It takes me aback to realise Jack has picked up on how difficult it is for me to reconcile the man who raised me with the OI agent who could do such terrible things to other people, when he was the one who taught me to live by the idea that if you can help, you should. It was a complete headfuck to find out my father was a hypocrite as well as a killer. In some ways, that was harder for me to deal with.
"Aren't you always the one telling me I shouldn't be so reckless when it comes to forgiving people?" I ask, mostly teasing now, hoping to inject some lightness into this conversation before we both drown in our mutual angst.
Jack misses the neon sign I just erected in the name of toning down the intensity. He looks me dead in the eye and says in a low, begrudging rumble, "I think you're the only person I've ever met who genuinely makes being kind look brave."
My heart seizes in my chest at the sincerity with which Jack made that declaration. I don't know how else to respond, other than to lean over and press a hard kiss to his mouth. Jack smiles under my lips and raises the hand he was using to pin mine to the bed to grasp the back of my neck. He kisses me with equal fervour, tongue stealing inside my mouth and lazily dominating, like the big, fuck-off jungle cat he is underneath that very human facade.
We kiss for a long time, trading breath and spit and noises of impatience or pleasure, grinding against each other without any real intention of getting off. We don't go further than that, keeping our clothes on and remaining above the covers. It's the kind of passionate mess of limbs and wet, open-mouthed nonsense I haven't done since I was a teenager and really into someone for the first time.
When evening dawns, I leave the bed long enough to make us a spaghetti dinner. After we've eaten, we go back to bed and spend the rest of the dwindling light-time hours trading soft touches. At some point, Jack rests his head on my chest as I read to him from a fantasy book I brought with me. He took the piss out of me for bringing a book on a mission, but when I asked if he wanted me to read to him, he couldn't say yes fast enough. Jack is surprisingly fond of dragons, it turns out.
Hours later, when we fall asleep tangled together on the bed, feeling too warm from both body heat and the general hotness of the country, my last thought is of how I'd give almost anything to keep Jack Roth.
Chapter ten
Jack
Northcallsinthemorning to tell us we need to head straight for the airport. We're being sent back home. According to the location that Bullet provided, Rohan has been practically under our noses this entire time, in the north of England. The facility he's being held in isn't one we were aware of and had previously raided, which means it isn't one I've been to before, because I gave up all the ones I knew about to Snow as part of our deal.
It doesn't surprise me that OI has facilities I don't know about. That organisation has a million secrets festering inside it, like maggots writhing within a corpse. If you peel back the skin, you'll find enough sickening things to give you nightmares for a lifetime. The Liquid Onyx survivors are hardly the first or last people OI experimented on and spent years fucking around with.
There's a weird energy between Leo and me this morning. I don't quite know how to describe it, but we feel more settled in our shared space than we did before, like we’ve brokered a silent peace treaty after decades of non-stop war.
When we woke up clinging to each other like desperate, possessive vines, a powerful sense of protectiveness came over me. I looked at Leo, with his disastrously messy hair and soft, kiss-swollen lips, and I wanted to dig my fingers into him and never let go. I wanted to bind him to me, fuse us together like two pieces of metal held under intense heat. It wasn't an unfamiliar desire when it came to Leo, but it was the first time I'd felt it so strongly when we weren't in any kind of immediate danger.
A lot went on yesterday, and I've only just begun to unpack it all. I don't know how to feel about our fight in the kitchen, or our conversation on the bed, or the new level of intimacy we seem to have reached as a result of it all. I think we broke through some barrier we'd previously been smashing into every time we tried to understand our ingrained differences.
Time will tell how that plays out. As Snow said to me when we first met, trust doesn't come from words.
I'm lucky Leo wants anything more to do with me after how I treated him during our argument. He has bruises on his neck from where I choked him yesterday against the wall. I studied the angry red marks whilst he was still asleep in my arms, brushing at them with my fingers like they were ink splotches I could wipe away. I feel a stab of guilt every time I catch sight of the violence I inflicted on him.
Leo comes in after his shower and grabs up a pair of cargos. He notices me wincing when my eyes stray to the bruises one too many times. He abandons the rest of his clothes and makes his way over to me, shirtless, skin still damp.
I'm momentarily distracted by his impressive, semi-naked form. Leo has washboard abs and large pecs, paired with broad shoulders and arms thick with corded muscle. Everything about him is big and well honed. It cannot be denied that he is a stunningly attractive man.
Despite this, it's Leo's softness that attracts me the most. His blinding smiles and kind eyes blunt the sharply chiselled features of his face. His perpetual bedhead makes him look like he's always in the middle of a rushed morning. The depth to which he cares about people, even the ones who don't deserve it like his mother, is at once unfathomable and endlessly fascinating to me. He is so fucking lovely, inside and out, I don't understand why anyone who has ever been able to call him theirs would let go without one hell of a fight.
I'm reminded of what I said to him yesterday, about him purposefully choosing to engage with romantic relationships he knows will end badly. I can't feel remorse for saying it, because I still think I'm right, but throwing it in Leo's face was unnecessary. My only real hope is that the next time Leo gets into a relationship with someone shitty, he won’t let me anywhere near them, because I wouldn't be able to stop myself from snapping the neck of any prick who dares hurt my partner.
Leo halts a couple of feet in front of me, his expression clear and easy to read, the emotion bared across his face like a slap of paint thrown on a blank canvas. With him half naked and me fully dressed, there's an erotic duality that amps up the tension between us.
I press the underside of a closed fist to Leo's sternum when he makes to step in closer, keeping him where he is. It's bad enough he's standing there with all that taut, shower-hot skin on full display, but when the smell of him hits my nose at full force, ocean-spray shampoo paired with wet male musk and something else that’s unique to Leo, I have to keep my self-control in serious check. Looking at him, so open and trusting, catching the scent I've come to recognise as his, makes me want to tackle him to the bed and take him apart under my hands and mouth.
If I let myself do everything that I want to Leo, we'll miss the plane that North demanded we be on come hell or high water. I doubt he'd accept an excuse of, "Leo looked too fuckable this morning, and I had to destroy him with my cock for an hour; sorry not sorry."
Leo seems completely unaware of his effect on me, which is a frustratingly common bout of insanity on his part. How could he think I wouldn't want to fuck him when he gets that gentle half smile on his face and, like, I don't know, breathes in my general direction?
Yeah, I'm easy for him. It's a fact I've come to accept.
Leo looks down at where I'm touching him and grasps hold of my arm, fingers of one hand wrapping around my wrist and the other hand squeezing my bicep. There are a couple of small nicks on his arms from where glass hit him when I had my Rage Moment in the kitchen.
Leo pushes his thumb into the soft side of my wrist until I open my hand, fingers and palm flexing out and pressing to the expanse of skin between his pecs. He looks me directly in the eye as he moves my hand upward, urging my fingers to wrap around his throat. He holds me in place, his grip firm and sure.
Confused, I watch Leo carefully and wait for an explanation. This nonverbal bullshit is unlike him. He's usually such a chatty bastard, I have to dare him to shut the hell up most of the time. It'll be a chilly afternoon in hell before I admit to enjoying his incessant babble.
But I'd take his happy, incessant rambling over the unnervingly serious gaze he's levelling at me now. His eyes are softer than they were yesterday during our fight, but there's something frozen solid about the determination in them.
"I'm not afraid of you, Jack," Leo tells me, his voice tailing off with a rough little rasp. Hearing him sound like that sets off a confusing signal inside my brain. Under different circumstances, it would get me hard in two seconds flat.
