Chapter 24 #3
“I came to fix your cut.” I held up the bag pathetically. The cut above his brow lay open, dried blood along the edges.
He gestured inside. “Come in.”
I followed him in. The map was active and dots moved above, all close to Haven.
Notebooks and folders sat on the far table.
A wadded-up towel covered in dried blood lay forgotten next to two empty coffee cups.
I turned to find Tristian pulling his hair back, knotting it into a bun before throwing himself into a seat.
“All yours,” he told me, tilting his head back and exposing the strong column of his throat. His legs spread wide, his hands rested in his lap.
I opened my bag, taking out disinfectant. Tristian’s eye fluttered closed as I approached him. The cut wasn’t bad—it was a clean split. A few adhesive strips was all it needed. Relief hit me at its simplicity: something I could actually fix.
I raised my hand, hesitating. “May I?”
I never thought about asking to touch a patient when caring for them. It had always been my job. Somehow, I felt I had to ask him. Tristian sighed, the sound ghosting over my skin as he looked up at me. “I already told you—you don’t have to ask.”
Emerald irises bored into mine. A wild flutter filled my chest, quickly filling my veins, tightening my skin. I nodded, not trusting my voice as I wiped down the cut. He sucked in a breath, his throat bobbing.
“It might sting,” I mumbled, lightly touching his jaw with my other hand. The feel of his skin and rough stubble beneath my fingertips scorched me.
“A little late,” Tristian told me. I walked away quickly, grabbing the adhesive tape. I cut uniform strips while I willed myself to breathe.
“You had an opening on the mats. You could have knocked him out with one shot. Why didn’t you?” I asked, walking back. His heavy-lidded gaze followed my every move, leaving me unsteady. Something curled low in my stomach.
I brushed a hair away from the wound, his eyes closing as I bent over him again. My eyes ran over his face, the heaviness present even with his eyes closed. The weight of his brow. The tightness of his lips. I wanted to chase them away.
“Then I would be no better than he is,” he murmured.
My throat went tight at his words. How could he ever fathom he was anything like Jaxon? “You can’t mean that.”
“All I have left is my word,” Tristian said quietly. “If I forgo that, I have nothing. I shouldn’t have taken the bait in the first place.”
I pinched the wound closed as I placed the first strip, ignoring the war that raged beneath my skin. The need to erase the weight he carried. His fears that he wasn’t good.
“It’s a clean cut; it might scar, though,” I confessed, drifting closer until my leg brushed against his thigh. His warmth spread through me like wildfire.
“It can join the others,” he said tightly, his hands clenched between his legs.
“You didn’t have to tell him not to talk about me. I didn’t need to be defended,” I found myself saying.
“I would have done it for anyone in my unit.”
I knew he was telling the truth. It was one of the many things that made him good. A good person. A good leader. A good friend.
The way he held Jaxon—made him say he wouldn’t talk about me again.
The fury that had been on his face though—the composure that had slipped.
Would that have slipped for anyone else in his unit?
Would the rage have consumed him if it had been someone else being degraded?
My hand shook as I placed the last strip, then grabbed the antibiotic ointment.
“One more thing and I’ll stop bothering you,” I assured him. My gaze snagged on the top paper, a report he had filled out for Jaxon’s behavior. My stomach dropped. Tristian had also reported himself for misconduct. Acid filled my veins.
“You’re never bothering me.”
The air was too thick as I approached him for the last time, my steps slower than they should be.
His eyes remained closed. I took him in, hating myself for the reports on his desk.
For his best friend’s injury. For the idea he thought he might not be the man I knew him to be.
He had every reason to be as vicious and angry as me.
The things he had seen in the war, the injuries.
The losses. He could be a horrible person like so many of us had become, and yet he wasn’t.
I couldn’t stand that he considered, for even a moment, that he was anything less than extraordinary.
I wanted to give him the place for those things, a place already broken and wretched.
“You didn’t deserve to be taunted like that. I deserve it. You didn’t. You don’t.”
Tristian went too still. His fingers wrapped gently around my wrist, halting me. His eyes opened, the look in them scorching me. “No, you don’t.”
I shook my head—words too much.
He pulled my hand away from his face as he came to stand, towering over me. My head tipped back, his gaze piercing me like he saw right through me—to the shattered remains I carried. He moved closer when we both knew he should run. “You deserve so much more, Sasha.”
My eyes burned. I hated what those words did to me. How they landed in my chest, filling it with things I knew in my soul I didn’t deserve. I swallowed around the lump in my throat, looking away before he saw it. “I promise you, Hayes, I don’t.”
