“Josephine.”
My fight calms, but only because the more I do, the harder it is to breathe and the more his eyes light with the excitement of a sparring match.
“Why are you here? I told you I need space.”
“And I asked you to promise you’d stay so we could figure this out, but look where you are.” He turns his gaze around the room before drilling it back to me. “Not in our fucking bed, where I expected to find you.”
I huff indignantly. “Last time I checked, you’re not my keeper, and I don’t answer to you.”
“No, but I am your goddamn husband, and when shit goes sideways, I’d appreciate it ifmy wifewould give us the opportunity to work through our problems instead of running from them.”
“I’m not?—”
“You did.” He cuts me off with a glacial glare.
So, maybe I did. But he wasn’t listening, and I know his bulldozing ways. I just didn’t expect him to break into Pierce and Lexi’s place. I thought he’d be too preoccupied with Trenton to come looking, and by the time he did, I’d be cooled off and ready to come home anyway.
The steady quiet presses in again between us. Somewhere down the hall, a floorboard groans as the house settles. Haley is only a few rooms away, curled up beside Sienna, blissfully unaware that the adults in her life are unraveling in the dead of night.
“Did you find him?” I redirect the subject.
Whatever my hurt and issues with Vik are, I can’t help the worry seeping in about Trenton. I know the best place for him is with us. It’s not going to be easy. It’ll come with all sorts of questions from Haley that I don’t know if I’m ready to answer. Yet, the alternative of turning our backs on him isn’t even remotely an option.
“He’s at the house. I want him to stay.”
Vik moves, lying his huge frame beside me, giving me my first real chance to breathe since my rude awakening. The sudden space feels strange after being pinned beneath him. Cool air brushes my flushed skin, raising goosebumps in its wake. Thick fingers trail up my body until they’re softly cupping my cheek.
My angry facade cracks under his full attention. Our connection is dangerous to my plan of demanding the space I need to process everything. It’d be so easy to let him pull me into his orbit, wash away the worry with his touch, kiss away the hurt from the shock of it all. But something in my gut twists at the idea.
I don’t know what’s stopping me—why this feels so much deeper than it seems on the surface? I’ve lost sight of true north, and I’m wandering an endless forest of doubt.
A wall the size of the Empire State Building shoots up between us. I can’t do this right now. In the middle of the night, with my defenses down and my body craving his, it’s too damn much.
Rolling away from his touch, I quietly pace away from the bed, putting the space between us that he won’t allow.
The sturdy hardwoods offer their ancient support as I move through the dim room, my eyes now adjusted. A sliver of streetlight sneaks through the curtain’s edge, casting a stripe across the wall and the dresser opposite the bed. My reflection stares back at me in the dark mirror above it. The rumpled hair matches my swollen eyes. She’s a woman in the midst of a battle, on the brink of meeting her breaking point.
“I think you should go.”
“And I think you should come home.”
“Vik.” I sigh. “It’s three in the morning, Haley’s asleep. I’m not about to wake her and everyone else up because you can’t wait a few more hours.”
“I don’t trust you to come home.”
“I guess that makes two of us with trust issues then,” I say, defeated.
He’s up and out of bed, a squall of furious man speedingtoward me. I expect his hand to lift and pin my neck like he always does to command my attention, but it doesn’t come.
In the blink of an eye, his knees hit the ground in front of me. Strong arms snake around my waist as his head rests against my stomach.
The unexpected gesture knocks the breath from my lungs.
“I can’t stand this, Josie. I fucked up, I see that. But, baby, please believe me when I say I never meant to keep it from you. The day you walked into my life, anything before that moment ceased to exist. You were all I could see. All I cared about. You consumed me, Josephine.” His arms tighten as if he’s scared I’m going to shove him away. “Miranda was a mess of a decision. I hadn’t thought of her in years until you said her name earlier. You’re my everything. You and Haley, without you, I’m nothing. And I know you want space, that you need it, but I can’t… Fuck,” his voice cracks, and his chin tilts, meeting my gaze.
Tears I don’t realize have been collecting on my lashes fall, raining down on the man, laying everything bare at my feet. My chest constricts, stealing the breath I’m gasping for, stolen by the look of anguish in his piercing blues. I’m stuck between wanting to comfort the man who’s always been mine and fighting this unnameable anger that won’t be extinguished for some ungodly reason.
“Don’t leave me, Josie. Don’t take her. We can get through this, baby. I know we can. Just give me a chance to make everything right. Come home.”
