumbles in his chest and right through me as I place a hand over his muscled stomach.
I hum in response.
“Gigi…”
“I like you, Jarett,” I whisper. “I wish you’d like me enough to pull back from all the bad shit.”
His nostrils flare. “Well, I don’t like you.”
I draw a sharp breath. “Rett…”
“‘Like’ is too weak a word. Look, just…” He’s looking down at me, emotions shifting behind those pretty eyes of his, and he seems to want to say more, but in the end, he just reaches over me and switches off the lamp. “Let’s get some sleep.”
He nods off quickly, his face pressed to my hair, his breathing evening out. He’s so warm and solid, pressed to me, his skin smelling faintly of soap and spice under my cheek.
Solid and big, all hard muscle and sinew. Even though I’m not little, I feel like a doll in his arms, held carefully, cradled against his side, my legs curled up against his thick thigh.
It’s so thrilling, to be here, with him. And it touches in ways I never thought it would. I feel like my heart is cracking open, and I’m afraid to move in case he vanishes into thin air.
His words won’t let me sleep. His words, my thoughts, the events of today. How can I sleep after all that happened?
But it seems I can, because I find myself swimming through stars and glowing fish, flying over houses and trees, flying in my dreams for the first time in years—only to come awake some time later with a start.
Rough fingertips brush over my hip, under my nightie, trailing over the lace of my panties, then down my thigh.
I look up, and in the dimness of the room, the faint light coming through the window slats, I see his eyes fixed on me. He leans in and kisses me, claims my mouth in a rough clash of lips and teeth and tongue that makes me moan out loud.
“Fuck, I want you,” he rasps against my lips, gripping my leg and pulling it over his, spreading me just enough for me to feel how hard he is through his sweats. Then he kisses me again, covering my mouth with his, moving it in delicious ways, our tongues tangling as his breathing turns ragged.
