Chapter Forty-Two
Delilah
Jett’s leaned against my car like he owns it, owns me, this is normal, and I didn’t drop the ugly, feral truth in his lap like a cat leaving a rat-gutted gift on the rug.
“I’m gonna take care of you now,” he says. “You wanna follow me to my place or we going to yours?”
I don’t know how to compute this version of him. “Well, no one’s ever, I mean, my place isn’t really fuckable-romantic, unless you’re into thrift store trauma and suspicious candles.”
This isn’t how it works. I’m supposed to lure him to a $59 motel, fuck like the world’s ending, then sob into a vending machine burrito while he ghosts me into oblivion.
“Do you have a client?” I ask, desperate to drag us back to the script I understand, one where he stays pissed and I stay punished.
“My place, Delilah.” He gives me a look that says enough bullshit. “You know the way.”
I do. I nod, because fuck yes, and slide into my car before he remembers he’s furious again. Before this all dissolves into another orgasm with bruises and then silence.
I barely hit the first stop sign before my phone starts vibrating. Missed messages. Plural.
Benji. Sweet, beautiful Benji. Sunshine and soft touches and fucking hope. I answer him first.
Me: Missing you too.
Because I do. And because I want to be a good girl. And because I really, really fucking am not.
Next is the art center and fuck yes Kira cancelled. Wise goose.
Me: Confirming I will be there.
With bells on… or off.
I beat Jett to his house and pull into his driveway. Across the street, the same curtain twitches. Nosy-ass suburban surveillance squad, back at it.
I smile and wave. The eyes behind the curtain blink and don’t move.
Jett pulls up behind me, smirking, and flips them the bird. “Don’t mind that old bitch,” he says. “She’s made my comings and goings her personal Netflix.”
“Should we fuck on the bike?” I ask sweetly. “Give her something to blow out her pacemaker a little.”
“Yeah, not today.” He grabs my hand like it’s casual. Like we do this.
I frown. “You’re kind of freaking me out.”
“You think fucking on the bike in broad daylight is the kind of care you need right now?” he asks, tugging me toward the front door.
“Maybe.” I mean it. Maybe that is care, for me. Fast and rough and choking on his knuckles while some old bat watches from behind a lace curtain.
“That’s why you’re mine,” he says, opening the door. “Now get your ass inside before I rail you against the siding and traumatize that old bitch into hospice. Benji’s out of bail money.”
Benji paid your bail?
I stumble like he hit me. Because he did. Emotionally. In the part of me that still believes good things are punishment in disguise.
I follow Jett inside anyway, because he said mine, and because I still need to know how a man like Jett cares for someone.
Because he’s me. Just… taller, meaner, and better at hiding it. He doesn’t know how to love without claws. Doesn’t believe in happy endings and this open-hearted, no-exit-sign bullshit.
Doesn’t trust it. Doesn’t trust me. But he’s still here. Ready to fuck until we figure it out or break trying.
He stops just inside the door and turns to hand me a brown paper bag. In fat black Sharpie, it says: POST JAIL CARE KIT.
My brain stutters. “What the fuck is this?”
“It’s aftercare,” he says. “For when you get fucked by the system.”
I stare at him. Step back, suspicious. “You gift-bagged my trauma?”
“You left me a few,” he shrugs. “Didn’t say thank you. Don’t make it weird.”
“Oh, I’m the weird one now?” I shoot back, palms out like I’m warding off holy water. “You don’t hand deliver a stalking bag. You leave it somewhere slightly menacing. A landmine. A threat wrapped in tissue paper.”
He lifts the bag and shakes it at me like it’s a weapon. “You left mine to fuck with me. This is returning the favor.”
“Ohhh,” I say, tilting my head. “So it’s revenge gifting. I can work with that.”
“Open the fucking bag.”
I take it. It’s heavier than it looks. I unroll the top and peer in.
A tiny pink beanbag unicorn stares up at me like it knows things. Okay. Pink. He remembered that. And fuck me, I melt. Like a dumb bitch who thinks maybe she deserves things.
There’s a pack of Skittles, a bag of chocolate-covered cashews, pink fucking brass knuckles with a crown etched into the handle, and a keychain.
I flip it.
JETT’S on one side. DON’T TOUCH MY SHIT on the other.
I look up at him slowly. “This is a lot.”
“So are you,” he says.
I hate how fast I fold. How fast my insides go liquid sweet when he says shit like that. He knows I’m too much and still wants me.
“Now I’m gonna bathe you,” he says, stepping in like a storm front, hot, mean, and probably carrying an emotional tornado warning. “I got some vanilla sugar bullshit. That’s what you smell like.”
