Chapter 35 #2
“Leaving, get off me.” Her hands tug on the shoes but it’s useless and she knows it. A frustrated growl pours from her lips as she releases them and slaps her hands over her ears, turning away from him. Shutting us out. “You can’t make me stay. This is done. We’re done.”
“Like fuck it is,” I add, standing in the same spot. She’ll wear herself out before Jesse lets her out of this house.
Turning, she points a finger at me. “You don’t tell me what to do.”
“I know,” I say simply and her eyes narrow. “Except you aren’t going anywhere and that’s final.”
She growls, hands tangling in her strawberry blonde hair. I’d force her to stop except she needs to lance this wound. She needs to let some of her pain escape before it kills her. “Quit pretending you still want me, Noah. I won’t hold it against you if you just let me go!”
She screams the last word, opening her eyes as it echoes through the large room, through all of our heads. Watching me to see what kind of effect they’ll have on me.
I tilt my head, pinning her with my own glare. “You think I don’t want you anymore?”
She huffs out a laugh. “I know it. I know you saw, he told me he showed you. I wouldn’t want me either.” The smirk she tries to wear is ruined by the tear tracks cutting through it.
Slowly stepping toward her, I only stop when I’m a foot away and she’s forced to look up at me. From here, the tremble in her body is painfully clear. “Let it out, baby. Hurt me if you want. If it makes you feel better.”
It only pisses her off more. “Quit doing that. I’m giving you an out. Just man up and take it.”
I lean forward, forcing her to read the sincerity in my fucking eyes. “No.”
It bubbles over, a growl starting in her chest as I refuse to be the asshole she so badly wants me to be right now.
“Hurt me instead, Em.”
“You’re just like them,” she hisses. “Pushing me. Keeping me.” She turns to Jesse, who watches us with wide eyes. “Tell him to let me go.”
He shakes his head. “Fuck no.”
Turning, she makes her way to the kitchen, walking quicker. Climbing onto the counter, she reaches to the very top shelf and I laugh, realizing what she’s about to do.
Hearing me, she grabs the gun hidden in a recipe box and turns back toward me, sliding off the counter. Pointing it at my chest, she offers me a cold, hateful smile. “I’ll be leaving now. Don’t try to stop me.”
“Remember what happened last time you tried to leave, Angel?” I pause, watching her confidence falter. “You’re gonna have to shoot me in the head before you leave this property."
“You are just like them,” she grits, and that furious agony burns sharper inside her. “Locking me up. Taking me like I’m some fucking object.” She shakes her head, eyes squeezing shut. “I am so fucking sick of being used to make a man feel good.”
Jesse moves right when I do, the gun shaking in her hands as she replays some awful memory in her head. Reaching up to cover her ears again, the gun rests dangerously against her temple and I see red.
He reaches her first, snatching it away as she shakes from the effort of trying not to fall apart.
A gritty, jagged sound escapes anyway, one that hurts to watch fall from her lips.
Flicking the safety back on, Jesse sets it on the table as I pick her up, her legs wrapping automatically around my waist. Jesse’s large hands find her hips, swiping up her body from behind her to gently pull her hands from her ears.
“Baby.” There’s no way to hide the worry in my voice, and I don’t really care to. I want her to know that it would take an act of god to make me not want her. To make me ever stop needing her. “Come back to us.”
Jesse rests his forehead to her shoulder, listening as I try to coax her back to reality from whatever flashback is haunting that pretty little head of hers. “Emma, please.”
She shakes, letting us lower her arms and surround her with our presence. It’s the only thing that’s helped her so far. Being lodged between two of her men, beyond safe. Beyond loved.
“Come back to me, Em,” I repeat, brushing her cheekbone with the curve of my finger.
Her eyes blink open, red and watery. Her mouth parts, panting lightly from the exertion of fury bleeding her dry. She blinks at me, shaking her head and biting her lip as it trembles. “I can’t take anyone else leaving me.”
This girl. She fucking found my heart when I didn’t think it existed and stole it. Now she’s breaking it to pieces like I ever stood a chance. “Nobody’s leaving. Not us. Not you.”
With one had curling around my sleeve, she reaches back with her other to find Jesse’s mop of hair and holds his head where it rests on her shoulder. A hiccup racks her frame and she flinches in pain.
“Bo’s all that’s left of me from before. I don’t even recognize myself anymore.” Her mouth twists as she tries to keep the tremor hidden.
I press my forehead to hers, holding her tightly, meeting her hand where it holds Jesse’s head. He shifts, pressing a gentle kiss to her shoulder blade.
“That's okay because I fucking see you still, baby,” I remind her as she sniffs. “I told you that by the fire. If you want to leave here, we'll go. But it should be with me. Not without.”
She falls silent, thoughtlessly running her hand through Jesse’s hair. As if she can’t stop the urge to comfort us even when she’s the one raked in pain.
I wonder what she’s picturing. Is it the nights of laughter, with all of us right here in this room? Her birthday, where we’d shared each other on this couch? Maybe the woods outside the window where I’d chased her like I could consume her whole.
Because that’s what I see. A woman who had nothing fake or spiteful in her, who knew I screamed danger and still let me in. Who let me play, and push and take until we both were deeper than we knew how to handle.
She could say no, and I’d be forced to accept it.
I won’t say it out loud, but if she held our past against me, of me forcing her out of her world and into mine, I’d have no choice but to let her go.
Maybe she’s picturing running from here and starting over on her own.
Without anyone else, for the very first time in her life.
Striking out into the world as Emma instead of as a wife.
“You’re killing me, Em,” Jesse mutters against her shoulder, nuzzling closer. A breathy laugh falls from her mouth, surprising both me and her.
She licks her lips, staring at mine. “No, Noah. I won’t take you away from this place. From your family. From Mercy. I couldn’t. Not when there are people out there who deal with what I just did. We should stay.” She chews her lip, grazing my unshaved face with her soft hand. “We should help.”
I pull her face to mine, our mouths clashing in a sharp, euphoric haze.
Because for a moment I hadn’t been sure.
I pull back slightly, then steal another kiss, feeling as Jesse does the same with her neck.
Worshipping. Thanking her. Praising her for coming back to us.
For letting the two of us Finch men keep her, though we don’t deserve it at all.
The small, sad flick of a smile on the corner of her mouth is addicting.
I would do anything it took to make it stay.