Page 72 of Moth
Chapter Seventeen
“Is he coming back?” Rafe’s voice is hoarse, his eyes on my counter where even from here, two empty mugs are visible.
Bit by bit, reality returns, bringing with it a million painful observations. The smashed camera on the floor. The borrowed jacket slung over my armchair. The taste in my mouth and the stench of smoke in my lungs.
“Is he?”
To stall having to answer him, I turn into his chest, seeking out as much heat as I can take in case he leaves now. “No,” I confess when my face is safely hidden. “He’s not.”
He relaxes slightly, a grunt revving in his chest. “You’re a goddamn tease, you know that?”
Do I?No, I decide. He turns that word into something cruel, well beyond any hold I might have over him. Unconvinced by my silence, he laughs.
“What next? You bring him to the club? Fuck him on the dance floor to get my attention?” The venom in his tone doesn’t match the gentleness with which his fingers pick through my hair, parting the strands. “I’m not someone you want to taunt, bunny. You keep playing with fire, and you’re going to get burned.”
He doesn’t even know the half of it.
“Damn…” A sigh rips from his chest, and he adjusts his weight, drawing me against him. My couch is too small for us both, making our current position difficult to maintain. He has to brace one foot against the floor to support most of his bulk. Balanced on top of him, I’ve never felt smaller, in danger of slipping off at any moment.
“Is the bed off-limits, rabbit?” His tone makes it sound like such a dangerous question. A line he’ll only cross with my permission.
He has his rule, but do I have my own?
I shake my head, and he stands, bringing me with him. I feel a definite shift the second he steps over the threshold of my bedroom. Nothing will ever be the same again.
But the cause of this momentous change doesn’t even seem to realize the enormity of what he’s done. His size alone makes him look huge in the narrow space, and he easily dominates my bed as he sits on the edge of it.
His eyes find mine, daring me to join him. When I do, he returns us to our previous positions. He lies on his back with me on his chest. My thin mattress creaks to protest the unusual amount of weight, and my blankets are no match for us both. I lie in his arms, half-expecting Branden to barge in. This peace feels too surreal. Too fragile. Toogood.
“If you want me to leave, I’ll go,” he suggests, picking up on my unease.
“No,” I say. “It’s just… I’m wondering how many women you must have had in your bed to not want it to smell like them.”
I inhale, imagining how he’ll taint my sheets. The strange part? I can’t see myself hating the effect, even after he leaves. If only his heat could remain the same way.
“There you go again.” He grunts out another harsh laugh. “Playing with fire.”
“I’m not jealous.” Though it’s not like I’ve been in any relationship long enough to feel the right to claim anyone. “I’m just curious.”
“Enough to know that shit gets fucked up real fucking fast the second you let a bitch sleep next to you.”
I lift my head, fixing him with a raised eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
He frowns. “Unless she already has a fucking boyfriend,” he clarifies. “Then there’s no risk.”
“You don’t want a girlfriend?”
He shakes his head. “Don’t want my bed smelling like pussy, remember?” Ironically, the motion causes his hair to spill out around him, staining my pillow like ink. “I don’t want to be owned, either—” He grabs my wrist beside the healing bruise. “Not by anyone. I don’t want someone thinking they can control what I do or blow up my phone every five fucking minutes.”
I draw my arm away and turn my gaze to the window. “Point taken.”
“I didn’t mean it like that…” He sighs, and I feel his palm slide over my hip. He lets it linger, his finger tapping as he mulls over whatever he wants to say next. Finally, he murmurs, “Explain it for me, bunny. Use those pretty words.”
Explain it?
“I owe him.” It’s the only explanation I can give. The one reinforced since childhood by everyone from my parents down. “He protects me…so I owe him.”
“You owe him.” He sounds so calm. I don’t realize the true extent of his emotions until I make the mistake of looking up. His eyes flash, and his hand flexes against me, radiating anger. “To hurt you? To call your writing bullshit? To control you—”
