Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
Kira
For a sister who was so worried about me and almost refused to leave when Detective Layton was here, I haven’t seen her in three days. She came by when I woke up from my procedure while I was coherent, but other than that, all I’ve gotten are texts.
Love you. With Caleb.
All good. REST!
Feeling better?
It’s… odd.
But I try to put it out of my mind for the sake of my heart. She’s probably just off enjoying my lack of parental supervision, which, as anxious as that makes me, I need to get used to. She only has a few months left of school, and then she’s off to college.
My stupid heart squeezes at the thought of being alone soon, and I quickly shake my head. I can’t think of things that get me riled up. I’m resting. Or, I’ve been trying to…
In Nix’s absence, Jax has been here every day—only disappearing sometime in the night to shower and change.
He even sleeps here. In a chair. A chair that is so close to my bed that I can feel the heat radiating off him.
That I can hear him lick his lips. That I can smell his cologne.
On day two, there was the scent of smoke mixed with it, and not the tobacco kind, this was a cloying aroma not too dissimilar to that night in the woods with Marshal. It could only have meant one thing.
He killed someone.
He killed someone, burned them, and then came back to sit with me.
At least, that’s what I deduced. I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to know.
If he killed someone and burned them and then came back here to sit beside my bed like a faithful guard dog, I didn’t want to put words to it.
Words make things real. Words make my heart thump and my monitor beep, and Celeste give me that look that says, don’t you dare.
So I kept my mouth shut.
And somehow, in the quiet, something else has happened.
Something I hate.
My opinion of him has… shifted. It’s softened in a way that marks my brain as a traitor and my body a deserter.
It might be Caleb’s fault, planting that little seed of it’s not always black and white in my head.
Or because every time I wake from a nap or come back from the rounds that Celeste makes me walk, he’s still here.
In the same position with his arms crossed and brow furrowed, infuriatingly attractive glint in his eyes as he watches my every move.
And he doesn’t even say much, as if he’s trying to not upset me. He hands me water, charges my phone for me, and tucks me in. And it all feels… considerate.
Something I don’t want the guy who kills people for a living to be.
Because that’s wrong on so many levels, no matter how nice it feels when he holds my hand while I pretend to be asleep.
I know I should pull away when he does it, but I don’t want to. I’m a trapped, bedridden girl, okay? And during the day, it’s worse. I can’t stop myself from staring at his hands—the hands that kill—and wishing he would reach out more.
What the hell is wrong with me?
“You really don’t have anything better to do?” I ask him now, my voice not sounding nearly as annoyed as I want it to.
There’s a guilt in my chest—that he’s spent so much time here with me, paid for my treatment, and I haven’t so much as given him the time of day.
He lifts his dark gaze to mine, an errant piece of hair falling across his forehead. “What’s better than watching you?”
I roll my eyes and fluff the blanket on my lap. “Well, I’m out of here tomorrow. What will you do then?”
Is it bad that I don’t want to leave? It’s easier to let Jax stay here, to be near me while I sleep. But tomorrow night, once I’m home… Well, I can’t just let him into my bedroom.
Or… can I?
What do I really have to lose? And can’t someone be more than one thing? Like Caleb said, there are shades of gray.
God, I’m still listening to a high schooler.
Jax shifts uncomfortably and rubs the palm of his hand down his jeans. “You won’t be getting rid of me that easily.” He avoids my eyes.
The guilt stirs more. Have I really iced him out so hard that I killed his confidence?
“I do appreciate this,” I tell him.
A slow, wry smirk appears at the corner of his lips, and I relax a bit, even though he keeps his gaze on the window. “I hope you hold onto that sentiment.”
My eyes fall to his hands again. The veins and tendons like a serpent’s call, and I don’t stop myself as I reach out. Warmth spreads up my fingertips at the heat of his skin, at the touch that lulled me to sleep the last few nights.
I keep my eyes cast down. I don’t want to see the satisfaction on his face.
I spread my fingers along the back of his hand, drifting up to his wrist, and it’s like touching a live wire.
Heat spreads up my fingertips. My throat tightens.
His pulse is strong beneath my touch, strong and steady and unbothered by the things that make mine stutter.
He’s solid. Always there when I need him.
When I couldn’t bury Marshal myself.
When Layton showed up.
When my body gave up on the bluff.
I haven’t had to want for anything.
Because he hasn’t let me need anything.
His hand moves suddenly—fast and quiet—catching mine like he was waiting for it. His fingers close in one clean motion, gentle and firm at the same time.
Startled by the intensity, I look up, relieved to find no arrogance in his eyes. No smug victory grin of a conquest won. There’s only longing, a fire so searing that I’m snared in it, as if he’s been starving in plain sight while I’ve been pretending not to notice.
The silence is so loud. His pulse beating with mine, tangled and thrumming like one as his chest heavily rises and falls. The air in the room feels warmer, thicker as he holds my eyes.
So many things pass between us.
I stayed, his eyes say. Don’t you see?
And something in me answers, helpless and quiet.
I see.
His gaze hardens with promise and possession. Something that should scare me but doesn’t.
I’m not going anywhere, he says without words.
I wish I could believe him, but my father didn’t even stay. I was just a child, and the one person in the world who was supposed to never leave, left. I don’t know if Jax sees it in my eyes, but he looks at me like he vows to rewrite that past.
And I want to believe it. I want to believe it so badly that a hot sting heats behind my eyes.
As if he can feel it, he leans in and slips a strong arm under my knees.
He lifts me slowly and effortlessly into his lap.
Our gazes never break as he cradles me against his chest. I’m enveloped in his reverent hold as he skims my cheek with his knuckles, catching strands of my hair and pushing them back with a tenderness so achingly soft and intimate that my vision finally blurs.
He finally breaks our stare, giving me the dignity of privacy while my tears fall.
The sentiment only makes them fall more.
His gaze tracks everywhere else—on my lips, my collarbone, the slope of my chest—and my skin burns beneath it.
I don’t want to want him. But I do.
I don’t want to need him. But I have.
The truth tastes like surrender, sweet and humiliating, and for a second, I realize what this is, what it could be. A place to stop fighting. A place to let someone else hold the weight.
In his lap, I can finally rest.
I blink away the tears as his touch trails down my neck, and I tilt my head, letting my cheek rest against his arm.
“Are you tired, buttercup?” His words are soft and slow, the kind of lazy comfort that comes from knowing someone, as if we’ve always been this.
I shake my head.
“No pain?”
I shake my head again.
As if not believing me, he finds the end of my gown and gently curls his fingers around the material to hike it up. I don’t stop him as he reveals my underwear, the small space between my legs, and the piece of gauze taped to my upper thigh where the stent went in.
Slowly, he peels it off, careful not to tug the skin.
The small incision is closed, healed for the most part, and he runs his thumb around the red edges, his touch feather light. My breath gets caught somewhere in my chest at the proximity of where I want him most.
I lift my hips toward him.
His throat bobs, eyes flicking to mine with something warring in them.
“You’re going to hate me tomorrow,” he sighs, leaning toward defeat.
“Maybe,” I whisper, voice breathy. “But you didn’t seem to care last time.”