CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Fallon
“I’M SORRY. I CAN’T.”
The words circled around and around in my head. Each pass leveled the kind of blow you don’t recover from. It was as if each word was made of countless blades that tore at my insides.
“I’m sorry. I can’t.”
Pain ravaged me, even as my body still hummed. The juxtaposition of the two was enough to pull me under—the kind of depth you never emerged from.
The door to the bathroom snicked closed. Kye hadn’t slammed it. He’d been in complete control as he shut the door on us.
A different emotion bubbled up. Fury.
He didn’t get to do this. Didn’t get to push me away, only to pull me close and then toss me aside again. He didn’t get to have the last word, with some statement that casually dropped a bomb on my world.
I threw back the covers and shoved myself out of bed. A buzz still lived in me, vibrating beneath my skin and gathering at the apex of my thighs and the tips of my breasts.
I forced all thoughts of that down as I threw open the bathroom door. Kye’s head jerked up as he scrubbed his hands. The bottle of mouthwash sat out on the counter. It was clear what he was doing. Erasing every part of what had just happened.
Two could play at that game. I snatched the bottle from the counter and tipped it back. The burn felt like a balm in a way, a distraction from the other pain still coursing through me.
I spat it out and slammed the bottle back down. “Guess what. It didn’t work. I can still taste you. I still feel your hands on my skin. Your fingers moving inside me.”
“Sparrow,” he croaked.
“Because you live in me.” The words were like missiles. “No matter how many times I’ve tried to dig or burn you out, you’re still there. Because you’re a part of me.”
Sheer panic turned Kye’s amber eyes a bright golden hue I’d never seen. “Fuck. I can’t—I—I’ll ruin you. Sparrow, I can’t break you.” His voice cracked, the words shattering into shards around us. “I can’t taint you. You’re my one good thing.”
A different sort of pain crashed into me.
A thunderous wave of agony as I took in the man before me.
“Kyler,” I whispered, moving into his space even as he tried to ward me off.
“You make me the best version of myself. You make me strong and brave, unafraid to be exactly who I am. No part of you could ever ruin me.”
He shook his head violently as his fingers scraped up his arms. “It’s in me. That darkness. Because they bled it into me. With every beating. Every torment. I’m not saddling you with that.”
I grabbed his hand, gripping it tightly and stopping him from hurting himself.
“You’re not the darkness. And you sharing your pain with me will only ever be one thing, Kye.
An honor.” I pressed his hand to my sternum, where I always felt him.
“I hate that you feel it. But letting me see it is a gift, letting me hold it with you. Because it lets me truly know you. See what you’ve endured and the mountain you climbed after digging yourself out of the valley. ”
Tears filled those golden eyes. “I can’t. Sparrow. I can’t hurt you.”
“The only thing that hurts is when you walk away. It’s like you’re ripping my soul out of my body.”
Tears tracked down Kye’s cheeks, disappearing into his scruff. “You’re the only place I can breathe. You’re my air.”
I reached a hand up to wipe away those tears. “You’ve been my everything from the day you found me screaming in the woods. You gave me a safe place to land when I felt like I had nowhere to go.”
“You gave me a home. In every way imaginable, you gave me a home.” His hand lifted to cover mine against his face. “Do you know why I call you Sparrow?”
“You said it was because you found me singing.” Only the singing had been screaming. Me letting loose all the things I’d held on to so tightly at the time.
Kye shook his head. “That’s not the whole truth. They’re symbols of hope. You’ve always been hope to me. You were my safe haven, the place I returned to again and again, even if I could only hold you in the secret places of my soul.”
Every word he uttered leveled me, carved their syllables into my skin to scar me in the best way imaginable. “Kyler.”
“I don’t want to run from you. I don’t want to run from what this could be. But I’m so damn scared I’ll fuck it up. That I’ll break it in a way that there’s no coming back from. Sparrow, a man chased you yesterday, shot at you. Because you’re in my life. You should be running for the hills.”
“But I’m not.” My thumb tracked over his cheek.
“I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.
You fuck something up? We’ll fix it. Together.
If there are dark forces in your life? We’ll bury them.
Put them in the ground where they’ll never see the light of day.
Because there is nothing—not one thing—we can’t do if we tackle it together. ”
Kye dropped his forehead to mine, all the breath leaving him. “Sparrow. There’s only ever been you. You were all I could see from the moment you walked into my life.”
