Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“You know that’s just an expression,” he mutters.
“I do. But do you?”
The muscles of his stomach clench when I kiss my way down them. “You’re beautiful, and I love your body. I love the way you taste. I love your scent.”
“I have no one.” The final, broken words, torn from the most wounded part of him. “I…it wouldn’t have mattered if it had been me. No one would have missed me.”
No. My heart breaks wide open. This isn’t what he needs. I thought it was, but it isn’t. He’s not ready. And maybe I’m not ready either. My body is ready, but the rest of me? It’s hurting. Hurting for him.
He’s so much bigger and stronger, but he lets me move to curl up at his side and rest my face against his chest, against his strong, steady heartbeat. I need to hold it together, even when it feels like my chest is going to rip in half. I can spend the next few minutes being strong when this man and men just like him and my brother gave their youth and spent the whole of their adult lives being stronger than anyone could ever imagine. I’m not going to get into the morals of it. I know I won’t agree with everything he’s done or that Jace might have done, but I do know it’s not black and white. I know it was their job, and they were following orders. Sometimes, choice isn’t an option.
Did Jace know he was going to do things he didn’t want to do? Did he know he was going to have regrets? Yes. Yes, he probably did. Was he haunted by some of the things he did and saw? I don’t doubt he was. But he’s still my brother, and if he had made it back home, no matter how much PTSD there was to work through, I would never have abandoned him, and I would never have stopped loving him or looking up to him. I would have hoped he’d be able to get healthy again, that he’d heal and find someone who would love him. I would have wanted him to have a family, to grow old, to be loved by so many people, and also love in return.
Gradually, Rick’s arm slides around my shoulders. He’s trembling less now.
I reach down, grab the sheet, and wrap it around both of us.
“Even if you were the biggest mud bog this planet has ever known, with slime and quicksand and a prehistoric monster living inside you, you wouldn’t be too dirty for me, Patrick McDonald. You might have had no one, but that’s not true anymore. Don’t you ever say that you wish you could trade yourself for my brother or anyone else. I do not freaking accept that trade, and neither would Jace.”
He’s so quiet. Even his breathing is still. But when I shift to curl my face into his neck and breathe him in again, to feel his pulse there too, and I brush my fingers over his face, they come away wet.
I’m too small to hold him properly, but I get my arm halfway across his chest and slip my leg over one of his. We’re totally naked, and it feels good to be skin-to-skin.
I might be burning and burning, but right now, this is what we need. Just this level of closeness. Neither of us needs to be fucked seven ways to Sunday. We need something so much harder and deeper. A thousand times more intimate. We just need this. Each other. Folded over one another, protecting each other, and keeping each other safe.
“When you first got here, you looked at me like you wanted him instead of me. Like I was the wrong one,” Rick says.
My poor heart is broken glass, but his? It’s been obliterated. It’s been ground to sand. Ashes to ashes. Glass back to sand. Does it work that way?
“No.” I trace a pattern on Rick’s broad chest, rubbing a small circle with my palm after. “No. I’m so sorry if you thought that. I never meant to ever have you feel that way. I never, ever thought that.”
“I wanted out. Before I ever went home. Before my grandpa was ever dying, and pulled all those strings to get me back here. I. Wanted. Out. I used that as an excuse. I abandoned Jace and the others. I made them a promise. They were my brothers, and I left.”
I take small breaths to keep the tears stinging my eyes at bay. “Wanting out isn’t a crime. Feeling trapped isn’t wrong either. It means we need to make changes. It’s your mind’s way of telling you to listen or your body’s way of telling your mind that you’re done. You didn’t abandon anyone. You didn’t choose for anyone to get hurt or die. You had no control over that. If you were there, it still might have happened.”