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“I’ll wear boxers if it’ll make you feel better, Sunshine…” The hand I used to brush her hair away from her forehead, slides into her hair, my thumb skimming against the corner of her mouth. “But as my dick’s legal representative, I can’t promise that they’ll hide much.”
“I don’t want you to sleep on the couch.” She whispers it, those electric blue eyes of hers searching mine.
“Okay—the front porch it is,” I tease her even though I know what she’s saying because if I think about it too hard, I’m going to drag her into the house and never let her leave.
That smile makes another appearance, brighter this time before it winks out. “What about—”
“We’ll figure it out,” I tell her, refusing to think about all the ways this can go wrong. All the ways it can’t work.
Two weeks.
In two weeks, I’ll be gone and she’ll be married.
“Stay.” I say it again, the word clawing desperately at my chest. “Stay with me, Sunshine.”
She turns her face into the palm I have pressed against her cheek, brushing her lips against the center of it before she turns back to look up at me.
“Okay… I’ll stay.”
FORTY-ONE
Kaitlyn
I promised him the impossible.
I can’t stay. I shouldn’t even be here. I should’ve left hours ago but every time I look up from my computer screen to tell him that I have to leave, I realize that even though I know I should, leaving is the last thing I want to do.
True to his word, when we finally made our way back to the house, Went kept his distance. Leaving me to resume studying, he disappeared upstairs. A few minutes later, I heard the muted drone of the shower. Which honestly made studying next to impossible because all I could think of was how badly I wanted to see the full, unfiltered view of all the way naked Went because if what I happened to catch in my peripheral on the dock this morning is any indication, the man is a living, breathing god.
He came downstairs about thirty minutes later, wearing a pair of jeans and a plain white T-shirt, endless swirls of ink running down the length of both arms. Creeping up the side of his neck from the collar of his shirt. All I could think about was what they felt like under my hands. Tasted like against my tongue.
Feet bare, dark hair damp and tousled from being towel dried, he walked past me on the way to the living room where he has his workspace set up near the window. I watch him over my shoulder while he pulls a pocketknife out of the front pocket of his jeans. Flicking it open, he uses it to sharpen his pencils, working slowly and carefully to get each of them to an exact point before setting one aside and reaching for another, dark gaze narrowed in concentration. Seemingly oblivious to the fact that I’m blatantly staring at him. Who would’ve thought that watching someone sharpen a pencil could be such a turn on?
Gaze focused on his long, blunt-tipped fingers, I remember what it was like to feel them wrapped around my throat. The press of his palm. The way they gripped themselves in my hair. Used their hold to angle and position me on a groan so he could do what I was asking of him.
Kiss me.
Suddenly unable to breathe, I turn around, squirming uncomfortably in my seat, to stare at the computer screen until it starts to blur. I repeat the cycle—stare at Went and fantasize about all the things I want him to do to me, only to snap out of it to make a failed attempt at studying— until it’s late afternoon and I decide that I’m as ready for my finals as I’m ever going to be.
I remind myself that it’s useless anyway—that even if I pass my finals and one of the nursing schools I’ve applied to accepts me, it doesn’t matter. Brock will never allow me to continue school. He’ll never allow me to do anything that might promote or encourage independence. I’ll be expected to live and behave like his mother. Live for him. Behave as if he’s the beginning and the end of my entire world.
I think that’s why I agreed to stay.
Because this is the only time that what I want will ever matter.
Closing my new laptop, I swivel around in my seat a final time to look at him. He stripped his shirt off an hour ago and has been using it to rub the shiny gray graphite off his fingers while he stares at his work in front of him. I can’t see it, the width of his shoulders makes seeing anything past him almost impossible, but he keeps looking out the window. Whatever he’s working on, the subject must be outside.
“Went.”
I say his name quietly, half hoping he doesn’t hear me.
“Hmmm…” He makes an acknowledging noise in the back of his throat without lifting his head.
“It’s getting late.”
I watch his shoulders tense for a moment before he sets his pencil down. Turning, he gives me a scowl. “So?”
“So, it’s Two-tone’s dinner time. I have to—”