42. Chapter 42
forty-two
Boston
Ilook around the small bedroom Bronx and Cassie will be sharing and smile, satisfied with the final touches.
Putting sheets on the bunkbeds sucked, but standing here now with the beds ready for them, all that damn ducking was worth it.
The room still feels a little bare—no pictures taped to the walls, no toys cluttering the floor—but it’s theirs.
And I can’t fucking wait for them to see it.
I stand there longer than I should, letting hope stretch its atrophied legs, imagining my siblings’ voices echoing through the place instead of waking up cold silence every morning. It makes me dizzyingly euphoric.
By a fortunate turn of events, Archer decided to spend his day golfing with Jake, giving me the chance to meet up with Skye after I visited my mom this morning.
Together, we picked up Cassie and Bronx and took them to an indoor playground for an hour.
It was a short visit, but damn did their faces light up when I told them I’d found us a place and had a meeting Wednesday with a lawyer to start the process of bringing them home with me.
I swear it was like watching the lights turn back on inside them.
Christmas-level joy. For all four of us.
My mom still knows nothing, though. Not about the homelessness, about Mrs. Davis, about how far off the rails everything went after she let Eddie kick me out at seventeen.
And there’s no point in telling her now.
It won’t change anything. All it would do is twist the knife, and I’m not in the business of hurting people just because I’ve been hurt. That’s not who I am.
She was a mess today, her trial looming large.
I did my best to reassure her, even though I can’t pretend to have much hope that she’ll get off.
People like us don’t usually get the benefit of the doubt.
The likelihood of a judge looking at her and deciding to show her leniency so as not to ruin her future is, I’d say, slim to none.
All the more reason to fight like hell for custody of Cassie and Bronx.
After dropping them off with their foster family, Skye and I came back here. Back to… my apartment. That still doesn’t feel real to say. My apartment.
I didn’t have much to bring—just my duffel and a few things I’d kept locked in my trunk.
The rest, we bought together after dropping off Cassie and Bronx.
Plates. Towels. A shower curtain with puppies on it that Skye swore up and down would make Cassie happy.
She also insisted on buying an artificial orchid I definitely didn’t need.
She just got in line behind me and bought the thing with her own money.
I still don’t understand the orchid. But every time I look at it, I smile anyway.
We split up the work. I focused on getting the kids’ room and bathroom just right. Skye handled the living room and kitchen.
But now it’s quiet, and for a split second I wonder if she’s left.
I drift out of my siblings’ room, padding through the small apartment, then stop short in the doorway to the master bedroom.
Everything in me stills.
She’s here. Laid out on my bed like a goddamn fever dream.
Skye’s on her back, arms stretched over her head, eyes closed. Her auburn hair fans across the navy comforter like wildfire, strands catching the golden sunlight spilling through the window. The way it kisses her soft, smooth skin makes my throat go dry.
She looks like something carved by artists. Sculpted by stars.
I don’t say anything. Just stand there like an idiot and soak her in.
For the first time since we walked through the front door, she isn’t moving. Not organizing dishes or wiping down countertops. She’s just… here.
In my bed.
My eyes track the shape of her, the quiet rise and fall of her chest, the sliver of skin exposed where her shirt rides up.
God, I’m drunk on her.
I grin at the ungodly number of pillows on the bed, the fuzzy blanket folded over the foot of the mattress with near surgical precision.
It’s all so unnecessary, but it made her so damn happy picking them out, I didn’t tell her no.
So now I have fifty-three pillows, one fuzzy blanket, and a fake pink orchid.
Skye’s happiness is worth every night I’ll have to spend tossing the pillows to the floor.
“How’s the mattress?” I finally ask and chuckle as her eyes fly open, startled.
“You scared me,” she says through a breathless laugh, but she doesn’t move. Just turns onto her side and watches me with that smile that makes my knees weak.
She pats the space next to her in silent invitation. Every rational thought in my head tells me not to, but I lie down anyway, facing her. I’m close enough to count her freckles—to remember exactly how soft her mouth felt on mine.
“It’s nice and firm.” She runs her palm across the comforter. Then, quieter, she mutters, “I like firm things.”
My eyebrows lift. “Are we still talking about the mattress?”
She just shrugs, playful. “Maybe.”
I huff a laugh, shaking my head. I’ve known her all my life, yet she still manages to surprise me.
