Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Barret
The news spreads through the house like an incoming storm—slow, suffocating, impossible to ignore. It rolls in on the hiss of faxes, the chime of email alerts, the constant buzzing from Eddie’s new PR agency. He bought himself one of those overblown media setups just to “stay ahead of the curve.”
Love the guy to death, but sometimes Eddie’s passion borders on nuclear. He wants control of the narrative, but all it’s doing is making the silence louder.
Me? I had to go to Seattle to interview with the police because at this moment anyone who dated Cleo could be a suspect. Fucking Dorian making shit up . . . I want to think that my acting skills worked well enough to make them believe I didn’t give two fucks about Cleo—plus I have a good alibi.
Of course, it’s been a fucking long day—longer than it should’ve been.
Even when we’re prepared, nothing about this feels manageable.
The house phone won’t shut up. Somewhere down the hall, a fax machine spits out another sheet with a tired groan, like it’s exhausted too.
Doors open. Close. Voices slip through the cracks—Roderick’s clipped tone, Rhodes asking too many questions, Eddie snapping back.
Every time we inch forward, something yanks us back.
Once I’m back from Seattle, I stay with Cleo.
She hasn’t moved much. Sits on the edge of the bed like she’s bracing for an earthquake, her toes pressing hard into the rug, her palms flattened against her thighs. Like she has to remind herself this is real. That she’s real. That she chose to stay.
Rain trails down the window in threads of silver. Beyond the glass, the ocean is a breath held too long—gray, endless, waiting. I strum absent chords on the guitar, the notes going nowhere, but hoping they’ll keep her present. The sound keeps the walls from closing in.
We breathe together in the quiet. Four counts in. Hold. Six out. Again. Again. Until the tremble in her fingers becomes something she can live inside.
“It’s everywhere,” she whispers. Her voice is too thin, like it might vanish if she speaks any louder. “Every channel. Every call. They’re talking like I’m gone.”
I set the guitar aside and shift closer, letting my knee touch hers. “They can talk,” I murmur. “You’re right here. With me.”
Her eyes lift toward the window, watching the world refuse to pause. “They’ll stitch together a stranger and call her me,” she says. “They’ll slap a name on a girl they never met and feed her to the world like it’s truth.”
“They don’t know you,” I say. “I do. Eddie does.” I move toward the bed and reach out, palm up. “Take this.”
She stares at my hand for a second too long before sliding her fingers into mine. I draw my thumb across the inside of her wrist—slow, rhythmic—and feel her breath sync to the motion. Like her body needs someone else’s pace to remember its own.
Cleo swallows hard. “They found someone.”
“Yeah.” I place her on my lap.
“She had a life.” Her voice falters. “A family.”
I nod once. “She’s not real, baby. They built her using Hollywood props. It’s all fake—every detail crafted to fit the script. We’ve got people on the inside making sure it looks legit.”
She blinks, but it doesn’t reach her expression. Her jaw tenses like she’s trying to chew through the guilt, but it won’t go down. “But someone out there’s going to grieve her,” she says. “Even if she never existed.”
I don’t know what to say to that. Because she’s right. People will grieve a story. They’ll cry for a girl they never met and never will. And Cleo will watch the world mourn her while she sits here, breathing through it, pulse beneath my hand, alive.
And still disappearing.
She leans into me until her temple finds my shoulder. Her breath skims my throat. I press my mouth to her hairline—once, then again—quiet promises she can feel.
“What if this never ends?” she asks.
“It ends,” I say, and I don’t dress it up. “Eddie’s at the phones. Your brothers are there to support him while they handle the media circus. I’m here with you. And Dorian—” the name tastes like rust “—he’s not weather we endure. He’s a problem we end.”
Her fingers fist in my shirt like she’s hanging on for dear life.
“Promise me,” she breathes.
I press my mouth to the corner of hers—gentle, reverent. “I promise,” I whisper against her skin. “I believe in you. In us. In the way we keep choosing this, even now, when everything else is fucking impossible.”
She exhales like she’s been underwater for too long, and finally surfaced. Her eyes search mine, something wild and aching behind them. “I just . . . I need to feel something else. Just for a while. I don’t want to be inside my head anymore.”
“Cleo,” I murmur, brushing her hair back, fingers trembling more than I want to admit. “Are you sure?”
She nods once. Then again, slower. “Make me forget.”
She turns into me, lips parting. The kiss is tentative—barely pressure, just the slip of her breath against mine. But it lands like lightning. I cup her face, thumbs brushing along her lashes, the fragile remnants of everything she’s holding back.
