CHAPTER NINETEEN #2
God, he’s so frustrating. And endearing.
I want to both shake him and kiss him. I want to tell him he really didn’t give me what I wanted yesterday.
When I said I wanted his mouth on me, I meant on my mouth.
Not down there. As amazing as that felt.
I also want to tell him I’m breaking my promise and running away again.
Because how am I going to protect myself from him if he insists on being so… wonderful?
“Where did you learn to cook?” I ask then, letting this argument go for now.
“From my ma,” he answers, surprising me. And then he keeps on doing that as he continues, “Told me a man needs to know how to cook. A decent one, anyhow. It ain’t always a woman’s job to feed her man. Said she was doin’ some future girl a favor.”
I let my heartbeats calm down because he told me something so personal about himself. And yes, he’s shared a lot more with me, but this is different. This is easy, conversational, rather than a harrowing undertaking for him. Something that I always wanted from him.
“Your mom sounds wonderful,” I say quietly.
“She was.”
“Just like your dad and your… sister,” I dare to add.
He doesn’t reply, but he dips his chin in acknowledgment.
I take it as progress. Just like when he told me he doesn’t blame me for what my father did.
Even though I don’t think there’s any progress to be made here.
Nothing is ever going to change the past or the fact that I’m Hank Turner’s daughter.
It doesn’t matter how much I hate him and how I wish he would be punished for every single crime, my father’s blood still flows in my veins and it’ll always stay between us.
“But I don’t think…” I begin but then trail off because suddenly, everything feels so hopeless.
He probably knows what I was going to say, but he still asks, “Don’t think what?”
Swallowing, I look up at him. “I don’t think your mom meant me. The Turner girl. You know, when she taught you.”
His jaw clenches for a second. “Yeah, she probably also didn’t think that one day her son would make that girl breakfast, but she wouldn’t be able to eat it with her own hands because he’d tied ’em to a fuckin’ tree.
Don’t reckon that would make Ma very happy, given that she spent her life tryna teach me how to treat a girl, treat my little sister, right. ”
“I—”
“So no, I’ll make the breakfast.”
“But I don’t want you to stress your shoulder,” I say, my heart fluttering in my chest.
“It’s fine.”
“You got shot.”
“So?”
“So it’s a bullet wound.”
“Superficial.”
“But—”
“And now I got a mark on my shoulder to match the others.”
“What?”
His green eyes look even greener as he explains, “The one on my ribs and the other on my hand.”
It takes me a second to realize what he’s talking about. And then a few more to stop the crazy thrumming in my body. Gripping the fence tightly, I manage to say, “You don’t have a mark on your hand.”
He lets the reins go to raise the hand I bit that first time and show me.
It’s a little hard to find because his hands are still screwed up from the beatdown at the warehouse, but sure enough there’s a little mark on the side of his palm, white and scabbed over.
A semicircle of pinprick scars where my teeth were lodged.
I remember wanting to take a chunk of his flesh out, but holy God, this is insane.
I look up. “I can’t believe I left a mark.”
“Tends to happen when you go rabid on someone.”
“You deserved it.”
“Never said I didn’t.”
I glance over to his ribs. “Can I see the other one?”
“No.”
I bite my lip. “Is it big?”
“Bigger than the one on my hand.”
“Does it hurt still?”
His eyes glitter again. “Why, thinkin’ of givin’ me another one?”
“What? No.”
“Wouldn’t mind it,” he says, his lips twitching again. “It’ll be like expandin’ my collection.”
My nails scratch the wooden rail. “You’re crazy.”
“Thought the word was ‘psychotic.’”
“I can’t believe you’re making jokes about this,” I say, my breaths all choppy.
“Sounds like the start of a good one, though,” he goes on, his eyes practically twinkling. “What happens when you get stabbed, shot, and bitten by a rabid princess?”
“I didn’t shoot you,” I point out. “But the answer should be you probably get a psychotic phantom laughing it off like it’s a dream come true.”
The corners of his mouth pull up then. “Well, maybe it is.”
I look into his amused eyes and forget all the complementary colors in this world, because this is what brings out his eyes.
Him being playful. I wonder, for the thousandth time since I met him, if this is what he was like before, before everything happened; and I wonder if he’ll ever get back to that.
And if he does, will I be here to see it?
A pang strikes my chest and I ask, “Can I at least dress the one on your shoulder?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause I don’t want you to.”
“Is this some sort of self-inflicted punishment?” I ask, frowning. “A way to pay your dues? Because according to you, you put me in harm’s way, even though no harm came to me whatsoever because you didn’t let it, and now you’re repenting for it.”
“Part of it.”
“What’s the other part?”
He holds his silence.
And I clench my teeth in frustration. “What about where you’re sleeping?”
“What about it?”
“Well, where are you sleeping? Because there’s just one bed in that house, and I was the one who slept in it last night.”
“You invitin’ me to your bed, Princess?” he asks, his eyes all green and intense. “Wouldn’t be breakin’ your rules now, not after yesterday.”
God. Can we please go back to when he wasn’t annoying me? And I didn’t want to jump his bones so bad, my boundaries be damned.
“No,” I tell him sternly because that’s not happening, not ever. “I’m saying if there is only one bed, then I want you to take it because you need your rest with your injured shoulder.”
His chest moves with a breath like he’s exasperated. “And as I said, it’s fine.”
“You know what, Haven was right,” I tell him. “You’re literally the worst.”
He holds his silence at this, too, but I can clearly see he’s proud of it.
“Fine, whatever.” I throw my hands up. “You do what you want. You want to suffer, please go suffer; I don’t care.
And then you ride around on your stupid horse and do whatever it is you do, brood or punch walls or…
whatever. I’m going to go inside and figure out lunch.
Because guess what, I’m making lunch and you will eat it even if you hate it, okay? So… Goodbye, my friend!”
Huffing, I spin around but don’t go anywhere because in the next breath, I find my wrist captured in his hand.
Bending down, he pulls me back up against the fence.
But when I go to face him, he stops me and brings my arm forward as his snakes around my belly.
He keeps my back pressed to the wooden slats and leans down.
I feel the heat of his chest surrounding me and his stubble rustling against my cheek as he says, “Not your friend, darlin’.
” He flexes his grip around my belly as he continues, “And I’ll go ride around but only if you come with me. ”
I freeze. “What?”
He whispers in my ear, his words somehow seductive and bossy, “Come with me.”
My eyes are wide, scared, and I shake my head. “No.”
“No?”
“I…” My throat is drying out. “I c-can’t.”
He squeezes my belly as he asks, his voice quiet, “Why not?”
I push at his arm, trying to get free. “Please. Please don’t… don’t m-make me.”
Surprisingly, he lets me go and I’m both devastated and relieved by it.
I can’t go on a ride with him. I can’t. I did it once and it was horrible, but I somehow got through it.
I have no intention of ever, ever, ever doing it again.
Also, I don’t want him to find out how much of a chicken I am when it comes to horses and horse riding, so without turning around, I take off.
I’m heading back to the stairs when I hear a thud, the kind that seems to shake the ground, and despite not wanting to, I turn around.
Only to find he’s jumped down from the horse, his eyes homed in on me.