Chapter 9
Trace
She slams the truck’s door and rushes up the steps to the front door. I don’t go after her. Sorrow has a house key, and I’m giving her time to digest what happened back at the clearing. I’m also taking the time to compose myself.
I’m pissed off at Rush Gray for interfering in my business with Sorrow.
I’m pissed off at her for giving him the time of day.
What I won’t lose sleep over is letting Phoebe know I am done with being her comfort fuck.
She needs to do something other than getting a different guy under or over her after a bad breakup.
The emptiness after our hookup isn’t worth five minutes or less between the sheets.
Maybe that’s why my beast is dormant. He’s looking for something more meaningful.
Sorrow unlocks the door, hurries inside the house, and slams the door behind her.
Fuck me, she’s pissed off. I’ve never seen Sorrow this angry. Smirking, I shake my head and lock up my truck. There’s a fighter inside that small, skinny body, and I aim to poke at her until she’s had enough and takes a swing at me.
That girl needs a good fight and a good cry like no one’s business, and I’ll be there to witness her coming apart at the seams of her stoicism with a grin of satisfaction on my face. Then I’ll catch her when she falls and hold her tight in my arms, letting her know I’m here for her.
I kick at the dirt. Jesus H. Christ. What kind of loverboy shit is taking up space in my head? There’ll be no poking Sorrow. She’ll keel over, and with my luck, I’ll have to give her mouth-to-mouth and breathe life back into her fragile body.
I enter the house and close the door behind me. The lock clicks in place and echoes through the house. I walk to the kitchen, set my keys on the counter, and grab a bottle of water from the fridge. I plop down on the couch and wait for Sorrow to get out of the bathroom.
There’s the sound of running water followed by the bathroom door opening. I barely hear her footsteps on the wood floor. She took off her boots and left them near the door.
Sliding my arm along the back of the couch, I shift my body and watch her walk toward me.
Her arms are crossed over her stomach. Sorrow doesn’t look at me.
Her gaze is downcast. I get it. My temper scares her.
My brooding makes her nervous. The tense, thick silence on the drive home didn’t help.
I didn’t say a word to break the silence.
I was too pissed off, and my words would have carried some serious fucking weight that would scare her more.
I need to learn to keep my temper in check.
I need to remember that Sorrow is dealing with some serious trauma from her past and having to see her father die in that damn fire.
I need to remember that she is in my life temporarily.
She intends to move out of the house and rent a room with Mason.
That’s the proverbial bomb Seven dropped on me a few days ago while we were playing Call of Duty.
He’d overheard Leigh and Sorrow talking when he went to pick up Leigh after her shift ended at the auto parts store.
Fuck me, why would Sorrow think it’s a good idea to room with a thirty-something-year-old grown-ass man? I sigh, knowing the reason.
Sorrow would rather risk living with a man she barely knows than be a burden to a family that took her in because my father and her father were old business partners until my father parted ways with hers.
I’m not sure what happened, but it had to be for a good reason.
My father doesn’t ruin a partnership unless there was one.
I rise from my seat and turn up the thermostat.
If she’s going to be uncomfortable, she might as well be warm.
I sit, and she takes a spot on the opposite end of the couch.
I offer her my water. She shakes her head.
I down the bottle, then slide off my shoes.
There’s silence. I wait for her to bring up something, anything.
We have a lot to discuss. We’ve never spoken this much before.
I’ve never wanted to grab her under her arms and crush her to my body more than at this moment.
I see the uncertainty on her face. Something happened back there that she doesn’t understand, but I do.
How much do I tell her of what I overheard?
Dreams and nightmares come from somewhere, don’t they?
Did Sorrow suppress what she has nightmares about because the danger to her, what she yelled out, is real?
I don’t want my father to worry, but Kyle was his business partner, and if this danger has something to do with my father’s business, he has every right to know.
And I would have every right to keep Sorrow near.
She won’t be moving to a big city anytime soon until I address any threats to her.
“I have nightmares, and you checked up on me. It’s the reason you’re close by when I wake up to get a drink of water.”
“Yes,” I answer. “Earlier, a memory surfaced, didn’t it?”
She nods. Her clear glacier-blue eyes shine with unshed tears. Fuck it. I get up off the couch, sit beside her, and pull her into my lap. She yelps with surprise.
