"I'm so sorry," he whispers against my skin. "I'm so sorry I left you alone."
"It's not your fault."
"I should have been here."
"You're here now." I pull his face up to mine, forcing him to look at me. "You're here now. That's all that matters."
He kisses me again, slower this time, deeper. His hands slide down my body, pulling off the rest of my clothes, baring me to him completely. I reach for his shirt and he helps me tug it over his head, revealing the planes of his chest, the muscles of his stomach, the blood still drying on his skin.
We're both covered in Marcus's blood. It should disgust me. Instead, it feels like a baptism. Like we're being reborn together into something new.
Something darker.
When he finally enters me, I gasp. Not from pain, but from relief. From the feeling of being filled, completed, and claimed. He moves so slowly, his breath mingling with my breath.
"I've got you," he murmurs. "I've got you, Jade. You're safe. You're mine. No one's ever going to hurt you again."
The tears come without warning. They spill down my temples and into my hair, and I'm crying, really crying, while he moves inside me. But I don't want him to stop. Don't want him to pull away. I want him deeper.
"Don't stop," I choke out. "Please don't stop."
He doesn't stop. He keeps moving, keeps whispering my name, keeps holding me like I'm the most precious thing in the world. And when I finally shatter, it's with a sob that tears itself from somewhere deep inside me.
He follows me over the edge a moment later, groaning my name, his whole body shuddering against mine.
We stay tangled together for a long time afterward. Neither of us speaks. The fire crackles in the distance, and somewhere beyond, a dead man lies cooling on the floor.
Eventually, Phoenix presses a kiss to my forehead and pulls back.
"We need to go," he says quietly. "We can't stay here."
I glance toward the main room, toward the body I can't see from here but know is there. "What about?—"
"I'll handle it. But not now. Not tonight." He cups my face in his hands. "Right now, I need to get you out of here. Get you somewhere safe."
"And then?"
"And then I'll come back and take care of it."
I want to ask how. Want to ask what "take care of it" means. But the truth is, I don't want to know. The less I know, the less I have to carry.
"Okay," I whisper.
He helps me up, his hands gentle despite everything they've done tonight. We shower together in the small bathroom, washing away the blood and the sweat and the horror. The water runs red, then pink, then clear. He's careful with me—socareful—his fingers tender as he washes my hair, as he traces the bruises already forming on my skin.
Neither of us speaks. There's nothing to say.
He finds me some clean clothes, a sweater and sweatpants that swallow me whole, and dresses me like I'm something fragile. Maybe I am.
"Don't look," he says as he guides me toward the door. "Keep your eyes on me."
I do what he says. I keep my eyes locked on his face as we walk through the cabin, past Marcus's body. I don't look down. I don't look at the blood on the floor, the fire poker still lying where Phoenix dropped it.
I just hold his hand and let him lead me out into the cold night air.
The drive back to Malibu takes hours. I fall asleep somewhere along the way, my head against the window. When I wake up, the house is dark against the night sky, the ocean invisible beyond, only the sound of waves crashing somewhere below.
"We're here," Phoenix says softly.
