41. Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-One
Mac
The hellfire temperature does nothing to ease the tension radiating through my body. It’s like this living, festering thing that has grown wider, darker, with each day.
Give me three days …
The heel of my tender palm digs into my sternum, yet it does nothing to ease the ache behind it.
Tell me why , I beg the universe. Tell me why and I will.
Fuck, I would.
Even if he’d told me it was because he was curious. Needed to feel things out.
As his best friend … I could do that. Even after all this time, I would do that for him. It would break me, but I’m already fucking broken.
Could I really make this any worse?
It’s a weak excuse and I know it. I’d just be choosing him all over again with no regard to my own lost sanity.
So why not let him use me?
I dip my head into the water and let it seep through my hair, straighten the curls until they hang limp in my tear-tracked face.
I stay like that until I’m numb enough that the scent of my soap fades into something else.
Even longer when I hear a thud.
Goddammit, Rex .
Slapping the water off, I wrap a towel around my waist and push my hair back from my eyes.
Thud .
Growling, I pad through my room, the cold air biting at each droplet on my skin as I all but storm in the direction of the noise.
I love my brother. I swear I do. And yet, I want to murder him for his newfound obsession with creeping into my space when I didn’t ask him to be there and demanding my attention. His happy is too much to deal with when mine refuses to let me touch it. When it keeps its distance. Bares its teeth when I get too close.
“Rex, I fuckin’ swear—”
I freeze when I see a broad set of shoulders that do not belong to my brother flex as the man reaches for another cabinet he lets slam closed with a thud.
“You hungry, Vida?” All I can do is blink at the backward cap. “When’s the last time you ate?”
My jaw clenches.
My heart pinches as I watch Jordan work his way around my kitchen as if I didn’t leave him dumbfounded on the tarmac only a few hours ago with tears in my eyes and an ache so damn deep. It pangs as he fills my dead apartment with life, with the scent of something that makes my mouth water as much as he does.
Gimme three days.
And it damn near stops when he turns around, his eyes landing on my bare chest and flaring.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I growl out before just the sight of him kills me and cross my arms.
“Uhm—” He swallows, his cheeks coloring with a slight pink that I swear will not become my new favorite as his eyes snap to mine.
It’s hard to replace navy blue.
“What is this?” I sweep my arm out, gesturing to the paper bag on my counter and the mess of pans on the stove. Him being here as if there’s nothing wrong between us.
He follows the movement, his throat bobbing with another swallow and when he finds my eyes again, his are hardened.
But that does nothing to hide the heat in them.
“Answer mine first, Vida,” he says as he rounds the counter, approaching me slowly enough that each step kicks up my heart rate until it’s pounding behind my ribs.
I step back.
He rushes forward, catching me with a hand to the back of my neck.
I swat it away.
“Fuck you,” I snarl.
He steps in close again, forcing me back, back, back until my ass hits the couch.
My palms slam against his chest and I hiss.
“Back off.”
Those eyes of his are molten orbs staring right through me before they narrow then drop to the hands barring him from coming closer.
I’m so focused on watching his bent head, waiting for that gaze to swing back up, that I startle when his grip wraps around my wrists. It’s tender. Gentle.
Give me three days.
My heart leaps into my throat when he tugs, turning them to see the calluses split open and just as raw as the organ in my chest.
“Mac,” he sighs and looks up at me through his dark lashes.
“Don’t,” I choke out, my stomach clenching.
Jordan shakes his head. “Don’t what, Vida?”
I lick my drying lips, and his gaze drops to the movement.
Give me three days .
Blatantly, hotly, he trails back up.
But then he migrates his hold to an elbow and spins away, pulling me all the way to the kitchen sink where my brother made me keep a first aid kit.
He drops the red plastic on the counter next to me, pops it open and digs through it.
His grip finds my hand, his touch light as he smears the clear goop onto each break in the skin with so much care that my eyes burn. I sniff when he adds one of those giant sterile pads and wraps gauze across it until it covers most of my hand and part of my wrist.
“Why?” I whisper to the top of his head, his clean apple scent filling my chest and breaking my heart all over again.
“Because.” He rips a piece of tape from the roll with his teeth and secures the gauze. “I choose you.”
I stop breathing.
His thumbs swipe over his handiwork, his gaze slowly rising to mine.
“I’ve always chosen you.”
Jordan fucking shrugs like he didn’t just ruin my life with one fucking sentence that not even my fantasies dared to dream up.
“Someone reminded me it could be that simple,” he mutters softly, one corner of his mouth tipped up in a stupid almost smile that keeps my lungs from inflating.
What if?
Whatifwhatifwhatif.
“But you’re str—”