Then I kiss her again. Deeper. Slower. Until she exhales into my mouth and her shoulders start to release the tension wound tight beneath my palms.
I taste salt. Tea. And something sweeter, something that’s only hers—like soft fruit at the edge of summer. Her lips press harder, searching for something to hold onto, and I give it. I give all of it.
One hand slips into her hair, cradling the base of her skull. The other draws her in by the waist, closer, closer still—like if I just hold her tight enough, the world will stay outside the room.
This isn’t to erase the pain. We both know it won’t go away. But I can give her this. I can give her somewhere safe to land. Somewhere she can finally breathe.
When we part, her forehead rests against mine. Her breath stumbles in the air between us.
It’s not a miracle. But it’s enough.
She blinks up at me, voice raw. “Take this off,” she says, fingers curling under the hem of my shirt. “Please.”
I nod and tug the shirt over my head. Her hands are on me before the fabric hits the floor—palms splayed across my chest like she’s trying to anchor herself.
She moves slowly, reverently, like she’s reading braille in the ink.
Fingertips graze over the jagged lines of old scars, the faded lyrics inked just below my collarbone, the tribal band circling my bicep—back when that meant something.
Her thumb traces the half-sun tattoo at my ribs, the one I got on a dare the night we were in Tokyo during our second tour.
I feel my breath catch.
She looks at me like she’s trying to memorize it all—the bulk of my shoulders, the lean muscle mapped in years of rage and rhythm. Or maybe she wants to forget every mark. Every reminder of who I was before her.
“Yours too,” I say, voice low. “Let me see you.”
She peels her shirt off in one fluid motion. No hesitation. Just skin and vulnerability and, God, she’s so fucking beautiful it hurts.
I step in again, mouth brushing her collarbone, her jaw, the pulse that flutters under her ear. My hands roam slowly, not to rush—just to learn her all over again.
We undress each other like we’re afraid it might be the last time. Or the first time. Or maybe both. Like we’re building something with the pieces we still have left.
Her breath catches as I kiss down her neck, and I feel her nails bite into my shoulder. She’s silent, but her body says everything—need me, hold me, don’t let me go.
Her skin is warm beneath my mouth—bare, flushed, and trembling. I kiss down her throat, slow as confession, my lips lingering at the hollow where her pulse kicks faster against my tongue.
She tilts her head back, offers me her neck like she’s offering something sacred. I take it.
I kiss. Then I suck.
Slow. Deep. Lingering until she gasps, until I feel her begin to shiver.
My hands move to her hips, steadying her, grounding her even as I start to lose myself in her taste. She smells like rain and salt and the tea we didn’t finish, but she tastes like want—like something I’ve waited a lifetime to touch again.
Her fingers slide into my hair, clutching tight. She pulls me closer, and I groan against her skin, biting gently beneath her ear before dragging my tongue down the delicate line of her neck.
Then I shift lower.
I kneel.
I kiss the space between her breasts first—pressing my mouth there like a vow.
She exhales, a sound caught between a gasp and a moan, her chest lifting beneath me.
I trail open-mouthed kisses to one nipple, then the other, circling each with my tongue.
Watching her come undone. Feeling her body tense and melt all at once.
She makes this sound—soft, broken, almost embarrassed—and, fuck, I want to hear it again.
I move lower, dragging my mouth down the flat of her stomach, savoring every shiver, every tiny hitch of breath as if I have all night to worship her. By the time I reach the heat between her thighs, she’s already trembling for me.
So I take my time.
I wrap my lips around her, suck her slowly, letting her feel every pull, every sweep of my tongue. Her back arches, hands digging into my shoulders now, her body straining closer like she doesn’t know what she needs—only that I’m giving it to her.
“Beee,” she breathes, voice thick, wrecked. “Please . . .”
“Please what?” I murmur against her skin, my voice rough with restraint. I let my teeth graze her, just enough to make her hips jolt. “Tell me, princess. You know if you don’t ask you don’t get.”
“I need—” Her voice breaks. Her head tips forward, eyes blown wide and glassy. “I need to feel all of you.”
I rise, catching her mouth in a kiss that’s hungrier now—wet, urgent, full of everything we can’t say. Her arms wrap around my neck as I guide her to lie down on the bed, lips never parting, our bodies pressed chest to chest, heart to heart.
She’s still trembling, but it’s not fear anymore.
It’s want.