Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Blue
Momentum carries my body straight into his, hard enough that my forehead clips his collarbone, and the sound that rips out of my throat isn't restrained or graceful.
My arms lock around his torso before thought intervenes, fingers knotting into his jacket as if letting go would mean losing gravity altogether.
"Red," I say into his chest again, my voice wrecked and strained.
He freezes for half a second. Then his body closes around me, solid and decisive, one arm wrapping my back, the other coming up to cradle the back of my head. His palm presses, warm and steady, and my knees wobble like they've been waiting for permission to give out.
Gravel spits from the SUV's tires. The sound grows distant, then disappears completely until all I hear is Red's heartbeat hammering under my cheek and the waves crashing against the shoreline.
"I've got you, Bluebird," he murmurs, tightening his hold around me.
My shoulders jerk as the shaking hits full force. It seizes my ribs, and my teeth click together.
Wind whips harder, slapping against my frame and cutting through my clothes.
Red adjusts his stance, shielding me from the gust and leading me inside the house. He nudges the door shut with his foot, then reaches over and locks it.
He doesn't let go right away. He waits until my breathing stutters into something closer to usable before he eases back just enough to look at me. His hands slide from my head to my cheeks, firm and grounding.
My vision blurs, and tears spill, hot and relentless.
His jaw tightens. His eyes search my face like he's cataloging damage, questioning, "They didn't hurt you?"
"No," I answer. My voice cracks, then steadies. I assure, "I'm okay. Well, I'm not okay...but physically."
His shoulders drop a fraction, the worry bleeding out of him. He catches himself, stands taller, and firmly asserts, "You're safe."
I scrub at my face with the heel of my hand, then drop it. I spout, "I don't understand how the police found out about us. It's not their business anyway!"
Something flickers in his expression, but he pulls me into him, mumbling, "Come here."
I tuck my face into the crook of his neck, breathing him in, my hands pressing against his chest, then my fingers curl into his shirt, nails catching fabric when the tremor in my arms refuses to quit.
"Blue," he says quietly.
I pull back enough to look at him.
His hands slide from my back to my arms, thumbs pressing just above my elbows, grounding me in place. His gaze holds mine, and he states, "There's something you need to know."
My stomach tightens with dread. I brace myself. "What?"
"Shirley saw us," he deadpans.
The words land wrong, as if out of order. I blink, asking, "Saw us what?"
"Kissing on the street."
My mouth opens, then closes. I pull my hands off his chest like I've been burned. "Okay. And?"
He hesitates, then relays, "She did what she should have."
The world crashes against me. Rage hurls out of me. "It's not illegal to kiss! People do that outside every day!"
His jaw tightens. "Not under these circumstances."
"What circumstances?" My voice jumps, sharp and loud in the quiet house.
"Blue—"
"I'm not a child. You didn't force me to kiss you. I wasn't crying or dragged into an alley and assaulted!"
He takes steady breaths through his nose.
"Say something," I demand, my hands slicing through the air between us. "Because I'm not understanding why this is suddenly a crime."
"I'm your therapist. It is a crime," he insists.
The room tilts. "It's not a crime to kiss someone you love!"
His jaw clenches.
I snarl, "So Shirley betrayed you and called the cops?"
"No. I did."
The words tear out of me, fast and loud. "You what?"
"I called the police and turned myself in."
"What? Why in hell would you do that?" I take a step back, then another, my spine hitting the kitchen island hard, but I barely notice the pain. My hands go to my head, fingers digging into my hair like that might keep my thoughts from exploding out of my skull.
"Let's sit down and discuss this," he calmly directs.
My insides quiver harder. I shout, "Why would you do that to yourself? To us?"
He moves toward me. I throw a hand up, stopping him. "No. Don't come closer. I need you to explain why you would put yourself in that position."
He closes his eyes, takes a few breaths, then pins his gaze on mine. "I took an oath when I became a therapist. I broke it, and whether we like it or not, it's a crime."
I laugh, sharp and unsteady. "So you decided to hand yourself over like you robbed a bank?"
"I crossed the line. We both know it. There are consequences to actions—"
"That word doesn't belong in our situation. You didn't hurt me. You didn't coerce me. You didn't do anything except kiss me when I asked you to," I fire back.
His eyes darken. "It doesn't matter what you asked for."
I shake so hard, I reach for the counter, seething, "That's bullshit! Absolute bullshit, and you know it."
