30. Talon
thirty
Talon
I was horrified by Misely’s story but also by my ignorant behavior towards her. Putting on the asshole kidnapper show or not, I had truly thought of Misely as just another stuck up, rich blonde bimbo who went into the first career she could think of. It took me seeing her in action, her dedication to her job and to those kids, and hearing this awful story for me to open my stupid eyes and see her.
She was pressed to my chest, gently trembling in what seemed to be an attempt to hold back tears. I thought of the day I’d first seen her and every interaction we’d had since. It had to be handed to her—she was a great actress. Tucking away all the pain and heartache she’d been dealt and smiling through it, playing the part of the rebellious daughter.
“You are incredible,” I murmured against her ear and she shuddered. “So thoughtful, so compassionate. I wish I’d known you when you were fifteen.”
This earned me a small chuckle. “You wouldn’t have liked me then. I had horrid braces and my impeccable sense of style had not yet developed. I thought Hannah Montana and iCarly were the it girls of our generation.”
“I have no idea what any of that means.”
She laughed a little harder and I thrilled in being able to lighten her mood.
“But I bet I would’ve liked you in all your phases. Braces or not.”
Misely twisted in my arms, leaning her head up to meet my gaze. “I bet I would have liked you too. Even though you were already an old man when I was fifteen. You would’ve ended up in jail.”
Pinching her side, I held her to me tightly, “I was twenty three, not sixty, you brat. You know what I mean though. I bet you were just as amazing then as you are now, and you definitely deserved more from the people around you.” And then I kissed her, because she looked like that’s what she was waiting for and was rewarded with the sweetest little sound.
“Thank you,” she said against my lips. “For listening. I’ve never told anyone about Cara.”
“What about James?” I could’ve slapped myself. I don’t know what prompted me to ask about the stupid fucker, but it was too late to take the question back.
Misely just shrugged. “I’ve known James since preschool, but Cara was different. They never really hit it off and when I realized everything that was going on with her, I didn’t want to have it spread around the school. Kids can be ruthless, and she was already having a hard enough time. When she died, he was there for me, but I never confided in him about what happened in that house.”
My eyebrows narrowed, something in my chest pinching tightly. “Birdie?”
“Nope. I didn’t want her to feel like she was replacing anyone.”
“You really think she’d feel that way?”
She was quiet for a moment, mulling it over. “No. I guess that was just the excuse I used. I was keeping Cara to myself. The hurt from her loss felt like my cross to bear.”
“And now?”
Her smile was small and so sweet it made my teeth hurt. “It just felt like it was time to get it out there.”
I heard what she didn’t say. The trust she was giving me with this secret part of her. This deeply personal pain that she’d kept hidden beneath the surface, tucked away in her past. It felt like a great responsibility to take something so intimate from her. A memory she’d held onto, a person she’d sheltered in her heart and shared with nobody else.
It was almost too overwhelming to bear. But I kissed her again, this time slower, deeper, and told myself to be grateful.
Misely
The early morning sun poking through the curtains of our hotel room woke me. The rays were warm on my cheek, but their heat didn’t nearly compare to the way my entire body scorched like it was on fire.
We had fallen asleep in our embrace, much more comfortable in the bed than we had been sleeping in the back of the van. Now Talon was wrapped tightly around my body, his large arm banding me around my middle. His calf was wound around mine, sandwiching them between his thighs like some weird Talon-Misely leg lasagna.
I groaned at my mental reference, internally cursing that I needed caffeine ASAP. In my sad, sad attempt at wriggling free, his arms tightened impossibly around me. The entire scene felt incredibly intimate, making my head spin. Talon was overwhelming me in every way, and fresh panic was beginning to set in.
Like his arms as he held me, Talon was a boa constrictor. Tightening around my body and my reluctant heart. Imposing. Suffocating. This thing between us wasn’t going anywhere, I knew that. The sex was hot and convenient and yeah, I’d told him my deepest, darkest secret that I’d never shared with anybody.
But if I let myself fall into the trap I was surely laying for myself, into old patterns best left in the past, I was going to get hurt. It was happening already, the edges around my heart splintering and cracking at the thought of what I faced at the end of this mess. Talon would walk away unscathed and I…would not.
Again, I attempted to put some space between us and again his arms tightened.
His stubble dug into my shoulder as he nestled into the crook of my neck. “Five more minutes. Let me hold you for five more minutes. Please.”
I couldn’t have fought it if I wanted to. My body melted into him of its own volition. Had Talon MacArthur said please ? Maybe I’d heard him wrong, but I let myself have this one small win. Let myself enjoy the embrace because it was probably going to be my only chance.
Twisting in his arms, our chests pressed together. Talon’s eyes were closed, heavy lashes resting against the top of his cheeks. Relaxed as he was, I was able to catalog the freckles that decorated his skin, the tiny beauty mark just beneath his left eye, the crooked ridge of his nose. It had been the rugged masculinity of him before that had drawn me in. The sharp piercing gaze and the anger that simmered just beneath the surface. But I could see him more clearly now and that knowledge took my breath away.
He was beautiful.