His eyes are round like saucers when I finally pull away. And I’m sobering up, suddenly confused and lost again. Lost for feeling so many things for Jet, when I shouldn’t.
“J…”
“Gonna grab a towel.” I frown, turning away from him and fumbling half-blindly at the rack, water dripping from my eyelashes. “Order some food, tidy up the living room before—”
“Joel.”
My full name stops me. Can’t remember the last time Jethro called me that. I stay with my back turned to him. “What?”
“The blood wasn’t mine.”
Chapter Twenty One
JETHRO
The knife rises and falls, and blood runs in rivers. Who knew the human body contained that much blood?
I feel lightheaded. The room is swimming in my eyes.
And then he turns to me, gives me a long, hard look. I see you, his eyes tell me. I can see you, and I’ll find you wherever you hide. I’m not done with you.
But he is. He’s gone.
Right?
Joel has turned, and the shock in his eyes is painful to see. He had almost convinced himself it was all a bad dream, that what he’d sensed about me wasn’t real. Wasn’t that bad.
I don’t know what got into me, why I said those words. The truth. Maybe because he’d started to calm down, and… to close himself off again.
Maybe that’s why I did it.
And now I’m gritting my teeth because I can see in his face he’s about to ask for explanations, for information on things I’d thought I buried long ago, even if they keep surfacing in my own nightmares.
Then I’m literally saved by the bell. Can’t even be embarrassed at my relief when Joel flicks his gaze to the door, distracted.
I’m gonna give Candy an extra orgasm for this—and despite everything, my dick hardens more at the thought. It was already semi-hard from having Joel in the shower with me, naked and concerned, plastering his ripped body to mine.
“Gonna get the door,” Joel mutters, hauling his hard, dripping body out of the shower and wrapping a towel around his waist. He nails me with his deep blue eyes. “We’re not done with this conversation, though.”
Oh yeah, we are. Very much so, if I have anything to say about it.
I just need a moment to get myself under control again, so I lean against the shower wall and close my eyes, letting the water beat down on me. Washing me clean.
Washing the blood off me.
Fuck, as if my own nightmares weren’t enough.
Candy’s cheerful voice reaches my ears, and I prepare myself to leave the sanctuary of the bathroom, pull down my shields and face her. Face them.
It should be easy. I’ve been doing it for years, and hell, with them I’m easy in my skin, easier than I’ve ever been.
But I’m also bared to them like I’ve never been. When they touch me, when they hold me, I feel stripped. Like my head is open, and they look inside, see all the dark things that make me, and those that gave birth to me. The things that marked me, that striped me like the branches striped the tiger.
Then the bathroom door opens wide and there she is, all blond hair and brown eyes, her lower lip caught between small white teeth. She’s tiny, and yet she’s taking up all the air in the room.
Her eyes drop to my hard cock, then lift up to my face. Her lips part and hell, I want her with every fiber of my being.
She obeyed Joel and put on her glasses, but she’s already chucking them on the sink. Then she’s pulling off her sweater, kicking off her shoes, and walks toward me, walks right into the shower stall, under the spray.