Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
“You’re so everything,” I whisper.
He moves away from me with a visible effort. “If you don’t want to tell him, what do you want to do?”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ll never be able to see you again.”
That hits me like a punch in the chest. “Why?” I sound desperate and lame, but I don’t even care.
“Because there’ll always be a risk,” he says fiercely. “Whenever I’m around you, I’ll want to do it again, feel you, and be with you. So, if we’re not going to tell Brad, we must ensure we’re never in the same room. Ever. Not once.”
Panic flares through me. He’s making sense, but it’s painful to think about not being close to him, not seeing him, or kissing him. That was my life before today. Surely, I can go back to it. Or maybe there’s no going back.
“I don’t want to forget this,” I whisper.
“I’ll never forget it either,” he snaps. “That’s why we’ll have to do it this way. Or tell him.”
“I can’t tell him.”
“Then this is what we have to do.”
I reach out and touch his arm. His muscles tighten and swell like there’s a shockwave of lust moving through him. “Wait. Okay. I know you’re right, but first, I want something to remember this night. Something that makes it real.”
“What, Mary?” he asks.
I nod to his tattooing kit on the table. “Lightning. The thing that always scared me, but you fixed that, Rust.”
Mom would call this stacking sin on top of sin. Maybe that makes it easier to handle. All of it in one night. Then, I can bury my head in the sand and forget any of this exists.
“I’ll do this for you,” he says, leaning forward, gently kissing my forehead. It’s tender, but there’s a layer of hunger, a primal fierceness beneath it. Any second, he could snap. “But then it’s over. It has to be. Even if I don’t want it to end.”
I unbutton my shirt and sit with my back facing him, letting him get access to my shoulder. It feels strangely intimate, even after what we just did. In the reflection of the turned-off TV, I can see Rust setting out his equipment, handling it delicately and precisely.
“Does it hurt?” I ask.
He laughs gruffly. Even with that hard edge to it, he’s showing more fire than I ever would’ve guessed before. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve never got one, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” I laugh, too. “I guess I can let you know.”
“The thunder can’t hurt you anymore, Mary,” he says. “Do you have any antiseptic spray or wipes?”
“Uh, yeah, hold on.”
“No, just let me know where they are. You stay right there.”
It’s a small thing, just like the coat, but it feels so crazily and disproportionately romantic. He goes to the kitchen to get the first-aid kit from under the sink. I look at myself on the TV, my shirt pulled below my shoulders. I look in love. I’m not saying I am, but that woman on the TV looks in love.
He returns, gently wiping at my shoulder, then dabbing me dry. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” I tell him.
He gently strokes the back of my neck. “Then stop tensing up.”
I unclench my fists and try to relax my breathing. He brings the needle to my back. It’s nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. Honestly, after feeling the penetration of his huge hardness inside of me, the penetration of this needle is nothing. There’s even a tinge of pleasure in the needle, a tickling teasing that tells me I’m stacking wrong upon wrong. That’s not good. Oh, Brad, what am I doing?
By the time the regret comes, it’s too late. I don’t want Rust to think his design is the problem. He shows it to me in a mirror, that subtle curve on his lips as he looks at his work. It’s good, graphic-novel style, moody black sky, a streak of brightness in the lightning.
I smile, not faking it, as I look at the lightning. It was so terrifying once, but never again. Now, in a storm, all I’ll think about is Rust.
He ices the warmth when he says, “I’ll leave in the morning.”
I’m about to argue, but I can feel the mood radiating from him. He’s already made his position clear. Either tell Brad or pretend it never happened and never see each other again. That’s like being stuck between a rock and an even bigger rock with maybe some fire ants thrown in there just for giggles.
What can I say? How can I save us?
“Okay,” I whisper, hoping he won’t hear me and then he won’t go. How stupid. I feel like a silly, crushing idiot all over again.
“I want you.” He folds away his equipment and walks to the door without looking at me. “Hell, I need you.” My heart skips a beat at his words, but then his tone gets dark. No, it gets dead. Flat. Borderline psychopathic. “But now, Mary, I have to forget you exist, and you have to do the same.”