Page 89 of Catching Sparkles

I was in love with Kendall Austin. I was done for. Completely fucking gone.

“Rhys!” His voice sounded far away, like he was at the end of a tunnel. “You’re bleeding! Did you cut yourself?”

When he moved toward me, I stumbled back, raising my hands up in a defensive gesture, out of pure instinct. My blood was pumping like a panicked deluge in my veins.

I was in love with Kendall Austin. There was no turning back now. I’d fucked around and let myself fall in love with him. I wasn’t sure I’d live through it if I screwed things up with him the way I’d screwed up my marriage. I couldn’t live through disappointing him. What would I do if I lost him?

“Rhys… Baby, what’s wrong?” He asked, sounding wounded and scared by my reaction.

Fucking idiot, I scolded myself. He was already feeling vulnerable because of me finding the initials, and now it was like I was rejecting his attempt to help me. Could I be any more of a fucking moron?

“Ah, nothing!” I said quickly, forcing the words out from my desert-dry throat. “I just… Um… I didn’t want to get blood on you! Because you’re so… You’re so…”

Perfect. The most perfect thing I’d ever stumbled upon in my entire existence and all I wanted was to spend every night with him snuggled up against my side and every day listening to him talk about anything he wanted to talk about. I wanted to know every thought that went through his head, no matter how insignificant or silly. I needed him with me because I’d never been able to be so open with anyone, and I couldn’t go back to the old me. He was everything I’d needed and hadn’t even known to want for. I didn’t know a relationship could be this fucking good.

“Clean,” I finished weakly.

He blinked, giving me an odd look. “Don’t be silly. I have a water bottle in the car we can rinse it with, and a first aid kit at the apartment. Come on, let’s get it bandaged up before germs get in it.”

I followed behind him, a mass of emotions I didn’t exactly know how to navigate yet. But I would figure it out. I’d screwed up so many things in my life already, but Kendall was something I couldn’t screw up. He was the key to my happiness. He was my everything.

I just needed to figure out a way of letting him know that was actually worthy of him. Someone so perfect, who’d given me so much, deserved more than a weak confession in a dark yard, whispered under my breath so we wouldn’t get the cops called on us.

As we walked, he slipped his hand into mine, the one that wasn’t dripping and leaving a blood trail behind us.

“Don’t worry about a thing, baby,” he said. “I’ll take very good care of you.”

I knew he would. For the rest of my life. I just had to figure out how to let him know that I knew that for absolute certain now.

KENDALL

RHYS HAD BEEN acting pretty weird since cutting open his hand at the house on Mulberry, but I was pretty sure I didn’t have any reason to be concerned over it. He was odd, but not distant. The opposite, in fact. He’d stared at me like he’d discovered I was made of priceless gems the whole ride back to my apartment. I was glad I was the one who’d decided to drive while he clutched a handful of fast food restaurant napkins in his bleeding palm, or we probably would have crashed.

In my bathroom, I sat him on the edge of the bathtub while I knelt between his knees to apply antibiotic ointment to the cut. He wouldn’t stop touching me with his good hand. Stroking my face and neck, or carding his fingers through my hair.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I wondered, once I’d gotten him bandaged up.

He nodded slowly, his eyes sparkling with cartoonish levels of affection for me. “I’m great.”

“You didn’t hit your head, right?”

“No,” he promised, and I could only chuckle at his gooey, lovesick expression. I wasn’t sure what had gotten into him, but… I kind of liked it. It was really adorable.

“Maybe you should lie down,” I suggested, rising up to my feet. “We’ve had a really long day, and you seem kind of out of it.”

It was honestly kind of hard to believe how much had happened in one day. We’d gotten to meet baby Astrid, Rhys had kissed me in front of my parents, and I’d taken him to my super secret former haunt, inadvertently revealing the totally humiliating evidence of just how obsessed I was with him, even back then. Maybe I needed to lie down, too.

“Lying down sounds like a great idea,” he remarked, before wrapping an arm around my hips and scooping me up as he stood, taking me along with him. I squealed and scrambled to hook my arms around his neck for balance.

“Rhys!” I managed to get his name out through my helpless laughter. I absolutely loved when he picked me up like that. It was so fucking hot how much stronger than me he was. He could toss me around like a doll if he wanted, but he loved begging and submitting to me instead. “You’re hurt! Can you at least try to be careful?”

“If I’m hurt, then I guess that means you’ll have to do all the work,” he remarked in a comically somber tone.

I scoffed, giggling as he groped my ass with his good hand, pushing open the bedroom door with the other. “I guess I did promise to take good care of you.”

“I assure you this care is absolutely essential for my health,” he said, leaning down a bit so he could dump me onto the bed and pull his shirt over his head, revealing his muscled pecs and defined abs. Hurrying to shed my clothes as well, I stopped him when he lowered himself to the mattress and made an attempt to crawl on top of me.

“Ah, ah, ah,” I said, wagging my finger at him. “Injured boys should just lie back and be taken care of.” Tugging my underwear down, I nudged him onto his back and straddled his hips.