I wasn’t even sure what I was going to say, but I knew I needed to vent. My world felt like it was unraveling, and a crazy feeling was raging through me, seeking to be released.
Jett seemed to be the outlet I was going to use.
On autopilot, I drove to my destination and before I’d fully realized it, I was pounding on the door.
My heart beat like a drum in my ears as I waited, those emotions building and on the verge of exploding.
When the door was flung open and Jett stood there wearing nothing, but a pair of grey sweats hung low on his hips, I hadn’t been prepared for the new feeling that rushed at me like a giant linebacker.
Lust.
God, he looked…
“Patience.”
My name on his lips in that deep whisper sent goosebumps racing across every inch of my skin.
He’d hurt me, and there I was staring at his sculpted chest, broad shoulders, and practically drooling. That pissed me off even more when I realized how silly I was behaving.
And I exploded…
Uninvited, I pushed myself forward into the condo, poking him in the chest with one finger. “You left me!”
He opened his mouth but didn’t get a chance to say anything because I was too pissed to let him get a word in.
“No. You don’t get to make an excuse. I thought you weredead. That I lost youforever.” I poked him again. “Then they found you, and you’ve treated me like I had the plague ever since. I could tell you haven’t wanted to talk to me. Toseeme.”
Tears threatened to fall, but I swallowed them down and willed them to hold out a little longer. I dropped my handand walked past him before whirling back in his direction. He shut the door and turned my way.
“You came here, not home.” My chest rose and fell rapidly. “You promised me that you would always be there for me, and you chose not to. Best friends don’t do that to each other!” I shouted.
The fact that he felt like so much more made it even worse, but I’d never verbally confessed that to him, and I certainly wasn’t going to now.
There was more; I wasn’t done, but when he moved closer, my breath caught, giving him an opening.
“Please forgive me, Roo.”
All the air left my lungs. I was shaking my head.No. No. No.When he called me that, my anger began to dissipate. I was always a sucker for the nickname. He’d begun calling me that early on, saying I reminded him of a small, playful, cheerful joey, like Roo from Winnie the Pooh.
He took a couple more steps closer. “I came home when I heard there was trouble.”
I looked into his eyes, and the walls I’d thrown up to shield my heart before knocking on the door came tumbling down. And then sadness swept in.
Shadows of pain lurked in his once sparkling blue eyes that were always so full of life, but were now hooded and dimmed, as if life had been sucked right out of them.
My gaze skimmed him from head to toe, and I almost crumbled to the floor. Now that my temper had lulled, I was able to focus more on the man in front of me. The scars that marred his upper body came into focus. They in no means took away from how beautiful he was, but they did lay out a map of what he’d been through.
Were there more?
The evidence of the torture being real made me want to vomit.
When he caught me looking, he started to move past me, mumbling, “I’m going to grab a shirt.”
Crap, he thought…
I don’t know what he thought exactly, but I could tell it wasn’t good. Did he think that the sight of his wounds bothered me or that it made him any less desirable? The man was a work of art.
Unable to stand him thinking any less of himself, I grabbed his wrist, a jolt shooting up my arm at the contact, and he halted in his tracks, our eyes meeting once again.
