28. Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Willow
Iwake to an empty bed and an ache that makes me blush before my brain has fully arrived.
The sheets are tangled around my legs. Morning light spills through the curtains, soft and pale.
I lie still and let my body tell the story before my pride gets in the way.
My thighs are sore. My stomach feels pulled tight in the best and worst way. There is a tender spot low inside me that remembers Phoenix with humiliating accuracy and with absolutely no apology for it.
The man who fucked me like he had been starving and hated how badly he needed the meal.
The one who took his time after making me come with his mouth and then slid inside me slowly enough that I felt every inch of him.
The one who dragged orgasm after orgasm out of me until my body had nothing left to hide behind and gave him everything anyway.
The same man who tucked his face into my neck, kept his arm around me, and didn’t move until I fell asleep.
My hand instinctively slides across the mattress beside me and I hate how cold it is. He hasn’t been here for a while.
The old wound opens so quickly it is almost embarrassing. One second I’m a woman who made a choice with her eyes open and the next I’m right back in the aftermath of that storage room.
I close my eyes and breathe through it.
The moment I sit up, my body protests immediately.
A low ache blooms between my thighs and I feel him everywhere.
My skin is too sensitive, lit up in places I had forgotten existed.
There are faint marks on my hips from where his fingers gripped me.
There’s one on my inner thigh that sends a stupid, traitorous pulse through me when I notice it.
I have had sex before, but I have never been fucked the way Phoenix fucked me last night. Not even close. Not even in all the years I spent imagining it with that reckless, breathtaking stupidity only a girl in love with her best friend can manage.
Last night was not a fantasy. It was sweat, hunger, and tenderness with teeth. Last night was Phoenix between my thighs, his mouth wet from me, and his eyes black with pride, telling me he wasn’t done until every part of my body believed him.
I get out of the bed. The movement makes me wince. I see my T-shirt on the floor near the foot of the bed and pull it over my head, wincing again as the motion wakes every sore muscle he left behind. I open the drawer and pull out clean underwear.
If Phoenix has reverted to his natural state of certified asshole, I’m not walking into my own living room without panties on. I still have some dignity. Three square inches of cotton between me and him. It’s not much, but right now it’s the only armor I’ve got.
The apartment is quiet when I open my bedroom door. I move down the hall, my bare feet silent on the floor. I breathe through the part of me that already knows how to survive what comes next.
Then I see him on the floor with his back against the couch, one knee bent, the other leg stretched out in front of him.
His hair is messy from sleep. Dark strands fall over his eyes that he hasn’t bothered pushing back.
Morning light cuts across the hard lines of his shoulders and chest, the ink that runs up his ribs and over his arms. Each tattoo catches the light differently as his fingers move over the guitar in his lap.
He is just plucking the same slow progression over and over, with his head dipping occasionally to check his fingers on the frets before lifting back toward the window. There is something about the way he looks right now that makes my chest do something inconvenient.
He reaches for the coffee on the floor beside him without looking and takes a sip. He sets it back down, and keeps playing, as if he belongs here. As if the idea of leaving through the night never once crossed his mind.
As if sensing me, he looks up and his fingers go still on the strings.
His eyes travel down my body, taking in my bare legs, and his gaze stops at my chest, where my nipples are hard against the thin fabric. He looks without apology, before his eyes come back to mine, and he gives me a smile.
Phoenix sets the guitar down and gets to his feet with absolutely no business looking that good before coffee.
He crosses the room, eyes locked on mine, and when he reaches me, he pulls me straight into his arms.
My body goes still for one second, surprised by the simplicity of it. Then I fold.
His arms close around me and the breath he lets out moves warm through my hair. His bare chest is warm against my cheek, one hand spread flat across my back, the other resting at my waist.
“Morning, Wills,” he murmurs into my hair.
He pulls back just enough to look at me. His hand slides to my jaw, tilting my face up. His eyes search mine and then he leans in and kisses me. It’s easy, unhurried, and warm.
When he pulls back, his thumb brushes slowly along my jaw.
“I made coffee,” he says, letting go of me and moving to the kitchen.
His back is all ink and muscle. I notice the marks my nails left on his skin last night, which I am not sorry about.
