Chapter 7 #2
“Ninety-eight is normal.” He corrected me, waving the thermometer. “This is still high.”
Judging from the hazy memories from before, I would say it was high, and now it wasn’t.
“How long have I been here?” I asked, glancing across the room at the few plastic shopping bags on the dresser beneath the TV. Surprised, I followed up on my first question. “Did you get medicine for me?”
“It was that or take you to the hospital,” he replied, glancing at a chunky matte black watch on his wrist. “Twenty-six hours.”
He got medicine for me and watched over me for an entire day.
“This shirt?” I asked, plucking the fabric away from my chest.
“Is mine.”
My stomach swooped. It swooped so hard the whole room tilted.
Calloused hands caught me by the shoulders, the grip steadying and secure. “You dizzy? Disoriented? What hurts?”
My chin practically brushed the shirt—his shirt—when my head fell forward so I could take in the sight of his hands on me.
One hand covered my entire shoulder with his thumb resting along the ridge of my collarbone.
Heat radiated from him like he had his own personal sun, and even through the fabric, my skin sizzled with warmth.
Goose bumps chased down my arms and across my neck, and the urge to sag forward into his chest was almost more than I could fight.
I’d been with him for an entire day but was only just now truly alert. It sent a surge of homesickness through me. At least it’s what I imagined homesickness to feel like. I wasn’t sure I liked it—the hollow nostalgia underscored by sharp yearning.
A hand moved from my shoulder to my chin, pushing my face up. “Tell me what hurts, Pip.”
I had no idea why he called me that, but not a single cell in my body even thought to care. It sounded like he’d made me his secret, something so special he gave it a name.
Maybe it was the fever, the fact that he’d literally pulled me out of a box when I was down bad, or maybe it was the way he watched over me when I was invisible to most everyone else.
No.
It was the way we sat almost huddled together, his hands and clothes on me, as nighttime swallowed the edges of the room, shrinking the world into a suspended moment of just him and us.
Overwhelmed, my chin wobbled. Emotion filled me until my skin felt tight, and it prickled the backs of my eyes, looking for escape.
“Hey.”
The softness of his voice was my undoing, and I fell forward into his arms, pressing my cheek against his chest. Afraid he would push me away, I slid my arms around his back, locking them beneath his coat to cling as if my life depended on it. In that moment, it did.
He stilled for the length of a heartbeat and then wrapped his arms around me to lift me into his lap. Whining, I burrowed beneath the leather jacket, fingers twisting greedily in the shirt against his back.
Pulling my knees into my chest, I inhaled lungfuls of his signature scent: cigarettes, leather, and something deeper.
I don’t know who started rocking first, but when the polarizing grip of his presence eased just a little, I realized that’s what we were doing, swaying gently back and forth while he kept me tucked into his chest.
My heart fluttered so fast I thought maybe I’d swallowed a hummingbird as my clenching fingers loosened against his back, kneading the muscle there like I could make myself a home.
He said nothing at all, but I heard every intake of breath, every exhale, and felt the steady rhythm of his heart. Eventually, he shifted, chin rubbing over the top of my hair.
I panicked, thinking he would push me off, and went back to clutching his back.
“Why?” my voice was almost inaudible.
“Why what?”
“Why would you do this?”
He made a sound. “Should I have left you in that box, then?”
“Everyone else would have.”
“I don’t know if you know this, but most people in this world have forgotten that they’re human.”
Oh, I’d noticed. That was why this moment with him was so earth-shattering. “But not you.”
“Oh, I haven’t forgotten,” he rumbled. “It’s carved deep into my bones.”
The chill in his tone didn’t reach me. It was no match for the warmth in his arms. My lashes swept downward. Something about his world-weary tenor made me feel protected. Like he’d seen the worst of the world and knew how to keep it at bay.
“I won’t have it,” he said, chin rubbing absently in my hair. “You’re too good for that.”
I tilted my head enough to see his face. From this close, I could see the black stubble dusting his jaw and thick black lashes attempting to soften the intensity of his obsidian stare.
My heart wobbled when his chin angled down and strands of black hair dropped against his cheeks.
“How would you know?” I whispered.
“I just do.”
I felt weightless reclined in his arms. For once, the burden of carrying my own body was not mine to bear alone.
“I can pay you back,” I offered, still absorbing every detail of his handsome face.
“I don’t want your money.”
“Something else then,” I suggested.
Heat flared in the dark pools of his stare, and I understood why his eyes were the deepest of obsidian. Something formed from fire.
That scorching stare dropped to my lips and then flicked back up to my eyes, a silent question as the room pulsed with clear want. In response, I dropped my head back against his bicep, tipping my chin in invitation.
The arms around me tensed ever so slightly, and my heart went from beating to burning in my chest.
And as his lips descended, I went from belonging to only myself to belonging entirely to him.