13. Jensen
THIRTEEN
JENSEN
Hell.
How the hell was I supposed to say no? My dick was so hard it was killing me not to drag her down to feel me. To know for a fact that I was absolutely wild for her on every level.
But I truly didn’t want her to hate me again.
To push me away.
One moment wouldn’t be enough. I was sure of it. One taste of her and I knew it in my bones—way down deep where my art came from.
Maybe that made me a sap, or delusional, but there was nothing like the taste of Lyric on my tongue. And that was just her mouth. What if I got between her legs?
And there was nothing in this room but a hardwood floor and a lone table.
It wasn’t nearly enough for what I wanted when I explored her body for the first time.
Thunder cracked overhead and the whole room went stark white, and her golden eyes flashed. Her long neck, so fragile, and her lips were swollen from my beard and my mouth.
I couldn’t resist taking one more taste before I slowly lowered her to the floor. Her legs unwound from my hips so she could stand.
“You don’t want me?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
I lowered my hand to cup her ass as I pulled her against me to feel every inch of just how much I wanted her. “That is not the problem.”
“Then don’t stop.”
“I’m not going to take you on the fucking floor.” Even as I could picture myself splaying her across the hardwood and widening her thighs to taste every damn part of her.
“Maybe the truck then?”
I tipped back my head and she went at my throat, her lips butterfly soft on my skin. Her hand slid between us and toyed with the button of my jeans.
I caught her hand. “You’re killing me.”
She pulled it away and slipped around me. “Wouldn’t want that.”
With a sigh, I chased after her. “Hey, don’t.”
“I get it. We were just swept up.”
She wouldn’t look at me. And the damn room was getting darker by the minute. “Is there a light or something?”
She headed for the door. “Maybe you should just go.”
I caught her arm and turned her around. Lightning lit up the atrium. Her eyes were shuttered, and she was literally shrinking before my eyes. “Lyric, there’s nothing I want more than to be with you.”
“Funny way of showing it.”
“Three days ago, you had a panic attack from seeing me. I don’t want to do anything to fucking hurt you.”
She shut her eyes and fisted her hands at her sides. “That was different.”
“Really? Care to tell me how?”
“It was a trigger, okay? Seeing you when I wasn’t ready for it just tossed me back into that pit.”
I cupped her shoulders and dragged her close. “I see you down there all the time too,” I whispered.
What I didn’t tell her was that the burn house at the academy was actually what triggered me, but the memories of that night in the fire were always close.
Always haunting me.
Always reminding me that I’d been so damn useless.
She tried to push me away and I held her tighter. She wrapped her arms around my waist and gripped the back of my sweater. “You always see too much.”
As I cupped the back of her head, her springy curls wound around my wrist and urged me to slip my fingers into the strands. “Why is that a bad thing?”
“No one else knows that moment like you do.”
I rested my chin on top of her head. “So that makes us uniquely linked, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you do. For months, it killed me that I couldn’t help you. That I watched the fire come for you. The way it surrounded you and kept growing.”
She laid her head on my chest, her fingers bunching the material of my sweater. “You didn’t leave me, Jensen. Even when the firefighters told you to.”
“Of course not. I wouldn’t leave you alone.” I twisted my fingers into her dense curls so I could pull her head back to look into her eyes. They were damp and shining in the glow from the nearby lights by the door. “At least I could do that much.” I lowered my mouth to hers and kept the kiss quiet and soft.
I could taste the salt of her tears. Anger rolled in my chest. I hated hurting her in any way.
The soft whine of Sheba dented the slow kisses.
“It’s okay,” she said quietly to her dog.
I’d totally forgotten about her. “So, she was watching the whole time?”
Lyric gave a soft laugh. “She was probably in my office. Honestly, I don’t know what she was thinking. I haven’t?—”
She cut herself off and I groaned. “Haven’t been with anyone? Weren’t you dating some dude before the fire?”
She tried to pull away and I held her firm.
“Jensen...”
“What? I know you were dating some jackass. I watched you leave with him, for fuck’s sake. I wanted to rip off his stupid face every time.”
This time, she did laugh. “No, you didn’t.”
“The hell I didn’t.” I cupped her face and tipped up her face to look at me. “You were my boss, and I know you’re a few years older than me—but that didn’t matter to me.”
“It matters to me.”
“Still? Even when you’re here in my arms? When I could slip my fingers into those well-worn jeans and see you want me?”
Her breath hitched. “I wasn’t going to be one of your various conquests. There was a new girl in the store every week.”
“You noticed that?” I had dated a lot because women bored me so fast. They masked who they really were to seem like what I wanted. But the mask always crumbled in the end.
And none of them were Lyric in the end.
“Of course, I noticed.” She pushed out of my arms, and this time, I let her.
Had I really been so damn wrong? Or worse, had it been my fault she’d always tossed around those big fucking red stop signs when we worked alone together. Some men were oblivious about how women reacted to them.
I wasn’t one of those people.
I’d seen far too many abusive relationships living in the rough streets of Albany. Skinny row houses so tightly packed together you could smell your neighbor’s food and hear every fight—and sometimes every punch.
I’d learned how to read the signs of fear or disinterest before I’d hit double digits, for God’s sake.