He steps closer. This time, I don't stop him. His presence crowds my space, his body a solid wall of calm against my unraveling. "They don't see consent the way you do. They look at who has the power and how they yield it."
I insist, "I wasn't powerless. I chased you and fully knew what I was doing. It was my choice!"
He lowers his voice, enough to make my chest ache. "I know. But knowing that doesn't protect you. Or me."
"So I don't get a choice over who I love?"
"It's not that black and white, Bluebird."
Another round of anger floods me. I jab his chest. "You didn't even talk to me. You didn't ask what I wanted."
He sighs. "I know what you wanted. I still do."
I shriek, "Then why would you do this? Why would you put yourself in a cage for something that wasn't wrong?"
"Because if I didn't, they'd come for you instead."
I shake my head, confused.
He declares, "They would question you, pull apart your history, your records, your scars. They would decide whether you were capable of wanting what you wanted."
My breath stutters. "They don't get to do that."
"That's what would have happened," he maintains.
I shove at his chest, not hard enough to move him, just enough to discharge the surge inside me. "So your solution was to call up the cops and have them throw you in jail?"
He replies in an even tone, "My solution was to remove you from the line of fire."
Tears fall down my cheek. I snap, "You don't get to sacrifice yourself for me. I didn't ask you to."
"I didn't do it because you asked. I did it because it was my choice."
My laugh comes out wild, unhinged. "You chose jail over talking to me?"
"I chose control over chaos," he answers.
I fire back. "That wasn't control! That was panic dressed up as morality."
His eyes flash. "Don't."
"Don't what?" I challenge. "Don't say the quiet part out loud?"
He exhales slowly through his nose. "You don't understand the weight of what this looks like from the outside."
My voice grows louder. "I don't care how it looks. I care that you decided I was something that needed to be protected from myself."
His hands come up, framing my face again, firm but gentle. "I decided you were something worth protecting from them."
The room goes still.
My chest heaves. My thoughts scatter, sharp and erratic. Anger burns hot and fast, tangled up with something dangerously close to relief.
Silence stretches, heavy and charged, with the fire crackling behind us and the lake pounding steadily beyond the windows. My hands fist in his shirt again, anger and want colliding with nowhere to go.
I whisper, "You broke us."
His eyes lose their focus for a beat, lashes lowering as if the weight of the world settles behind them. He replies, "I broke protocol."
My breath catches, and I collapse against him. I hate him for it. I want him for it. And I don't know how to hold both at the same time.
My sob breaks against his throat, raw and ugly, and he doesn't flinch. Instead, he strokes slow arcs under my eyes, wiping tears. His mouth brushes my temple, and his thumb drops, gliding over the pulse beating in my neck.
I gasp, shaking harder.
"Bluebird," he says, voice so low it vibrates through my sternum. "Look at me."
I don't want to. Looking means seeing the guilt still carved into the corners of his eyes. But I lift my head anyway because when Red asks in that demanding tone, my body answers before my brain gets a vote.
He pins his therapist eyes layered over lover eyes on me, and the combination makes my thighs clench. He murmurs, "You feel everything so hard. Anger. Fear. Love. It's all crashing together right now, isn't it?"
I nod, my throat too tight for words.
He leans in until our foreheads touch. "Let me hold it with you. Just for tonight. Let me take some of the weight."
My wet, bitter laugh escapes. "You already took too much when you made decisions for me."
"No." His fingers slide into my hair, cradling my skull. "I took the consequences, not the choice. The choice was always yours." His lips graze mine, barely a kiss, more of a promise than contact. He adds, "Still is."
Heat flares low in my belly, sudden and vicious. I fist his shirt tighter, egging on, "Then prove it."
His exhale is shaky. "Blue—"
My voice cracks on the last word. "Prove you didn't take it and that it's still my choice to want you this badly."
His restraint fractures behind his eyes, his professional stature giving way to raw need. His lips press against mine, deep and claiming, his tongue stroking mine like he's mapping every place I've been hurting.
I whimper into his mouth, and he answers with a low growl that vibrates straight to my clit, leaning me backward until my ass hits the edge of the kitchen island. Without breaking the kiss, he lifts me onto the granite, cold stone biting through my jeans.
I gasp, and he swallows it, hands already shoving under my sweater, palms scorching over my ribs.
He asks a clinical question against my lips, wrapped in a filthy rasp. "Still okay?"