31. Kayla
My heart pounds in my chest. It’s so loud that it rattles my bones. I can still feel the water clinging to my skin. So much colder than it was before that moment when my life changed. Can still feel the seaweed brush against my ankle. The current pulling at me. The sharp rocks digging into the soles of my feet as I run along the side of the river. Can see the darkness. That horrible fucking darkness that obscured everything. And then those glassy blue eyes.
Another shudder racks my frame, and I tighten my arms around Jace’s firm body, trying to use his warmth to chase away the chill that has seeped into my bones. His strong arms envelop me like a barrier against the rest of the world.
Resting his chin on the top of my head, he continues stroking my hair while murmuring softly, “I’ve got you.”
A sob escapes my lips.
Oh God, I have never let anyone see me like this. This weak. This pathetic.
But it was that damn yacht on the river. Standing so close to the streaming water. It was haunting me all evening. And now it followed me into my dreams as well.
I shiver.
The feeling of that cold water washes over me, stealing the warmth from my soul.
“Jace,” I gasp. “I need to… I need to feel something. Please, make me feel something else.”
He immediately shifts his head, bringing his lips down to my neck. A shudder, but one of warmth and pleasure this time, ripples through me as he kisses that sensitive spot below my ear.
“Whatever that nightmare was about, it wasn’t real this time. It wasn’t happening to you again.” He kisses that spot again before continuing down the side of my neck. “This is real. This is where you are. You and me.”
A small whimper slips past my lips.
Jace shifts us over, gently laying me down on the bed while he straddles my hips. He draws his strong hands along my arms, positioning them so that my hands are resting against the mattress beside my head. His warm and muscular body is a solid weight against my own, and the feeling of it keeps me from breaking apart completely.
I suck in an unsteady breath as he draws his hands down my arms again while his lips continue brushing over my throat. Another pleasant shudder rolls through my body as his steady hands slide down my sides. He stops once he reaches my ribs, and just holds me like that. And the feeling of those strong, confident hands against my body grounds me. I release a deep sigh.
Jace kisses his way over my collarbones, and every brush of his lips sends tingles down my spine. It chases away the coldness that was clinging to my bones. Another whimper spills from my lips as he lightly grazes his teeth over my skin.
My heart is now beating hard in my chest, but for a different reason.
Warmth spreads through my body as Jace keeps his commanding hands on the sides of my ribs while he kisses his way back up my throat. Lightning skitters across my skin as he slides his lips along my jaw. Then he slants his mouth over mine.
Raising my hands, I slide them through his soft curls and pull his lips down to mine.
A pulse of heat surges through me.
Jace rolls his hips and kisses me back as if it was the sole reason he was put on this earth. Oh God, the way this man kisses. His tongue swoops in, dominating mine, as he lays complete claim on my lips. I moan into his mouth. My fingers curl in his hair, gripping it hard before I rake my fingers through it again just to feel those soft strands brush over my skin.
Jace answers by deepening the kiss.
He kisses me until my head is spinning. Until I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t remember why I felt so cold and panicked only minutes before.
My pulse slows and my body relaxes.
I’ve got you, he said.
Yes. Yes, he truly does.
Once my body is no longer tense and trembling, Jace breaks the kiss. But he doesn’t pull back. Instead, he rests his forehead against mine, his eyes still closed.
“Tell me what you want,” he whispers.
My throat closes up at the emotions in his voice. I slide my hands down to the back of his neck and then over his broad shoulders. His body is so warm underneath my palms. Jace Hunter truly is like the sun. Like my own private sun, capable of chasing away the coldest and darkest of memories.
“Just hold me,” I whisper back.
He nods, his forehead moving against mine. Then he gives me one more kiss, a soft and gentle one, before he rolls over and lies down next to me. The mattress sways underneath me as he shifts before settling his weight.
Once he’s lying on his back, he slides an arm underneath me and pulls me to him. I roll over on my side and drape my arm over his muscular chest. He holds me tightly and tilts his head down to kiss my forehead again.
Pleasure curls around my spine.
For quite a while, we just remain like that. I can feel his heart beating against my palm where I rest it on his chest. It’s steady. Unshakable. Just like he is.
Suddenly, I get the overwhelming urge to tell him. To tell him what the nightmare was about. What happened when I was a kid. Why I hate rivers. Why my father insists on having a bodyguard monitor my every move even though I would never do something so terribly stupid again.
I open my mouth to speak.
A pulse of self-consciousness ripples through me, and I hesitate.
It’s not his burden to bear. It’s not his job to listen to my sob stories. Him just being here right now, holding me because I asked him to, is more than he needs to do already.
