21. Nash #3
She claws at my shirt while I strip, and I let her have the buttons because destruction with a clear target is a kind of mercy.
Fabric pulls. One button pings across the floor.
I get her shirt over her head and pause because the sight of her always costs me a second: hair loose, eyes wet, skin flushed, mouth swollen from mine, rage and need and grief all trapped in the small fierce body of a woman Isabel thinks she can still move like a piece on a board.
Mine, some old part of me thinks.
Not to be owned, but held. Protected. Chosen.
I cover her body with mine. She opens for me before I ask, legs wrapping my hips, hands going to my shoulders, nails biting in as I push inside.
Her eyes close.
“No,” I say.
They open again.
“Stay with me.”
“I am.”
“All the way.”
Her throat moves. She nods.
I drive into her, slow at first, then hard enough, deep enough to make her breath catch, controlled enough that she has to take every inch instead of vanish into the speed of it.
She grips me tighter, hips lifting, wanting harder, faster, anything that will drown the hospital, the drones, Isabel’s voice, Cal’s failing numbers.
I do not give it to her yet.
I pin one of her wrists beside her head and take her mouth, fucking her in long, deliberate strokes until the fight in her starts to change shape. Until her body stops trying to flee itself and begins to soften beneath mine. Until the tears at her temples are no longer only fear.
“Ask,” I say.
She shakes her head.
I still.
Her eyes snap to mine. “Don’t.”
“Ask.”
Her pride trembles. Then bends.
“Please.”
“For what?”
She glares at me through wet lashes. A breathless, furious laugh breaks out of her and disappears into a gasp when I move again.
“Please make me come,” she says, each word dragged over broken glass. “Please, Nash.”
I give her what she asked for.
Harder now. Faster. My hand between us, thumb finding her clit, pressure exactly where she needs it while I keep her eyes on mine.
She comes with my name torn out of her, body locking around me, nails biting deep enough to sting.
I follow before I mean to, control snapping clean under the feel of her holding nothing back.
For a while afterward, neither of us speaks.
I roll us carefully, keeping her close. She lies half on top of me, cheek against my chest, one hand curled in the ruins of my shirt.
Her breathing evens by degrees. The city glows beyond the curtains.
Somewhere outside this room, men move, phones buzz, threats gather, Cal fights his own body, and Isabel waits for us to make the next mistake.
Reva’s voice is small when it comes.
“If he dies while I’m not there…”
I close my eyes. “He knows you love him.”
“That isn’t the same.”
“No,” I say. “It isn’t.”
She is quiet a long time. “I don’t like this, Nash.”
“My reasons are sound.”
She’s silent, and her fingers relax. Exhaustion takes her unevenly, one muscle at a time, until her weight settles and her breath warms my skin in a slow rhythm. I hold her until my arm goes numb, then longer because numbness is nothing.
Eventually, I sleep. Lightly, because I don’t sleep deeply anymore.
A faint shift of air wakes me sometime after midnight. The room is dark except for city light through the curtains. Reva is no longer against me.
I open my eyes.
She stands near the door in black leggings and a dark hoodie, her boots in one hand and her hair braided back. She has taken one of the key cards from the tray and grips it between her fingers.
I sit up quietly, and she freezes. For a moment, we look at each other across the dark.
“Don’t,” she whispers.
There is no point asking where she is going. Cal’s name is written in every line of her body.
I think of stopping her. I think of crossing the room, taking the key card, putting her back in bed, calling Ever, and locking every door between this suite and the hospital. I could do it. I could keep her here.
I would win the room, but in doing it I’ll lose something I may never get back.
In the outer sitting room, something shifts beyond the cracked bedroom door. A darker shape moves near the hall.
Deacon. Sitting in the dark, waiting.
He knew she would try. Because he understands what the rest of us keep trying to discipline out of her: Reva needs choice, even when the choices are impossible.
My jaw tightens. Through the narrow gap, Deacon looks toward me.
I give him one clipped nod.
Follow her.
Protect her.
Don’t take this from her unless the danger becomes bigger than the damage of stopping her.
Deacon rises without sound. Reva’s eyes flick from me to the hall. I’m not sure if she sees him, but her mouth trembles.
“I have to see him,” she whispers.
She waits for the order. I pinch the bridge of my nose and do not give one. It’s the hardest thing I’ve done all day.
“Just…be smart,” I say.
Her face changes, pain and gratitude moving too quickly to separate.
Then she slips out of the room with her boots in her hand. Like a wraith, Deacon follows her into the dark.