Page 93 of Jayson
A weight. A presence.
Strong arms wrap around me like chains—but warm. Grounding. Real. A heartbeat pulses against my spine, deep and steady like a war drum.
“You’re okay,” he says, voice low and rough with sleep, but instantly alert. “Easy, Keira. Breathe. I’ve got you.”
He brushes sweat-damp hair from my face. His fingers don’t flinch when they feel how cold I am. He doesn’t ask. Doesn’t prod. He knows better.
Instead, he becomes the barricade. A wall of muscle and heat and quiet command that holds me together when I feel like splintered glass.
“Breathe with me,” he murmurs. “In. Out. That’s it. Good girl.”
The tremors in my limbs start to slow, but the pictures are still painted on the backs of my eyelids. And worse—they want to stay. My mind keeps looping them like a snuff film I never agreed to star in.
I press my face into Jayson’s neck, let his scent choke out the rest of the world. His hands move across my back in slow, grounding strokes, tracing patterns only he knows.
Time passes. I don’t know how much. Minutes. Hours. The clock is meaningless here.
Eventually, sleep finds me again. But it doesn’t come kindly. It drags me under like an undertow. Keeps me half-dreaming, half-remembering.
Riley’s screams echo in the cracks of my skull.
The blue door creaks open.
And somewhere behind it, a monster smiles.
Morning dragsgray light across the ceiling like a dirty rag. Cold and colorless. It stains everything—the walls, the sheets, the fragile peace left in the wake of Jayson’s touch.
He’s already up.
A dark silhouette against the wide glass doors leading to the balcony. The soft hush of his voice curls through the room, low and businesslike, but clipped at the edges like something’s bleeding underneath.
His phone is to his ear, his bare chest rising with each breath. Scars and fresh scratches claw across his back, angryred and fading violet—souvenirs from last night’s frenzy. From me.
I study him. The tension in his shoulders. The way his free hand flexes at his side, like he’s gripping invisible weapons. Always half a second from war.
When he notices I’m awake, he ends the call without ceremony and strides back to the bed like I’m the only thing in the room that matters.
He leans down. Plants a kiss on my forehead. Soft. Possessive. It doesn’t ask permission. It claims.
“I’ll have breakfast sent up,” he murmurs, thumb brushing beneath my eye like he’s wiping away a nightmare I haven’t told him about.
I nod, but my throat feels full of razor wire. Too tight to speak. Too fragile to hold a single word.
When he disappears into the hallway, I drag myself out of bed. My body aches from the night before, but not in a bad way. It’s the sort of ache that leaves me sore in the best way.
I tug one of his shirts off the chair—black cotton, too big, worn soft with time. It falls to mid-thigh, swallowing my shape. It smells like him. Sandalwood and cedar and something darker that curls into the hollow of my chest and doesn’t leave.
The window seat calls to me like a ghost. I curl into it, knees up, bare legs pressed to the cold cushion, and stare out at the morning that has no right being this quiet. My fingertips find the frosted glass, trembling against it.
My thoughts turn violent.
Blue door. Red couch. A tall man in a suit. That voice…that voice…
The images burn across my mind like smoke.
They circle, fray at the edges, try to melt into mist. But I won’t let them. I can’t. I hold them in place and press harder, like if I just think hard enough, the rest will come pouring out. Like blood from a reopened wound.
Basement.