My mouth goes dry. “Okay. Are you going to fuck me?” I ask, already dizzy from the weight of him in the room.
“Yes,” he says. “Not sure how sweet that’ll be. But I’m trying.”
And that’s what undoes me. Not the bag. Not the brass knuckles. Not the sugar scrub or the threat of another blackout orgasm.
It’s that word: trying.
Because I’m trying too.
And maybe we’ll ruin each other.
Bloody, breathless, and somehow still holding each other.
Jett peels the bag from my hand like I’m breakable. He’s trying to be the kind of man who takes care of a girl gently.
Too late. I’m already fucked up. Bent around him like barbed wire. Bruised from the ride and asking for more.
He turns on the water.
“You don’t have to,” I start, but his fingers are already under the hem of my shirt.
“I do,” he says. “Shut up and let me.”
My skin sparks when the shirt comes off. He drags it over my head like he’s unwrapping something sacred and dangerous at once. His hands pause at my bra strap, then glide around, careful, and fuck, it shouldn’t feel like anything. But it does.
The bra slips. He doesn’t even look. He’s all focus. All intention. And then he sinks to his knees.
I sway. Grab his shoulder. “Jett…”
“Everything off,” he says. Not commanding. Not cruel. Worshipful. Like I’m a job he needs to get right this time.
He strips me and kisses just below my navel. The soft scrape of his stubble lights me up. Goosebumps flare everywhere.
“You’re shaking,” he says.
“Because you’re trying to be nice,” I say, throat dry. “That’s the scariest part.”
He looks up. Eyes dark. “Get in the shower.”
I do.
The steam’s already thick in the air like a spell. The tile is warm on my back and I’m still reeling, still waiting for the catch, the crack, the Jettness under all that sweetness.
He steps in behind me, water coursing down his shoulders. Fuck, his body. I’ve seen it. Tasted it. But not like this. Not under this yellow-gold light, with no hurry in his hands, just heat and silence and the promise of something coming.
He pours vanilla body wash into his palms and starts at my shoulders.
“You’re tense,” he says.
“No shit.”
He slides down my back, slow. Over hips. Thighs. Every place he touches, I ache. His thumbs graze just below my ass and I arch into it, chasing more.
He doesn’t give it. Fucking tease.
“Don’t stop,” I whisper.
“I’m trying to be careful,” he says. “Don’t wanna hurt you.”
“I want you to.”
I feel the Jett-shaped rupture in the universe.
He grabs my hips and turns me so fast my head whips. I hit the tile with a thud, water spraying down my chest. His hand comes up, flat palm on the wall beside my head.
“You want it rough?” he growls, forehead pressed to mine like he’s trying to crawl inside my skull. “Say it again.”
“I want you to hurt me.”
He lunges, mouth on mine in a collision of teeth and spit and tongue, and then he’s inside me in a single thrust that knocks the breath out of my lungs.
My back bows off the wall. My legs shake. I shatter like a thrown wineglass on concrete.
And he doesn’t fucking stop.
One hand on my throat, warm and possessive, like he needs to feel my pulse against his palm to prove I’m alive and his. The other grips my thigh, fingers digging hard enough to bruise, yanking me higher, wider, taking everything he wants as he slams into me over and over.
He’s fucking like he hates himself. Or he thinks if he splits me open wide enough, maybe something soft will finally crawl out.
The tile is freezing. The water’s still hot. My spine stings from the wall, and everything is friction and ache and noise. Skin slapping. Breath snarling. Wet gasping chaos in a porcelain cage.
“You think I can’t be sweet?” he hisses into my neck, teeth grazing just enough to make me twitch. “You think I don’t give a shit?”
I don’t answer. Can’t. All I can do is moan as he fucks me deeper.
“I’m trying,” he snarls, jaw tight, every word a lash. “But you don’t make it easy.”
“Good,” I pant, clawing at his back, nails dragging hard enough to draw blood. “Fuck you. Keep trying.”
He fucking does.
He doesn’t stop, not when I bite his throat, not when my knees give out, when my voice goes raw, when I’ve got nothing left but sobs and tremors and the high, hysterical laugh of a girl absolutely unmade.
He holds me up with sheer rage and muscle, fucking me like it’s the only thing he’s still good at. Like if he ruins me perfectly, maybe he’ll be worth keeping.
His grip bruises. His thrusts go ragged. His mouth is everywhere, my throat, my jaw, the corner of my lips like he can’t decide if he wants to devour or apologize.
“Look at you,” he groans, forehead pressed to mine again, slick with sweat and guilt and want. “Fucking wrecked. You love it. You love when I break you, don’t you?”
