Page 43 of The Edge of Never

Thane

Every second I lay there with Kit pressed against me as they slept was another lash of a whip against my back, reminding me that I shouldn’t be indulging in such intimacies with another person. Well, technically, I was free to do as I pleased, considering I was a widower, but that didn’t make it feel okay. It didn’t make it right… did it?

Fuck. Messy. So fucking messy.

That was my inner world right then. So many conflicting thoughts rushed around my brain, making it hurt. And it didn’t help that my ankle throbbed as I lay on my side with it propped up on my other one.

I tried to force my mind onto other things, but it all kept coming back to Kit. The way they’d squeezed their eyes shut after telling me they didn’t want to talk about their grief. I could hardly blame them when I’d immediately got defensive over talk of my own.

What hurt you, Kit?

And when the fuck did I start caring about them? Kit was still a relative stranger to me. I’d never met a person who challenged me this much within a matter of days.

It was different with Jenna. We’d known each other for a long time before ever embarking on a romantic relationship.

I didn’t know how to feel about wanting someone I barely tolerated. How to react to it. To deal with it. I’d never experienced anything like this before. I was so out of my depth, and it showed by the way I kept blowing hot and cold with Kit.

I couldn’t help but prevent it when they tried to put distance between us. I didn’t want that. But now regret curled around me.

Did that regret temper my fingers, stopping them from tucking their dark hair behind their ear, exposing a black helix ear cuff? No. Nor did it stop me from running one down the bridge of their nose. I brushed my finger over the tip, remembering the way they liked to wrinkle it.

What are you doing?

Indulging in things I shouldn’t be. If I could stop, would I? In the quiet stillness of the tent where the world couldn’t intrude, I let myself trace lines over their face with the barest of touches. It felt forbidden, illicit almost. And I liked it. Far. Too. Much.

Kit was stunning. I hadn’t dared think of them that way before, but it was the truth. Learning more about them had only piqued my interest. A fucked up part of me wanted to rip open the walls they were holding up and find out the truth of why they came up here. What reason did they have to run away from their life?

I was aware it wouldn’t be fair of me to ask that of them if I wasn’t willing to do the same. Telling Kit about Jenna was terrifying. In fact, telling anyone the whole truth of what happened that night had me shrinking into myself, wanting to hide away from the world and drown myself in whisky all over again. Something I couldn’t afford to do. Not when I was fighting my way back out of the hole that I’d found myself in the months following Jenna’s death.

I had to find a way to live again. Callan kept telling me that. And this… this situation didn’t help me with that goal at all.

Kit stirred.

I immediately withdrew my hand from their face. If they caught me stroking them, I had no idea what they would think.

“Thane?” came their sleepy voice.

“Aye?”

Kit opened one eye. They looked worn out despite being asleep for a few hours. We’d been through quite the fucking ordeal together. It didn’t surprise me that this situation was getting to them. It was getting to me too.

“What time is it?”

I looked at the watch on my wrist.

“Just after two.”

They let out a groan.

“I slept too long. Fuck, and I haven’t even given you more painkillers today.”

I hadn’t even thought about that since I didn’t know how many Kit had brought with them.

“Am okay.”

Kit’s other eye flicked open. They stared at me for a long moment.

“Don’t lie to me. You’re hurting.”

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