Chapter 18 #2
Our bodies sink, the position shifting my clit against his groin. Everything goes limp, and I sink into him. He cradles me against his chest. I bury my face in his neck, close enough to smell his blood, and I come hard, shaking on his cock, gripping him with crimson-stained fingernails.
I don’t know if I take pleasure in his pain the way he does in mine, but when I give it to him, I encounter something real, a peeling back of shared wounds that have festered under bandages for too long.
This is the rough, raw underbelly of Jensen Childress.
And I need it.
The realization shatters what’s left of me. I lie in his arms, on the verge of tears, panting.
He pulls me in, his lips pressing to the top of my head. I’m so damn worn out from that storm. We stay quiet until he stirs, taking my face in his hand to make me look up at him.
“You alright?” His voice is a rumble.
I nod. Am I?
“Good girl.”
He gets up, depositing me on the bed, and goes to the tiny bathroom in the corner. My fists clench and unclench, sore and bloody. My fingernails feel tacky. He stands in the doorway in silhouette and runs a hand over his face. Then, he turns on the shower and disappears. I don’t move, stunned.
“You coming in or not?” he calls.
His walls are up, good and hard, but he’s still offering an olive branch. Like a cautious cat, I climb from the bed and creep to the shower.
He’s a wavy, tan outline behind the fogged glass. I glance at the mirror. I’m a mess, faint crimson on my cheek where I laid my head against him. I wipe it back, desperate to get his blood off me.
“Get in here, Della,” he says.
Head dipped, I obey. Our eyes meet, and I look away, turning my back to him.
His energy is bothering me. It’s…rude and pushy.
I think I hear him laugh faintly, but before I can look, he’s got his hands in my hair.
I freeze as he starts washing it, working suds into my scalp, then down my neck, over my body.
And finally, he washes the blood from my fingers.
I swallow. “Do you need me to clean you up?”
“I washed myself while you were deciding if you wanted to get in here or not,” he says.
“I mean your scratches.”
“No, I can walk that off.”
I stare up at the yellowed wall, a fine crack where it meets the ceiling. “You in the habit of walking everything off?”
“Only way to go forward.”
I let him rinse me clean. We stand there, naked in more ways than one. Finally, I offer him a tiny smile, even though I’m not feeling it.
“At least we did that here and not under the Clockface Jesus,” I whisper.
His head drops back, and he laughs. My heart soars at the first sight of that dimple in a while. Up until now, I’ve found him sexy in a raw, offbeat way. But now, I see he’s handsome, beneath all the wear and tear. He’s blue-collar-backwoods-pretty. My type, it turns out.
“Clockface Jesus don’t factor into this,” he says.
There’s a silence in which I try and fail to figure him out again. He shuts the water off, gets out, and hands me a towel. I watch him dry himself, shaking his hair like a dog. Then, he’s gone back to the bedroom, and I hear him climb down the ladder.
When I step back out, he’s in the kitchen in his boxer-briefs, leaning against the counter and eating his plate of food, scratched up chest and all.
I get back into bed.
I think he might be actually insane.
What does it say about me that I like that?
He eats. Then, he comes back and gets in bed. I’m getting whiplash trying to figure out what’s going on between us, and some of that is my fault. But tonight, we’re in a new place. He fucked me and ate my cornbread, and now we’re going to sleep together like a real couple or something.
“Mind if I smoke?” he says finally.
“Open the window,” I whisper.
He gets up, slides up the loft window, and takes a cigarette from his pants on the floor. Then, he puts the pants on, leaving the belt hanging. His lighter flicks. He inhales and holds.
“You going someplace?” I whisper.
“Might walk around a bit after this,” he says. “See the horses before bed.”
“You don’t sleep much.”
He shakes his head, releasing the smoke. “No.”
I sit up, pulling the sheet over my chest. He watches me, lids low and one arm hanging out the window.
“If Clockface Jesus don’t factor into this, then who does?” I ask.
His brows rise a minute amount.
“Let’s start with Brothers Boyd,” he says. “How did he factor into you, huh?”
“He didn’t,” I say.
He snorts, smoking rising from his lips. “I have been here and done this before, baby. And I did not, in fact, just fall off a motherfucking turnip truck. Brothers Boyd doesn’t work for nothing.”
I bite the corner of my mouth. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“My lips are sealed.”
“You can’t tell nobody. It’s not safe.”
“I swear.” He lifts his palm.
“Kayleigh was sleeping with him. That’s how we met,” I whisper. “But you can’t tell anybody, or she’d be in so much trouble. Leland might kill her.”
His brows knot. “Who the fuck is Kayleigh?”
“Kayleigh Caudill, Leland’s cousin.”
There’s a second when I know I’ve shocked him. His eyes widen as he takes a drag and sits on this information. Then, he shakes his head.
“Goddamn,” he says.
“They met at his pub,” I say. “Kayleigh’s good people. She’s the one keeping an eye on Landis for me. I need her on Leland’s good side, or I have nobody in my corner.”
“That’s an explanation for how you met him, not why he chose to help you.”
I lift my palms. “I don’t know. But please, promise not to tell anyone about Kayleigh.”
His lids flicker. “I won’t let your kid get hurt.”
His words are casual, but they hit me right in the heart. My throat has a lump. I clear it back. “Thank you.”
We’re both silent. He finishes his cigarette and latches the window. I slide onto my side, stacking my arms and resting my cheek on them. He’s sideways across my vision, fastening his belt.
Memory hazy, I recall how I saw him in Montana. The tattoos, the V of his lower stomach, the calluses on his palms. His big dick attitude about everything that doesn’t feel like ego because he’s so eager to please between the sheets.
“Where are you going?” I whisper.
“To walk,” he says. “See the stars.”
It’s been so long for him, I realize, since he’s been back home. His heart must ache for the hills and fields the way mine did all through my marriage. I pinch my eyes shut, listening as he goes downstairs. The door locks. His footsteps crunch on gravel.
Then, he’s gone.