“Only when I really pissed him off.” My throat goes all tightaround the words. Like choking. Like the panic of a hard, strong arm crushing down against it, black spots popping in my vision and I can’t breathe—
That first day Jesse showed up at Upshot, all blushy-shy and adorable, if you’d told me I’d legitimately hear himgrowl, I’d have probably laughed so hard I’d have fallen on my ass. Well, now I’ve heard it, and I’mnotlaughing.
“Fucking Christ—” With a tug, he’s got me smushed against his chest, all wrapped up in his arms. He rolls us to the side, burying his face in my hair, and I can breathe again.
“No one,” he drags in a long breath, curling his body around me, “is ever going to hurt you again, Tris. And if that fucking bastard ever comes anywhere near you—”
My mind flashes straight to that text message from Josh from earlier today, and for a moment, I almost tell Jesse about it, but I’ve finally blocked his bullying ass, and with him all the way in Tucson, what’s it matter anyway?
A weird little jolt of anxiety flashes through me, but for once, it’s all too easy to switch off, considering the way Jesse’s gone back to smoothing his hands up and down my back.
It’s totally obvious from how his eyebrows are scrunched down over his still unusually stormy eyes that he hasn’t stopped thinking about what I’ve just told him. Maybe I should still be thinking about it all too, except the way he snuggles in against me, scooting down on the pillow to rest his forehead against mine, has me going all warm and floaty-feeling.
“Thank you,” he tangles his legs with mine, “for telling me.” His eyes soften as he presses a kiss alongside my nose. “For trusting me.”
For a while, we just lie here together, breathing in the same air and just…being. And I have no idea how or why, but I think itmight just be the absolute best thing I’ve ever done in my life.
Now though, all the crazy-ass rollercoaster ups and downs of my day are catching up with me, and being back in Jesse’s bed, in his arms, is so damn perfect it has my eyelids starting to fall shut. There’s just something I have to tell him first.
Saying it felt too fucking real and too fucking scary before, but now?
“Sunshine?” I cuddle in closer, pressing my face against his shoulder as he rests his chin on the top of my head. “I missed you too. So fucking much.”
33
Jesse
Long after Tris fell asleep, splayed out across my chest with his head tucked beneath my chin so that the minty, vanilla-peach scent of his silky hair filled my senses with each breath, I’ve lain awake. I keep my touches soft and so light I know I won’t risk waking him, but as he sleeps, I run my fingers over the slopes of his shoulders, across the slim plane of his back, over the satin-soft skin across his collarbones, as everything he told me tonight plays on repeat through my head.
He trusts me. I make him feel safe. He wants us to be together.
It doesn’t matter how many times I think it. Each time, a rush of elation pours through me, just as overwhelming and thrilling as when he first said it tonight, and it’s all I can do not to wake him by laughing out loud or tugging him up to my lips to kiss him all over again.
Those few words he’d told me mean so very much.
At first glance, knowing what to say seems to come so easily to Tris. When I first met him, I’d been dazzled by his easy teasing and effortless ability to always be ready with the perfect words. What I’ve realized as I’ve come to know him is that this is only on the surface. A performance to keep peoplefrom breaching his carefully constructed walls.
His deeper truths have to be coaxed from him, unless he blurts them in an unguarded moment. Then, when he does, he always gets that look, the one that had been written so deeply over his face tonight that I’d wanted nothing more than to kiss it away until it vanished forever. Guarded. Wary. Ashamed. The way he’d looked when he’d told me about—
Jesus fucking Christ—Josh.
I am not an angry person. Certainly never a violent person. Nevertheless, what Tristan told me about that fucking bastard has my muscles twitching and my vision blurring with rageful fantasies of ripping him limb from limb.Slowly.
It doesn’t matter how much I’d guessed and supposed that Tris had been through something like what he’d finally admitted. Hearing it from him was so infinitely worse than even my most catastrophic imaginings, and now I can’t stop remembering the flat, broken sound of his voice as he’d told me.
No matter how many times those waves of protective, vengeful fury wash through me though, the warm, surprisingly dense weight of Tristan’s slim body draped over mine is my anchor. The even rise and fall of his chest and the whisper-soft brush of his breath across my skin are all I need to ground me; a reminder that nothing matters at this moment except for the fact that, if I have my way, no one will ever make him feel anything less than brilliant and worthy and safe ever again.
Still, out of all the things Tris told me, even more than the gut-churning, blood-boiling thoughts of Josh, I keep circling back to the last thing he said before falling asleep.
I missed you too. So fucking much.
Maybe I’m wrong and those words really were all he’d meant. Christ, even if that’s the case, I’ll take it. Somehow though, for all my hallmark pessimism, I can’t ignore how much I’d sensed hung unsaid between them.
When I finally do feel myself drifting off to sleep, it’s with my cheek resting against the satin warmth of the top of Tristan’s head, wondering if any of what he held back could possibly resemble the unspoken feeling that’s growing stronger in me with every beat of his heart against mine.
Getting used to this would be absurdly easy.
I haven’t even opened my eyes, and already, the thought has me grinning into my pillow. My pillow that now carries a faint sweetness of peach and vanilla that has me drawing in another long, deep breath.
