Chapter 18 #2
He nodded at me, sending me a sly wink, and then, he slipped out of her room, closing the door behind him.
I stared at the TV, at the stupid haunted space station and the flailing human stuck inside of it, not really seeing any of it. She was quiet for a long time after that. I thought maybe she’d fallen asleep, but then I heard her shift, heard the blanket rustle.
She’d moved. Sometime before the closing credits, she’d uncurled from her end of the couch and slid over. Her head was pillowed on my thigh, her hair spilling out around her in soft, silken waves of onyx. One hand was curled under her chin. She looked impossibly small and heartbreakingly beautiful.
Didn’t breathe for a full thirty seconds. There was no way she was unaware of what she was doing. Maybe she was just that tired. Maybe she knew exactly the effect she had on me and enjoyed watching me squirm. Either way, I was fucked.
I didn’t move. Not a millimeter. My hand hovered above her shoulder, desperate to touch, desperate to tangle my fingers in her hair, but I held back. I’d promised myself.
The movie ended. The credits rolled. I didn’t dare turn off the TV, didn’t dare shift my weight or even cough. She slept like the dead, her breathing soft and regular. I wanted to stay like this forever.
Eventually, I realized I was going to piss myself if I didn’t move.
Gently, I slid out from under her and scooped her up in my arms, blanket and all.
She didn’t wake. Not even when I tucked her into her bed, pulling the covers up to her chin.
Her hair fanned out on the pillow, dark and silvered in the moonlight from the window, her lashes casting shadows on her cheeks. I stared at her for a long time.
I told myself it was enough just to look.
I knew how goddamn creepy that sounded, but I couldn’t stop.
I’ll admit it now, in the darkness of her room, that I was obsessed.
Not just with the shape of her mouth or the way her lashes shadowed those luminous silver eyes, but with everything.
Jupiter Black was a fucking masterpiece, and I’d spent months convincing myself I had no right to so much as breathe the same air as her.
But tonight, she’d let me in. Not all the way.
Not even most of the way. But enough. Enough that I was here, in the quiet gloom of her room, with her hair spilled on the pillow like ink and her dark circles smudged under eyes she’d worn to the bone.
I’d do anything, absolutely anything, to take that exhaustion out of her bones and replace it with peace.
I’d never been good with poetry or any of that sappy crap, but the urge to write a sonnet about the way her hair caught the moonlight was almost intolerable.
I settled for committing every detail to memory instead.
The pillow creased beneath her cheek, the way her old T-shirt bunched at one shoulder.
If I let myself touch her, I’d never stop.
I’d cradle her face in my hands and promise her the stars.
But I’d promised myself restraint.
It was fucking brutal.
I forced myself to stand, hands clenching and unclenching like an idiot, and then I backed away from the bed, because if I didn’t, I was going to lose all those weeks of hard-won self-control and climb in bed beside her like an absolute bastard.
I stumbled to the bathroom in the dark, shutting the door quietly behind me.
Splashed water on my face. Stared at myself in the mirror.
The circles under my own eyes were nearly as bad as hers.
My beard was getting too shaggy, and my hair looked like a copper haystack.
But all I could see in my own fucking face was longing and guilt and how much I’d aged in the last few months. I barely recognized myself.
I braced my hands on the sink and just breathed.
You’ve got to be better than this.
She deserves better. They all do.
Eventually, when my heartbeat stopped trying to beat its way out of my chest, I took a piss, washed my hands, and padded back out and collapsed onto her couch.
It was too fucking small. My legs hung off the end, and the throw pillow under my head smelled like her shampoo. I couldn’t go back to my room just yet, because I wouldn’t sleep. But here with her scent all around me, I could relax just enough.
I woke up sometime later to the sound of sheets rustling and the faintest whisper of footsteps on the floor. For a second, I didn’t know where I was. Then the scent hit me and I remembered. Jupiter’s room. I risked a glance at the clock on the wall. I’d been here for hours.
