Page 102 of Jensen

“Hmm?”

The sound is a low hum in the dark. I love his voice, all the husk to it. That deep, brittle rasp always sends a tingle down my spine.

“Who was the woman?” I whisper.

Silence.

“What do you mean?” he says finally.

I reach over and trace the cross tattooed on his ribs. He doesn’t move, but down beneath the sheet, there’s a twitch, then a slow lengthening.

Jensen is an enigma, a dark underbelly, a mind so quick that it keeps up with mine. But he’s also slow decay, like a body left in a field. Yet, I see that he’s fighting with everything he’s got, trying to bring himself back to life. In that way, we’re one and the same.

“Who did this to you?” I whisper.

“Nothing was done to me,” he says.

I lift my head. He doesn’t move, so I sit upright and slide my naked body over his, straddling him. He’s hard beneath me, separated by a sheet so thin, I feel the hotness of his arousal through it.

“You are a liar, Jensen Childress,” I say.

“So are you,” he says.

That’s not true, but it pokes a hole in my accusation right away. I bend over him, brushing his mouth with mine. He tastes like a man, all flesh and blood and strength that scares me if I think about it too hard.

And yet, it’s my weakness, my downfall.

“Tell me,” I breathe. “What was her name?”

“Holly,” he says quietly.

“Who was she?”

He clears his throat, a hand on my waist. I straighten, his body smooth between my thighs.

“She was Kyle’s mom,” he says. “I was eighteen, she was about forty-five. We had a relationship that lasted a few years.”

My stomach sinks.

“What did she do?” I whisper.

He releases a short sigh. “She was part of Brothers Boyd’s drug operation, a honeypot for drawing men in, getting them in so deep, they couldn’t get out. She pulled me in, and I had nowhere to go. So, I stayed, and then Brothers swooped in.”

My chest aches for him. “What happened to her?”

“The Caudills killed her when they killed my grandmother and Kyle.”

“I’m so sorry,”

He lifts his hand, flipping it. “I was so brainwashed, I had her initial tattooed on my thumb. Took most of that shit off with a power sander.”

“What the fuck?” I whisper.

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. It was almost twenty years ago.”

It does matter, and we both know it, or he wouldn’t have reacted like that when I told him Brothers sent me to find him. I touch his chest, right where there’s a smattering of hair between his pectorals. It rises, then falls slowly, but below his skin, I know he’s hurting. It’s so strange that our deepest wounds are rarely visible.

“Does it matter?” he says finally.