Page 53 of Forty

“You could have died, and I would have never seen you again, and that would have been the end!”

“I didn’t. I’m fine.” If you disregard the scars and the chronic pain. And I’m only accurate to six or seven hundred meters now.

She wipes her snot with the sleeve of my white button down, but the tears keep coming. “You were hurt! And I didn’t even know until Lou happened to mention it!”

“Nevaeh. Calm down.”

For some reason, that makes her cry harder. Her breaths are coming all jagged. Should I whack her on the back? Before I can decide what to do, she gags and bolts to the bathroom, kneels in front of the toilet, and pukes.

At that moment, Wash walks in with two plates piled with burgers, baked beans, and devilled eggs. He’s got a six-pack tucked under his arm.

“Thought I should bring dinner for two, boss.” His grin falls when he hears Nevaeh wretch. “She okay?”

“She’s fine.”

Nevaeh flushes the toilet.

“Uh. Sure, boss. You need anything else?”

“Close the door after yourself.”

I set the plates on my desk—she rearranged all my shit—and I take her a beer. She’s brushing her teeth. I press the cold bottle to the back of her neck. She yelps, but then she relaxes into me.

I wind an arm around her waist. I don’t question the impulse. She needs to be close to me.

I need her close to me.

“You feel better?”

She sniffles and taps the toothbrush against the edge of the sink. “I feel horrible.”

“You look pretty.” I gaze at her in the mirror. Her hair’s wild, her skin’s pasty white, and her brown eyes are eating up half her face. She squirms, her thick ass brushing my thighs. My hard-on comes raging back.

“Don’t tease me,” she says. “I’m emotional.”

“I’m not teasing. I love it when you look like a mess.”

She snorts. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. You look freshly fucked. I love that.”

I unscrew the beer and offer it to her. She shakes her head. I take a swig.

She wriggles in my arms. “Let’s go eat.”

“We had a deal. I showed you my scars. Now you answer a question.”

Her jaw clenches, and her eyes darken. She knows what I’m going to ask. She stops squirming and meets my eye in the mirror.

“Okay,” she says softly. “We had a deal.”

Her eyes are pleading with me not to ask. My cock wants me to leave it alone. It would be so much easier to drop it. Feed her and fuck her and figure out what to do with her later. I don’t need to listen to her lie to my face again.

But maybe I’m a fucking optimist. Maybe if she cares whether I live or die, she’ll tell the truth.

“How many men did you cheat on me with?”

She drops her head. “None,” she says into the sink. “I didn’t cheat. I messed around where I knew people would talk. What you got pictures of? That’s all I did.”

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