Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 96284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
I jerked my chin at Jake in the mirror. “Time for show-and-tell.”
He didn’t find my joke funny. He took off his hoodie and frowned to himself.
He wore similar marks. The blotchy little bruises, the scrapes.
I turned off the water in the tub before I inspected his back. It was his neck. The back of his neck. Maybe the same debris that’d struck the back of his head had caused the bruising on his neck as well.
I reached up and carefully shifted his hair to reveal the spot the doctors had examined closer. They’d shaved the area, just a couple inches in total, so it was easily concealed.
I exhaled and lowered my gaze to his neck, his shoulders, his back…
I brushed my hand over a bruise on his arm, and he turned around to face me.
We really had been lucky.
If only I could get rid of the memory of his lifeless form.
I leaned back against the sink and scrubbed a hand over my face, and of-fucking-course I hurt my fingers and my cheek in the process.
“Careful.” He stepped closer and grabbed the surgical tape. “Which fingers?”
I held up my left hand. “Ring finger and middle.”
He took another step toward me and tore off a strip of tape. “Where’s, uh…where’s your wedding ring?”
“In my wallet.” I’d taken it off at the hospital before the X-ray.
He concentrated on wrapping my fingers in tape, probably working slower than he could have. He seemed to be miles away in his mind.
It gave me time to stare at him. To soak up another moment of him standing so close to me. Color had returned to his face. His eyes were open. He was breathing again. I hadn’t lost him.
“You’ll be in charge of risk assessment from now on,” I said quietly. “If I’d lost you today, I…” Fuck. I swallowed hard as a wrecking ball of sorrow crashed into me.
“Don’t—don’t do that.” He set the tape somewhere behind me and nudged up my chin. “I could’ve convinced you in the car, Roe. I knew I had you. You were about to cave in when I said we could go with TACLET, as long as you let me put you through training afterward.”
That didn’t comfort me much. I’d still been careless.
“I wanted to go with TACLET too,” he admitted. “I was just overprotective. And the thing is, we did everything we could today. Sometimes, shit still hits the fan. That’s life.”
Maybe he was right. I knew he was. I just—I kept seeing him unconscious.
“I hear them in my head—when Greenberg and the others worked on you.” I had to swallow against my emotions again. “They pushed me back, and I couldn’t see you.”
“Hey,” he whispered. Then he closed the distance between us and hugged me, and I almost fucking broke. I locked my arms loosely around his neck, avoiding his bruises, and I sniffled. “I have one of those images goin’ on a fuckin’ loop too.” He stroked my back gently and kissed my shoulder. “Right when that fucker threw the lighter, I just saw how the whole boat exploded with you still on it. It tore me up.”
I tightened my hold on him, and so did he.
We were okay, but…were we, really?
I knew I wasn’t. Everything hurt, and I wasn’t even talking about today’s clusterfuck. I didn’t know how long I could pretend Jake wasn’t the love of my pathetic fucking life.
“We’re not goin’ anywhere, darlin’.” His low tone shook something deep within me, igniting a heat that made me wanna overanalyze the moment.
Then he pressed his lips to my shoulder again, and it felt different. The air around us grew thick and heavy, and I couldn’t be imagining that shift. Could I?
I exhaled shakily and felt a strong current buzz through me. I wanted and needed and craved. I tilted my head just a bit, enough to rest my forehead against his temple, and his hands roamed my sides more…seductively?
The faint rasping sound of his scruff brushing against mine was enough to silence my doubts, kill all the voices, and press pause on the outside world. We met halfway, shallow breaths mingling, before we kissed.
I became un-fucking-glued right then and there.
He held me tighter and deepened the kiss, and I all but threw myself at him. I mean, I would have, if I weren’t already fused to his body. For the first time since his thirtieth birthday party in Vegas, I felt his tongue against my own, and it sort of catapulted me back to that night. Only, we weren’t falling-down drunk now.
I poured myself into the kiss, and goose bumps spread across my skin as he ghosted his fingers along my back. He swept his tongue around mine, and I angled my head and pushed back. He groaned under his breath, a sound so hot that my blood left my upper body. We made out passionately, hungrily, speeding up, slowing down, sucking in unsteady breaths, going harder, going softer.