Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,69
excuse to roll over. I didn’t know anymore. I rolled over and faced him. His bruises were dark, his eyes bright. That beard. That beard made me breathless.
“Who gave you a cigar?”
“The husbands of all the women that gave us food and booze today.” He was lying on his back, wincing at the rub of the blankets over his chest. Poor chump.
“The smell bother you?” he asked, turning his head to look at me. His eyes were all liquid and wide in the dark, and I could tell he was taking in the pieces of me like I was taking in the pieces of him.
“Don’t be nice,” I warned him.
“Well, it’s not like I offered to go sleep on the love seat if it did.”
“Good point.” Asshole, not a dick. The distinction was becoming clear to me.
We were silent for a few moments, and I was about to roll back over, uncomfortable with the intimacy.
“I called my brother.”
“What? But you said—”
“I know.” He seemed…lighter.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing. I left a message.”
Did he see how happy he was just from leaving a message? Could he imagine how happy he’d be if they actually talked?
“What are you going to do after you get your sister back?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Survive. Figure shit out.”
“Aren’t you tired of just surviving?”
“What’s the alternative?”
“Why don’t you go back to nursing school?”
“What?” I jerked back.
“You said you had to leave nursing school. You could go back.”
“I could. Except I have no money.”
“I can give you some,” he said.
Chills rolled up and over my neck and skull. Such kindness. Such generosity from him, for a moment I was stunned.
“What is with you?” I whispered.
“I have money. You saved my life.”
“You’re high.”
That made him laugh. “Maybe,” he said. “I feel a little high.” Again, I was about to roll over, because I didn’t know how to handle this conversation. Just then he reached out and touched the end of my ponytail where it lay against my shoulder.
Hair can’t feel, I know that. But still…the brush of his finger against my shirt moved the fabric just barely over my skin and I was so tuned up, so alive inside my body, I felt that touch everywhere. I felt him everywhere.
And I wanted more.
“I miss the blonde, it suited you.”
“It wasn’t real.”
“Is this color real?”
“No.”
“Your hair, your name—you don’t give anything away to anyone, do you?”
Except you, I thought. He was thinking it, too. It was there in his smug grin.
“What are you doing?” I whispered. “What about the bruises you’re going to leave me with?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe there’s something more in me than giving bruises.”
I sucked in a breath. And another one, trying to find some solid ground. “I can’t…don’t be kind.” I said in a rush.
“Is that what I’m doing? Being kind?” His fingers were stroking my collarbone now, just above the edge of the shirt I was wearing. A light fingertip brush that was unraveling me. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been kind before.”
He wasn’t being who he was supposed to be. And he wasn’t asking me what he was supposed to ask, and his touch was making me crazy. Like I didn’t know who I was. So I got out of bed. “I am going to go sleep on the love seat.”
“You scared?” It was a question and at the same time, it wasn’t.
I pulled the sheet and blanket with me when I stood and when I looked over at him, his whole body was uncovered. The tattoos and the lean muscles were cast in silvery shadows. A line of dark hair started just under his belly button and ran down his flat stomach to his crotch. Where his cock, ruddy and thick, lay, half hard against his leg.
As I watched, he reached down and cupped his cock in his hand, pulling it taut and then letting it go. He did it again. And then again. Fully hard now, it was huge, the tip of it reaching past his belly button.
My mouth went dry. My pussy went wet.
“You don’t want kindness but you want this, right?” he asked, his voice low and quiet. He jacked himself for me again. Twisting his hand at the tip, like it was a little flourish he’d perfected. “Joan?”
“Yes. I…I want that.”
“You want me to show you what I like?” he asked. “What gets me off when I’m all by myself? Or do you want to run scared and sleep in the other room?”