So maybe for once, I’ll try honesty instead.
“I did it,” I whisper. “I tarnished my soul.”
“Scarlett.”
He doesn’t want to believe it. He’s shaking his head, and he doesn’t want me to be bad, but I am. And still, he climbs in beside me and I let him into my blanket fort and he holds me.
He has too many clothes on, and I want the thing only Rory can give me. I yank on his zipper and tug at his hem.
“No.”
He stills my hands, and he doesn’t get it. My chest is full of TNT. I’m about to blow.
“I need to feel you,” I insist. “I just need to feel your skin against mine.”
Rory can’t say no to me. Even when he tries, it’s only delaying the inevitable.
He pulls his shirt over his head and wraps his fortress of a body around mine. Our legs tangle together, and I want him inside of me.
Inside of the place that nobody else has ever reached before.
“I know you’re tired of me,” I tell him. “But don’t give up on me.”
“Tell me why,” he says. “Give me a reason, Scarlett.”
“Because I need you here for me,” I admit. “For when I finish the rest.”
It’s selfish, but honest. And Rory doesn’t try to talk me out of it. It’s a red flag if I ever saw one, because even if Rory is soft to me… he isn’t weak.
“I don’t want you involved,” I explain. “And I know it isn’t fair to ask this of you, but you need to trust that this is for the best. That I know what I’m doing.”
“Tell me what happened, Scarlett.”
“I did it,” I repeat, because he still doesn’t believe me. “I killed someone. And that’s all you need to know.”
His lips find my throat, and then my ear. His fingers drag down my back to squeeze my ass and pull me against him, his heart beating in tandem next to mine.
“Let me take care of you,” he says. “Let someone else do the hard things, baby doll. You aren’t alone anymore.”
He doesn’t get it.
He’s already given me more than I could ask for. A soft place in my hard world. Rory is the only thing that reminds me I’m alive, sometimes. The only thing that feels real.
“I’m trying to be patient,” he murmurs into my neck. “But don’t hate me when that patience runs out.”
I pull on his biceps and drag him on top of me.
Rory wants control.
He will get it. Right now.
He settles between my legs, and he is heavy, but it doesn’t feel suffocating.
My fingers move over his back, solid and muscular and warm.
My body is completely open to him. Relaxed and his to take from at his leisure. He rocks his hips forward and grinds himself against my panties, testing me.
“Are ye sure about this?”