He pours coffee and adds exactly what I take without asking, before bringing it over. His fingers brush mine as he hands me the mug and my body wakes all over again.
“Thanks,” I say.
He picks up his own coffee from the floor and takes a sip. He settles back on the floor, leans against the couch, and puts the guitar in his lap.
I sit on the floor next to him as Phoenix takes another sip, eyeing me over the rim.
“Ready to show me that song you wrote?” he says.
“I don’t know if it’s anything good.”
His eyes stay locked on mine. “That means it’s something.”
“You haven’t heard it, Phoenix.”
“I know your face when you pretend a lyric doesn’t matter.”
I hate that he has a point.
I also hate that it feels as if we’re younger.
Like the years are peeling back to when I’m thirteen with a notebook, shaking hands, and way too much riding on what Phoenix thinks.
Except now there is soreness between my thighs and a thousand things we have done wrong, sitting quietly in the corners of my apartment.
His eyes stay on mine, patient in a way Phoenix rarely is.
I set the mug down and go get my notebook before I can talk myself out of it.
When I come back, Phoenix is strumming the same quiet progression he was before. He looks at the notebook in my hand as I sit.
I open it to the page and slide it toward him.
“You wrote this in there?” he asks, eyes moving over the words.
“Some of it.”
He looks up. “It’s good.”
“You always say that.”
“No.” His gaze drops back to the page. “I say that when it’s good. When it’s shit, I tell you the second verse needs a mercy killing.”
I laugh before I can stop myself.
His mouth curves, but his eyes stay fixed on the lyrics. “The opening line works. This part here is better than you think.” He taps the page. “But you’re hiding in the chorus.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.” He plucks a few notes, testing something. “You wrote around the issue instead of through it.”
I stare at him.
“You do it when it scares you,” he says without looking up. “You always have.”
We work on the song together. Not in some perfect, pretty way.
We argue. He tells me one line is too soft and I tell him his face is too loud.
He changes a chord progression and I hate it for three seconds before realizing it makes the lyric hit harder.
Which I will not admit out loud. He hums under his breath, then sings one line low, letting his voice carry my words across the apartment.
The sound moves through me.
I forgot this. No. That is a lie. I never forgot. I buried it beneath all the ways he hurt me because it was easier to survive him that way.
At one point, I lean over to write a line and my hair falls across my face. Phoenix reaches out without thinking and pushes it back behind my ear.
His fingers linger and I stop writing.
His eyes are on me and there is something in them I don’t have a word for. Something that has nothing to do with sex, songs, or any of the complicated shit between us.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he says, dropping his hand. “The band will love it.”
I look down at the notebook. “I don’t work with the band anymore.”
Phoenix’s fingers freeze on the strings. His gaze drops to the guitar for a moment before coming back to me.
“If you want your job back,” he says, “it’s yours.”
“That’s not your decision.”
“It is when the band has already made it.”
“What?”
He looks out the window. “The guys and I had a meeting with the label. We told them we wanted you.”
His fingers drag once across the strings. Not playing. Just making noise.
My heart starts to beat faster. “When?”
“Before the tour.”
I stare at him and he looks down at the guitar.
Something shifts within him as the air grows heavier.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
A shutter falls over his face, not fully, but enough for me to feel it. He reaches for his coffee and takes a drink he doesn’t want. His fingers tighten around the mug until his knuckles turn white.
“Phoenix.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It clearly does.”
The morning light has shifted, growing brighter across the floor. It catches on the guitar strings, the notebook, and the curve of his shoulder. He looks younger for a second.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me,” I say, closing the notebook slowly.
He keeps his eyes on the guitar. His fingers rest on the strings, but he is not playing. There is tension in his shoulders.
“Talk to me,” I say, setting my coffee aside. “Phoenix.”
He lets out a breath and runs a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry.”
The room grows quiet.
I freeze. “For what?”
“For all of it.” His eyes close for a second. “For the night at the party. The pill.”
When he opens his eyes, they are wet. “I handed you that pill. Told you to trust me, as if I had any fucking right to say that after everything I had already done to you.”
“Phoenix—”