And she’d made sure not to be alone with me. Had I truly been so off?
I crossed to her and grabbed her hand. “Because you felt it too?”
“Look, you’re hot and have that bit of wildness to you that makes women want to toss their panties at your head.”
I stiffened. “Not yours though,” I said flatly.
“Yes, mine too. And I felt like an idiot because I’m not built for a fling. Clearly, that’s all you were looking for. All you should be looking for, since you turned twenty-one when you were working here!” Her voice rose with something else. Not fear. Like it was a story she’d told herself far too many times.
“So what? You’re what? 25?”
“26.” She paced away from me. “Your frontal cortex wasn’t even done growing.”
“That sounds like an excuse. I grew up fast because I had to, Lyric. I’m not some punk kid, no matter what you think. That’s your own hangup.”
“And it is a hangup. I run this place. I want—” She cut herself off again.
“What? What do you want, Lyric?”
“I want to fucking feel something other than fear, okay? I’m so tired of waking up in a cold sweat. And that drove my boyfriend away. And the scars. He could barely look at me.”
“Your scars show you’re a damn warrior. You were so afraid down there in that basement, but you didn’t give up. Even when the fire was so fucking close to you that it scared me to my marrow.”
“Easy for you to say. You don’t know what they look like.”
“I don’t care what they look like,” I roared.
She shook her head. “Of course, you do. I care and they’re part of me.”
“That’s why I don’t care what they are. They are part of you.” I lifted her hand with the silvery scar along her pinky, trailing down the side of her palm to her forearm. I brought it up to my lips and brushed them over the raised skin. “It doesn’t repulse me, Lyric. At all.”
She pulled her hand back and shrugged out of her sweater, then she whipped her T-shirt over her head. “How about now?”
The cotton bra cupped her handful-size breasts. There was a stripe of raised skin along her ribs, and I could tell it crept around her back. Slowly, I walked around her. The glow from the outdoor lights showed the shiny grafted skin. The plastic surgeon had done a good job, but there were places that had scarred over and thickened. Like animal stripes across her skin.
Lightly, I drew the pads of my fingers over the raised skin.
She shuddered under my touch, but she stood stock still.
I ran the backs of my knuckles along her spine up to the angriest patch at her shoulder blades. Then I lowered my lips to her skin. “You’re beautiful. So strong. I can’t imagine how much this hurt while healing.”
She hissed out a breath, and a sob rolled through her.
I turned her back into my arms and wrapped both arms around her. I held onto her. “Let it out. It’s just us.”
“I can’t. I’m afraid I’ll never stop.”
“You will. I’ll hold on until you do.” I squeezed harder. Then I felt a nose bump my leg.
Sheba fit herself between our legs and lay her head on Lyric’s thigh.
Then she let go.
The sobs lashed at me until it felt like I had a matching scar on every part of my body.
And I would have taken the scars from her if I could.
I would have taken the pain of that night, of every surgery, of every graft.
It was unfair that I walked away with none, and she had them all.
I pressed my cheek against the side of her head and curled around her as much as humanly possible as the deluge of pain flowed out like the rain outside.
The rage-filled scream reverberated through my chest and the glass around us.
But I didn’t let go.
And my heart shattered at her feet.
Finally, she quieted. “I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. That was probably stuck inside you for a damn long time, Lyric.”
“Maybe.”
I stroked my palm down her hair, then to her skin and back up. “Promise me something.”
She lifted her cheek off my now damp sweater. “What?”
“You aren’t going to push me away tomorrow.”
“I won’t.”
“Good.” I tapped the little up swoop at the tip of her nose. “Because I am taking you out again.”
She let out a sigh. “I don’t need dates.”
“Every girl needs a date. I have the perfect one.”
“Food truck?”
I laughed. “Not this time.”
“Too bad.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll go back to El Ray’s.”
“We better.” She shivered.
I backed away as Sheba sat quietly next to her feet. I spotted her shirt and sweater and handed them over to her.
Quickly, she dressed. I ran back to get my notebook.
“Dammit, I was hoping you were going to forget.”
I laughed. “Not on your life.”
I couldn’t have her looking any more closely to that book. Or she would find herself in those pages.
And the dragon I’d created from her.
The one I wore on my arm.
I met her at the door. “What time are you working tomorrow?”
She shrugged. “I usually come in early and work until I’m done.”
“Can you be done around five?”
“Maybe.” She folded her sweater closer together and hugged herself.
I was tempted to insert myself as her personal warmer, but then there was no way I’d actually let her go.
“Well, I’ll stop in tomorrow. I have to work in the morning.” I had my written test, and I should have been studying all day, but I wouldn’t change this outcome for the world.
She opened the door, and I waited for her to lock up. Sheba danced around both of us under the awning.
I walked her to her Jeep and waited as she set her dog up in the back before she got into the front seat.
“You okay to drive?”
“I’m fine. Just a bit of a headache from crying.”
“All right. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I shut her door and stepped back, waiting for her to back out of the space.
Sheba’s head popped up and her tongue lolled out. She gave one quick bark, then they drove away.
Today had not gone the way I’d planned, and I most definitely needed a cold shower.
But I was hopeful for the first time in a long time.