Our unsteady breaths were the only sounds for a moment.
“How?” he began, releasing my hand and tipping my face up to his, searching me.
He didn’t hide his desperation as his eyes traced the lines of my neck, his hand following until it rested in the hollow.
My pulse was a frenzy beneath his thumb, giving me away.
“How can I help you see it? Tell me, please.”
I shook my head, but his hand remained. Some sane part of my brain told me to push it away, to run before I spilled out on him, tainting him.
But I was exhausted. Tired of grasping at the remains of life from the war, of the war that I battled within me…
but mostly at attempting to be anything but a beast trapped in the confines of my flesh.
“You can’t.”
He stepped into me, erasing the dwindling space between us, my pulse racing beneath his hand. His other hand touched my cheek, cupping it gently. “Let me try.”
His eyes searched mine, open, pleading. I should push him away. Tell him he was making a horrible mistake. That the things I cared for never lasted. That I ruined people. I—I had to stop this.
I didn’t.
He leaned down slowly, giving me time to stop him, searching my gaze as emotions churned in his, terrifying me.
The bridge of his nose brushed mine. A shiver ran through me. I couldn’t breathe around his presence. Just like I couldn’t bring myself to hate him—I found myself unable, unwilling, to stop him. I leaned forward, giving as much permission as I could manage.
His eyes flared in the realization that I wouldn’t stop him. His fingertips slid to my jaw, tilting my head. I swore his hand trembled. His breath caressed my skin before he closed the distance.
His lips grazed mine, a whisper of a kiss.
Hesitant, seeking permission, so at odds with the raw strength I had seen on the mats.
The gentleness of it unraveled me. The war beneath my skin quieted.
I had never been touched in such a way. That maybe I was worth keeping, protecting.
Something fragile—that should be handled with care.
My eyes fluttered closed. His lips tentatively met mine again. His thumb brushed against my skin with the same tenderness.
In the warmth of his arms, in the quiet of the room, away from the desolate remains of what was left of the world, I let myself be. If just for this moment.
Tristian pulled back, his gaze wild. His breathing heavy, matching the savage beat of my heart. He opened his mouth like he had something to say.
But I was too much of a coward to hear it, to voice anything that had taken hold. Too selfish to let this go just yet. I wanted to delay the inevitable for just a few more moments.
I grabbed his shirt, tugging him into me, the sound of the ointment hitting the floor punctuating the silence. Rising onto my toes, I captured his lips once again, giving in to the need I had denied for so long.
I dragged my tongue across his lower lip, seeking permission of my own. He gave it to me quickly, without hesitation, opening for me. I swept in, greedily. He threaded his hand into my hair and angled my head, pulling me closer, deepening the kiss desperately.
Overwhelming need crashed through me.
A delicate noise escaped me. He groaned.
I grasped his shoulder, tracing the rough scar under the fabric of his shirt.
My other hand gripped his muscled arm, pulling him closer until our bodies fused together.
I gave in to every second I had spent denying this.
Giving myself just this one time to feel him against me.
Letting the kiss say the things I would never admit.
He answered them, the want shifting. He dragged his hand down my body, snaking around my waist as I arched into him.
His kiss devoured me, and I matched his tongue stroke for stroke.
I wanted more. This wasn’t close enough.
The desire gathered speed until I was helpless to it, unable to deny how I needed him.
Tristian released my hair, his powerful hands landing on the outside of my thighs as if I had voiced it out loud. He lifted me without breaking the kiss, and I wrapped my legs tightly around his waist. I clung to his shoulders like a lifeline.
He groaned into my mouth as he swept the table clean with one arm, the sound of items scattering about the room.
He placed me gently on the table, my legs bracketing him.
He pulled away. I swallowed a whine that tried to escape.
But my breath hitched at the sight of him, his towering strength, his searing gaze.
The thing I refused to name was bottomless and all-consuming, engulfing us both.
Disbelief and longing poured from him. I knew what it meant.
At what would come the moment this kiss ended.
“Don’t stop,” I begged, beyond caring how it made me look. I couldn’t let go just yet.
His eyes danced, untethered and devastated. He captured my face, calluses scraping against my smooth skin. “I don’t think I could if I wanted to,” he confessed.
His lips met mine again, silencing my ghosts. I searched for that voice that had demanded I run. I couldn’t find it. It was only him.
The sound of the door closing filled the room.
“Needless to say, I missed a few key things while I was away,” Levi taunted slyly. I jerked back to find him leaning against the door. “Care to fill me in?”