I try to answer but it’s just a whimper, my mouth open and gasping, my body bucking helplessly under his. His rhythm stutters. He growls and slams back in harder, chasing the edge.
“You’re so fucking perfect like this. All noise and need,” he hisses, voice cracking at the edges. “No one else sees you like I do. No one else gets this.”
He bites at my shoulder, not gentle. His hands shake.
“Fuck, I hate you,” he whispers, thrusts losing precision. “Hate that I can’t stop wanting you. Hate that you fucking shine when I drag you through hell.”
My legs convulse. My vision goes white around the edges. I think I might come again but it’s more like falling. Drowning. Melting into the center of the earth.
The water goes cold, he starts to shatter with me, his shoulders shaking now.
But he doesn’t stop until we’ve burned every ounce of hardness out of each other and all that’s left is bruises and spit and the sound of our hearts crashing into each other.
The moment I start to come down, he catches me.
Not a grand gesture. Not with finesse. But with this sudden, desperate panic in the way his arms wrap around me, like he’s afraid I’ll hit the floor and break.
He sinks to his knees with me still wrapped around him. My back hits the cold tile, his chest against mine, both of us soaked and shaking and too wrecked to pretend we’re not fucking ruined by this.
His mouth presses to my temple. A shaky, silent kiss. Then another, on the bridge of my nose. Then one on my cheek. Too gentle. Too guilty.
“Shit,” he says, voice gone low and hoarse and human. “Did I? Fuck, did I go too far?”
“No.” It comes out a whisper. “You didn’t.”
He doesn’t move for a long time. Just holds me tighter. Breath slowing against my skin. One hand cradling the back of my head, the other stroking aimlessly down my spine.
The silence stretches. Not angry. Just… fragile.
“I hate how much I need you,” he says. Not loud. Not even like he means to say it aloud.
The words slam into me harder than the fucking. I freeze. He feels it.
“I mean it,” he says, choking on it. “It makes me fucking sick. How much I want you. How much of me is just this now. You.”
His voice breaks on the last word. Just barely. Just enough for me to hear the truth.
He hates needing anyone. He hates needing me. Because needing me means he’s already lost the fight. He already knows I could wreck him worse than anyone else ever has.
And still, he stays pressed to me like he can’t breathe unless our ribs are touching.
“I know,” I whisper, curling fingers into his hair. “I know.”
He buries his face in my neck and holds me through the slow freeze of the shower, through the tremors in both our hands, through the long unraveling that comes after chaos.
And when I shiver too hard to hide it, he finally stands, lifts me into his arms, and carries me out as if I’m still something worth saving.
He lays me out on his bed. “I’ve got a client in an hour,” he says. “There’s leftover pizza in the fridge. Some donuts I got for you, frosted and powdered. You can stay as long as you need.”
I blink up at him, still jelly-spined and brainless. “You broke me,” I croak. “I’m gonna need a nap just to remember my name. How are you gonna work?”
“I’ll manage.” He rubs the back of his neck, still damp, his skin flushed. My bite mark’s a violent bloom on his throat. “You want me to bring you the donuts or the pizza? I got soda. Whiskey too.”
“Yeah. Pizza and powdered donuts and soda, please.” My voice sounds drunk. I feel drunk. Fucked into a new dimension.
I watch his bare ass as he heads for the kitchen.
What the fuck is this? Who the fuck is he?
If my legs worked, I might run.
He disappears for a minute, and I just lie there staring at the ceiling like it might explain what the fuck just happened to me.
Then he’s back. Plate in one hand, soda in the other. Bare chest, towel slung loose around his hips.
“Sit up,” he says, nudging my shoulder gently with his knuckles.
“Can’t. I’m dead.”
“You’re dramatic,” he says, but his voice is amused. He sets the plate on the nightstand and perches beside me on the edge of the bed.
Then he picks up a powdered donut. Holds it out.
I blink at him. “What are you doing?”
“You said you wanted one.”
“Yeah, like… to eat with my own hands.”
“Your hands are shaking.”
“Your dick did that.”
He gives me a flat look. “So shut up and open your mouth.”
I do. Because I’m weak. And because powdered sugar is love.
He feeds it to me, slow and careful.
Powder sticks to my lips. He reaches up and brushes it off with his thumb. Doesn’t kiss me. Doesn’t say anything.
I chew. Swallow. Lick the sugar off my lips. “You’re dangerous,” I whisper.
He picks up the soda, cracks it open, and holds the straw out for me like this is just a thing we do now. Feral fucking. Donuts. Devastation.
God help me, I sip.
What is this? What the fuck is this?
And why do I want another donut?