She appreciated him not making her face him.“I’m fine.I’ll work through it.”
“Let me help you.”
Four words.Four words that gutted her on every level.
“Why?We’re pretending to have a relationship purely to keep you breathing and not becoming a corpse.You don’t need to pretend this is anything other than what it is.”
He circled her neck with his large hand, tightening his hold.
Fucking hell.She melted, core dampening and clenching for him to fill her.Bad-ass bitch turned wanton hussy the second this man gripped her neck.Fucking pathetic.
“Why do you hate yourself so much?”
A humorless laugh burst from her.She reached up and grasped his wrist but didn’t attempt to pull him off her, just allowed herself to rub her thumb along his skin.
“I’m not exactly anything to be proud of.”
“Bull-fucking-shit.”His tone was firm.Absolute.“You’re amazing.A fucking survivor.”
“I’m also a shit person, Lance.Let’s not forget the drugs, lying, stealing, and endangering my family.”
“You made a bad decision when all you had were shit ones.You can’t continue to beat yourself up over that, Jasmine.Why can’t you forgive yourself?”
“Because I used my twin.I barely knew her and honestly, if she’d not been what I needed to get out of the situation I was in, I don’t think I would have ever reached out.”Shameful tears burned her eyes and a few traitorous ones leaked free.
“I think you would have.Maybe not as soon as you did, but she’s your twin, and once you learned about her, nothing would keep you apart for long.If that thought of yours was true, this wouldn’t be eating you alive.”
She huffed at his words.
“And you showed back up when you’d said you would.”He used his hand not on her throat to draw abstract patterns on her exposed belly.“You defended her and threated to pull your testimony unless she was protected, not once worrying about your own safety.”
She clenched her jaw and screwed her eyes shut.“And I also fucked the man who ended up betraying her and getting her kidnapped, all because he didn’t like being ignored.”
“While hearing you talk about men who’ve been blessed enough to touch this body is at the bottom of my ‘Things I love to do’ list,hisbehavior isn’t yours to control.Stop shouldering the world’s problems, baby.You can’t save everyone.”
She sagged into his chest, his words freeing in a sense.It was different trying to come to this conclusion by herself versus having someone tell her with such definitiveness.
His fingers continued their idyllic motion on her belly.“Why do you think you aren’t deserving?”A deep breath.“Of anything good in this world of shit, what did you do that makes you less than every other human?”
“I wasn’t always like this.”
His breath ghosted her ear and she opened her eyes to stare at the bare, water-stained ceiling and the wall with torn blue-flowered wallpaper.“Baby, I don’t think you’re like this now, you simply have the mistaken belief you don’t deserve better.”
She skimmed her short nails up and down his corded forearm, and the demons she’d held inside for years bubbled over.
“She was my best friend.We went through training together.Her nickname was Moonlight.”
“Smoke and Moonlight.”His squeeze was subtle but she got the message.He was ready to keep listening.
“When the op,” she cleared her throat, “our op went sideways, and out of the stratosphere sideways, I wanted to get out, like we should have without question.I wanted to stay and help.Had the misguided belief it was our duty.So we stayed.”Nausea churned.“We had carried two kids out from the burning building that hadn’t been cleared despite what had been claimed.Seconds after she handed the child off to the parent, she took one in the head.Her blood and brain matter all over me as I watched my best friend die.They told me it was our fault for trying to be heroes and save the children.”A shudder.“She was Mark’s woman.Den called her mom, even though she came into their life after he’d been born.Everything I touch, anyone I love, they are in danger.I even attacked you for simply touching my shoulder.”
Every tear, every whimper, ripped out what was left of his heart.The devastation in her tone and the pain drowned him.The sun was lowering in the sky, turning the small bedroom a soft golden hue.This room had the general safe-house feel, nothing personal, only practical.But right here and now with this woman beside him, it felt like more.
Or like it could be.
They weren’t in a position to think more than their present.And yet, he did.He was.As much as he could, his thoughts were on ways to tie this woman to him in a permanent way.
“I’m fine, Jasmine.”