Neither of us speaks for a minute, settling into the warm silence of the space around us, looking at each other as the afternoon light paints everything golden.
Already the place feels different than it did even just an hour ago when it was nothing but bare furniture taking up room in an otherwise empty apartment.
Now it feels like something akin to a home.
Carefully-chosen pops of color breathing some much-needed vibrancy into the neutral tones of the walls and carpets, pillows and blankets and other small things absorbing the white noise echoing through the emptiness.
And the smell—Skye’s scent, all spring and strawberry—fills the last hollow corners of the apartment, settling somewhere deep in my chest.
“I still can’t believe this is real,” I admit quietly.
Skye’s hand comes to rest on mine, a soft smile painting her pink lips. “It’s real, Boss.”
I swallow, glancing around the room. “I'm not sure I know how to have this.”
“An apartment?” she asks, her thumb grazing back and forth across my knuckles.
“A home.”
Her smile fades, blue eyes moving between mine. And there it is. That thing she does where she looks right past the version of me I let everyone else see and straight into my soul.
“You deserve this,” she says, somehow threading her fingers through mine. It shouldn’t feel like a lightning strike. But it does.
My fingers curl around hers automatically, and I watch her thumb brush along my index finger.
Once.
Twice.
By the third pass of her thumb, my pulse is kicking hard enough to make me dizzy.
Skye’s eyes drop briefly to our joined hands. Then lift back to mine.
Something shifts. The air grows heavier. Charged somehow. Like we’re standing in the middle of a storm waiting for the first crack of thunder.
For a moment, she just looks at me.
Then she scoots closer.
Barely.
An inch.
Maybe less.
But I feel it everywhere.
“Boss,” she breathes.
The way she says my name nearly undoes me.
My eyes move to her mouth—those soft, full lips, still glistening with her lip balm. They part just the slightest bit, her tongue skimming the bottom one. I don’t think she even knows she’s doing it.
She’s always been like this. Unintentional. Unaware of the havoc she wreaks on me just by existing.
I shut my eyes for a moment, forcing an inhale through my nose.
I can feel it—the heat spreading from my chest all throughout my body.
I know I should stop it.
I know she still has a boyfriend.
But knowing and wanting aren’t the same thing.
And fuck, I’m losing the war with myself.
Her breath hitches when I dip my head toward hers, but she doesn’t pull away. Instead, her eyes flutter closed just as my mouth brushes hers—soft, slow, savoring.
Everything about her is warm and right and… home.
Her hand disentangles from mine, and for a split second I think she’ll pull away, but instead, her fingertips glide to the hem of my shirt, then slip underneath it, grazing bare skin.
My control cracks, but I continue to kiss her softly, giving her a chance to retreat if my touch isn’t what she wants.
But the opposite happens.
Skye’s lips part with mine, granting my tongue entrance. I taste her—strawberry lip balm and heat—and move a hand to her low back, pulling her closer, kissing her deeper.
Her lips move with mine, hungry now, breath shallow, hectic against my lips.
Suddenly her hand is on my chest, urging me onto my back. Before I can even think of stopping what’s happening, she climbs onto my lap, straddling me. I feel her pressed against me, the heat of her seeping through both our jeans, setting fire to every nerve ending. I go hard in a matter of seconds.
I decide right then and there to surrender.
To the moment.
To Skye.
Whatever this is—whatever comes after—I won’t force it.
But I won’t stop it either.
I’ll deal with the consequences later.
I shift us, swift and sure, easing her onto her back before settling over her, my weight braced on my forearms.
Her hands glide down my back, her fingertips slipping beneath the hem of my T-shirt, leaving a trail of heat in their wake. I kiss her again as my hands drift to her waist, brushing over warm skin before slowly lifting her shirt.
She doesn’t hesitate. She simply raises her arms, trusting me, and I ease the fabric over her head before letting it fall to the floor.
I drink her in—white lace stretched over her breasts, flushed, freckled skin rising and falling with every breath.
Fuck. She’s unreal.
I crash my mouth to hers again, unable to hold back, tasting the quiet desperation there, the heat simmering beneath her skin. She moans softly into the kiss—one of those sounds that shoots straight down my spine, to the ache already pulsing between my legs.
Her hands explore my back, nails dragging lightly down my skin, leaving behind a trail of fire, and I’m gone.
Completely fucking gone.
I kiss her harder, deeper, letting myself drown in her.