“I should’ve done this a long time ago.”His features twist with a deep, private agony.
“Done what?”
“Let you go.I tried with Gavin, thinking he could keep you safe and give you what I couldn’t.But I was wrong about him, and I’m so fucking sorry.”
“I don’t understand.”My chest hurts.
“You’re safe now.Safer than you’ve ever been.You have Wolf and his resources—”
“Safe from what?Tell me, goddammit.”I grip his forearm, digging my fingers into muscle.“What do I need protection from?”
“Me.”
“Why?”
“You needed a mother, and all you had was me.An angry kid.A horny teenage boy who didn’t know how to raise you.Didn’t know how to love you without… Damaging you.”
“I neededyou.Just you, Jag.”Tears burn the backs of my eyes.
Why am I crying?Why do I even care?I need to step aside and shove him out the door.But I can’t.For the same reason I couldn’t shoot him after I fled my wedding.
Before he was cruel, he was my protector.Before he broke my heart, he was my everything.The terrible things he did to keep me fed, the sacrifices he made to keep me safe, the darkness he became to keep me alive, it killed the beautiful boy he was and turned him into something I no longer recognize.
But as I stare into his hooded eyes, all I see is that strong, determined, selfless boy who fought like hell to give me a better life.
He hates the tears.The instant they hit my cheeks, his expression crumples.He crowds in, taking my face in his hands and touching me like I’m sacred.Touching me like he used to touch me.
“Don’t.”His thumbs brush my cheeks, too gentle, too crushing.“Don’t cry.”
“You’re leaving me.Leaving without telling me where you’re going or why.No explanation.No answers.”
Emotions surge between us, raw and old and impossible to untangle.His hands mold around my neck, supporting, consoling as he runs his nose along mine.
He’s leaving.
Leaving me with a kindness I don’t trust.
But once, a long time ago, I did.I trusted his touch more than anything in the world.
We gravitate toward that connection, our bodies shifting, pulling, closing the distance, reaching for the safety and comfort we once found in each other.
Our foreheads touch.His breath shakes.Mine breaks.Then our lips meet.
Not soft.Not tentative.Not something that should happen between two people with our history.
It’s a kiss that detonates the years between us, the grief, the resentment, the secrets, and the longing neither of us ever admitted.A collision of everything we shoved down and never voiced.
His hands travel down my body and curl around my waist.My fingers twist into his shirt.
Hunger.Memory.Pain.All of it crashes at once.
The moment our mouths fuse, another life flashes in my mind, opening rooms I haven’t stepped into since I was a child.
Jag’s arms around me as our world fell apart.His voice singing to me in our cardboard fort.His large body climbing through my window.His bloodstained fingers braiding my hair.His shadow curled around me when I started my period.His breath whispering against my neck,I’ll never leave you.His pinky wrapped around mine.And the blood, the blood, the blood, always so much blood running off his hands and swirling down the sink.
The present dissolves.The years disintegrate.I’m small again, lost and clinging, and Jag is the only person in the world I have left.
The kiss hauls me back into every abandoned building, cardboard box, and dirty blanket I shared with him, and the memories swallow me whole.