“I’m sorry. Sorry that you’re scared and worried.” I can’t stand seeing the worry on her face. I hate that she’s scared and nervous around me.
Her small hand flits to my shoulder. She’s unsure. Sorrow is broken beyond anyone’s help. Malice’s words from one of our conversations play in my head like a song on a loop.
You wish you broke hearts. We all know you do the opposite. You put the broken back together, Trace. That’s why I’m glad Sorrow is staying with you. At first, I had my doubts, but you’ll help her get through her trauma.
How can I break someone’s heart when they haven’t fallen for all of me?
The girls want my body, want to stoke their curiosity about my reputation.
That I can breathe life back into their bodies with how expertly I work at them with my fingers and mouth.
Malice is wrong. I don’t put the broken back together.
Those girls were already damaged by the time they sought me out, and I gave them what they were asking for.
Two broken people don’t make a right.
Is that the reason I feel this deep emptiness? Am I reduced to giving and receiving oral because I’m as broken as the girls who seek me out for a stolen moment to feel something, anything, other than loneliness? Fuck me, I’m not lonely. I have Malice and Trace. But they have their girls.
Damn.
Blowing out a breath, I stroke my thumb across Sorrow’s cheek. She’s broken beyond anyone’s help, and I’m not the right guy to put her back together, but I can try, starting with her never feeling unsure when around me. I take her thin arms and wrap them around my neck. Her brow furrows.
“Do what you want with me, Sorrow. I’ll never reject you.” I skate my thumb across her worry lines.
“That’s a lot of power to give to a girl you dislike.”
“I don’t dislike you.” It’s the opposite.
“You avoid me at school. You don’t step in when the girls laugh at me. But you do when the guys try to talk to me.”
“I won’t fight your fight, but I sure as fuck will fuck up any guy who thinks he can wet his dick with you.”
Her eyes widen before anger lights them up into this dark blue I can get used to looking at all day long. “That’s not your call to make.”
Not my call, my ass.
Seeing red, done with holding in my temper, I crash my mouth over hers.
I need her sweetness, her softness, her surrender.
Sorrow needs to understand she is my little mouse.
I won’t let another predator near her. Once they get a whiff of her sweet scent and her innocence, they’ll tarnish it and tear her to pieces.
She’s already suffered enough tragedies.
Only the strongest of the strong can protect and defile her innocence. That would be me. Only me.
I coax her mouth open with my tongue. She opens to me with a soft sigh.
I taste the walls of her mouth and tangle our tongues.
Fuck, her sweetness, her softness, her surrender .
. . My heartbeat is loud in my ears. Every cell in my body fucking hums. And when she sets her small hands on my chest and leans into the kiss, I groan. I am in fucking heaven.
Shifting on my lap and turning into me, she sets her palms on my jaw and slows the kiss down to something worshipping and exploring.
I go with the flow and let her. Her body melts into mine.
I sink further into the couch. My hand rests on her hip, and the other is at the small of her back.
She’s skinny. Tiny. I want to wrap my wings around my little mouse and protect her from the elements and other predators.
Sorrow probes my mouth with hers in a slow exploration, her concentration all in the kiss.
Sorrow kisses me without any expectation on her part—none, nada, zilch.
And I’m finding that I like kissing her for the joy of kissing someone without the expectations and conditions that come with it.
I eat up her sighs of contentment and her murmurs of how sweet my mouth is, how tender my kisses are, and how she’s longed for them.
“Is that so?” I murmur on her mouth, my eyes hooded with desire.
“Yes,” she admits.
“I’m sorry about earlier.”
She looks at me with confusion.
“All the f-bombs, and the wet dick part.” I hold her head in my palms and skate my thumbs over the arches of her cheeks. Her skin is smooth and flawless with a tinge of pink. Fuck, she’s beautiful. “I’ll go easy on the crassness.”
“I like your crassness. It’s you.” She lowers her eyes but not her head.
Her timidness is a turn-on.
Grabbing her under her arms, I move her off my lap and seat her on my groin with her straddling my thighs rather than seated sideways. Being face-to-face makes it easier to talk to her.
“Are you saying you like me as is?”
She shrugs. “Yes?”
My brows furrow. “You’re not sure.”
“You can be better,” she says in a quiet voice.
“Changed?”