So I close my mouth again.
But Jace, always so incredibly perceptive Jace, must have been able to somehow read all of that on my face. Tilting his head down, he meets my gaze with those warm brown eyes of his.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.
I swallow against the lump in my throat at how unreasonably kind this man is to the girl who has done nothing but make his life hell since the moment I met him.
“Yes,” I manage to choke out in reply.
He says nothing. Only watches me, waiting in silence while I swallow again and gather my thoughts.
“I, uhm…” I begin, blowing out an unsteady breath. “I had a brother. Victor. He… died.”
Pain floods Jace’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”
I nod, acknowledging it, while sorrow rips through my soul. I draw in another shuddering breath, waiting for it to pass, before I can manage to continue. “He was just one year older than me, and we were inseparable. Best friends. We did everything together. We raised so much trouble. Fun trouble.”
A wistful smile blows across my lips as those old memories swirl through my mind.
“We didn’t have bodyguards as such back then,” I continue. “But we had people who watched us. To make sure we didn’t get into too much trouble.” Pain and regret slices through me, but I force myself to keep speaking. “One day, when I was eight and he was nine, we snuck away. Like we had done hundreds of times before. Victor wanted to go to the river that ran through the grounds at our summer vacation house. So we did.”
My heart starts to pound again. Jace instinctively tightens his arm around me.
“At first, we just swam in the river like we always did. But then he wanted to go to a better spot. A more fun spot, he said. So I followed him to a place where massive boulders lined the riverbank. Almost like cliffs.” My voice starts to tremble and I choke out my next words. “He wanted to jump from them and into the river.”
Understanding fills Jace’s eyes, but he says nothing. Only keeps watching me in silence. As if he knows just how badly I need to tell this entire story. How badly I need to share it with someone else. Someone who might be able to understand.
“I told him not to.” Tears prick behind my eyes as I hold his gaze. “I begged him not to. I told him that it was too dangerous. I told him that we should go back. I even took his hand and tried to physically pull him back.” Pain spears through my heart. “He just grinned at me, gave me one of those troublemaker winks that he had given me thousands of times, and then ran towards the cliffs.”
A sob rips from my chest. I drag in a breath and have to clear my throat before I can continue.
“He hit his head on the way down. I rushed down to where I could wade into the river and then I…” Lingering panic pulses through me, as if I’m still there in that river, desperately searching for my brother. “I tried to find him. I dove in, over and over again, but I couldn’t see him. The water was so dark.”
Jace’s eyes are full of pain and sadness as he holds my gaze.
“When I couldn’t find him, I realized that the current might have pulled him away, so I ran down along the water.” I swallow, the spikes of pain inside me almost unbearable. “I found him by the riverbank farther down.” Coldness spreads through my soul again, and I press myself harder against Jace’s warm body. “Even after all these years, I can still see his glassy blue eyes staring unseeing up at the sky while his body bobbed there in the shallow water.”
The agony and sorrow in Jace’s eyes deepen, and he hugs me tighter.
I wait for him to say the same thing that everyone else has said. The therapists I went to as a kid after that, the few friends I’ve told over the years, my parents. They’ve all said the same useless thing when I’ve told them this.
It wasn’t your fault.
I know that it wasn’t my fault! But it still doesn’t change the fact that Victor is dead. That he died that day in the river. That I found his corpse bobbing in the water and staring up at the sky with dead eyes when I was eight years old.
But that’s what they all do. That’s what they all say. And I hate it when people immediately start trying to fix it. To fix me. To give me a quick solution so that we can move on from this awful topic. It wasn’t your fault, so let it go. That’s what they’re essentially saying. Every time.
That’s the problem with a lot of people. They don’t know how to listen. Truly listen. They’re only listening while waiting for their turn to speak. And sometimes, I don’t want to hear what they have to say. Sometimes, I just want to tell someone and have them hear it and acknowledge it. I don’t need them to come up with a solution for me. I just want to share the burden for a moment.
Jace’s eyes are brimming with sincerity as he holds my gaze and says, “I’m so sorry that that happened to you. And to your brother.”
I stop breathing as I wait for the inevitable but.
It never comes.
No ‘but it wasn’t your fault’ and no ‘but if you do this or that you’ll get over it’ or anything like it. Nothing. Just a true heartfelt acknowledgement of my pain.
He hugs me tighter to his chest.
My heart almost breaks.
Whatever woman Jace ends up marrying, no matter who she is, she will still never be good enough to deserve him. No one will ever be good enough to deserve this incredible man.