“Eris?” Her voice was soft with sleep as she stepped out of her bedroom and into the living room, her hair an absolute mess.
Fuck me, she was gorgeous.
“Yeah,” I managed, sitting up. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to crash here. You want me gone?”
She laughed, and it was the best sound in the world. “I’m not kicking you out. But you’d be more comfortable in your own bed. My couch is, uh, not exactly highlander size.”
I grinned. “Nah, I was comfy as a kitten.”
She stepped closer, the morning sunlight catching on the tips of her hair. She wore the same pajama shorts from the night before, and her shirt that hung off one shoulder, showing off those sexy as fuck tattoos I loved so damn much.
And I could see it in her face, the way she looked at me. Not so guarded now, but not quite open either. Somewhere in between. A truce maybe.
“Come here, lass,” I said, before I could talk myself out of it.
She did, and without hesitation, stopped in front of the couch.
I reached out, slow enough that she could refuse, and wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her into my lap.
She was a bit stiff, but through the bond I didn’t feel any hints of disgust or resentment, and that surprised the hell out of me.
Her hair tickled my nose, and I buried my face in it, breathing her in.
“Jupiter, please listen. I need to say this.”
She went very still. I could feel her heartbeat through the thin fabric of her shirt, fluttering like a caged butterfly.
Still she didn’t move. Didn’t try to flee, and that was more than I deserved.
I knew she was likely only indulging this for the sake of the Horizon Shield becoming a functioning unit, but I would take what I could get.
“I’m sorry, Jupiter,” I said, and it was the truth, the rawest thing I’d ever spoken. “I’m so damn sorry for what I did. For what I said. For how I made you feel. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t regret it.”
Her breath caught, but she didn’t pull away. I pressed on, because if I stopped talking, I’d never get the words out.
“I know I hurt you. I know I can’t take it back. But if you’ll let me, I’ll walk through hot coals for you. Sleep on a bed of nails. Crawl over broken glass. I’ll do anything, anything, if you’ll forgive me.”
I felt her shiver, just the tiniest tremor.
“I’ll wait,” I said, my arms tightening around her.
“As long as it takes. I mean it, Jupiter. You could make me wait a hundred years and I’d still be here.
I’m not going anywhere. Not unless you throw me out on my arse, and even then, I’ll just camp outside your fucking door, so you might as well get used to me. ”
That was the truth of it, wasn’t it? I would follow her to the end of the earth. Hell, to the ends of the galaxy if it meant catching just one more glimpse of those starlight eyes.
She was silent for a long, long time. The longer she was silent, the more nervous I became, thinking maybe I said the wrong thing.
But then, slowly, her hands came up, cupped my cheeks, and turned my face so I had to look at her. “You’re an absolute idiot,” she murmured. “You don’t have to walk through hot coals, Eris. You don’t have to sleep on nails. But it’s enough to know that you would if I asked.”
She sucked in a deep lungful of air and adjusted herself on my lap.
“Listen, Eris… So much has happened since I left Dominion. I’ve changed more in the last few months than I have in the three years since my manifestation.
But something I realized when you four came after me to Imperium, is that there’s still so much life ahead of us, and the time we spent together at Dominion was a speck of it.
We barely knew one another, but the hurt was amplified by our bond. ”
I shook my head, my heart absolutely racing. “It doesn’t excuse what I did.”
“Of course it doesn’t,” she amended. Her hands were tight on my cheeks.
“But I’m coming to realize that it’s not exactly fair to expect absolute perfection from four men who never asked for me to barge into their lives.
Four men who gave up their freedom of choice in order to save me that day in the Abyss.
” Her eyes sparkled, as if she could cry but was holding it back.
“You made a mistake, and yeah, it fucking hurts.
It hurts so bad sometimes I can't fucking breathe. But you know what else fucking hurts?” I shook my head, at a loss for words, and a small smile touched her lips.
“The thought of never giving us a real shot, magical bond be damned.”
She leaned forward and kissed my cheek, and my heart nearly exploded.