I pulled back, searching his face, trying to read between the lines.
“I tried,” he whispered. “Anytime I let another woman close, I got physically ill.”
One corner of my mouth kicked up. “I puked on Bobby Cooper’s shoes when I tried to lose my virginity. Apparently, my body is repulsed by anyone but you.”
Kye’s body went wired. “Fallon … are you …?”
“A virgin?” Nerves bubbled up but quickly quieted because this was Kyler. The person I could tell anything without fear of judgment. “Unless a vibrator counts … I guess so.”
A growl sounded in his throat as he pulled me flush against him. “I haven’t had sex since I was fifteen because, apparently, when I met you, you took possession of my heart and my balls.”
My jaw went completely slack. “No. You … you were always going out with Jericho and your friends. There were women around all the time.”
“Yeah, around.” Kye framed my face. “I won’t lie.
I tried a few times, knowing it would be better if we both moved on.
But, Sparrow … I couldn’t. There’s a reason Jericho calls me Priest. Any woman’s hands that weren’t yours made my skin crawl.
I finally gave up. Just let you think there were things where there weren’t. ”
“Kyler Blackwood, I’m going to kill you.”
A chuckle vibrated through his throat, and it sounded like pure music. “Sparrow, you’ve made me come in my pants twice since we moved in here, so I think we’re even. And that’s after fourteen years of being a walking hard-on around you.”
I wanted to laugh, but a new sort of nerves settled in.
“What is it?” Kye asked, searching my eyes.
“What … what if we aren’t compatible that way?” I asked, biting the corner of my lip.
Kye tugged it gently from between my teeth. “There are many things I’m scared of, but that is sure as hell not one of ’em.”
“Really?”
“Really.” He brushed his lips over mine. Featherlight. “You wanna test it out?”
A different feeling bubbled up inside me, swirling and stoking the fire that had already started earlier that morning. “Yes.”
A curse slipped from his lips, and I frowned. “I thought yes was a good answer.”
Those perfect lips brushed mine again, the scruff surrounding them sending heavenly shivers through me. Kye’s callused thumb stroked my jawline. “I don’t have a condom. That was the curse.”
My mouth curved against his. “I’m on the pill.”
Kye’s thumb stilled, and he pulled back a fraction, those amber eyes searching mine. “Had a physical a couple of months ago. Are you sure? I always want to make sure you’re safe—in all ways.”
My heart stuttered as my fingers dropped to the hem of Kye’s tee. “I want this. I want you.” I tugged the tee up and over his head, letting it drop to the tiled floor. “To finally have that last piece you’ve been holding back from me.”
“Sparrow,” he rasped, his hands moving to my pajama top. “You’ve always had all of me.”
“No. I haven’t.” My fingers ghosted over his bare shoulder, tracing the swirls of ink. “But now I will.”
Kye tugged me closer to him by my pajama top. “You’ve had it all. Even if I didn’t tell a soul. You’ve always had it all.”
My eyes burned as he tugged my top over my head, letting it flutter to the floor like a feather in the breeze. My nipples pebbled at the change in temperature and the feel of those eyes I knew so well on me.
A rough palm cupped my breast, Kye’s callused thumb circling my nipple. “Dreamed of what you’d look like. Painted a million different pictures in my mind. Might’ve even put a few down on paper.”
Energy swirled somewhere deep, a surge of power engulfing me as delighted surprise hit. “You drew me?”
Kye’s gaze didn’t stray from mine as his thumb circled my nipple again. “Sparrow, I have six boxes of notebooks full of you and you alone in the attic.”
The burn was back, but it was more beautiful this time. “Kyler.”
“Love my name on your lips.” He dropped his hands to my waistband and slowly tugged my pajama bottoms down, lowering right along with them. “Still fucking glistening,” he growled. “Memorizing every damn inch of you. Every dip and curve.”
“Kyler,” I breathed again.
He was back on his feet and moving to the shower, turning it to warm as his fingers hooked into his sweats. My hands stilled as I watched him, his dick springing free, already at attention.
“But we just—I mean—you just—”
“Sparrow. I haven’t had sex in a very long time. I’ve got some energy in reserve.”
A laugh bubbled out of me as he pulled me into the shower and under the spray.
His mouth met mine in a kiss without hesitation.
It wasn’t like the mornings we’d shared, where I’d felt his resolve crumble in a state of half-sleep.
This was something else entirely. He was giving himself to me with a clear head.