Page 31 of Fighting For You
I didn’t reward her, at least not with a smile like she wanted.
Her words sliced through the wonderingwhat iffor the past, and shoved me straight into a state of wonderingwhat iffor now. Because some of this felt like thoughts she had now—maybe not the more sensual ones, but this idea about my expression…
The tips of two fingers rested to the left of my mouth and I forbade myself from turning my face and letting them coast over my lips or taking them into my mouth. That was not a thing I could do, even when she was looking at me with her wide eyes practically begging for something from me.
She was delirious—consent wasn’t valid in such a state. But not all of this was born of the past or fiction.
My gut told me some of this was real.
She nudged the corner of my mouth one more time, one last effort to force me to smile, and still, I didn’t give in.
I wouldn’t mind rewarding her with taking her mouth, claiming her in every way there was to claim another person, but I wouldn’t. Not while she was sick, of course, and not when we were enemies.
Though the thought that’d sprung so freely to my mind the last few years didn’t fit quite right.Enemies? Maybe we had been in some ways, and I’d leaned into her hatred of mein an odd kind of self-preservation. It was a bizarre version of if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, where beating her would’ve been convincing her she was better off without Kurt, and joining her meant letting myself play into the villain role, the grunting, muted version of myself I’d become when she shredded me repeatedly until she finally locked me out completely and then I faced loss and more loss.
This was the most she’d been able to stomach me since I’d ruined the life she had planned. I wouldn’t pretend I was what she wanted when she’d told me flat out that I’d made her lose what she craved most. I’d ruined everything, even if so much of it hadn’t been my choice.
As my mind ran the trails of possibility and memory and desire and regret, Jess settled back into her pillow and her hand fell away from my face. Her eyes shut firmly not long after, and she was deep asleep. The temporary fever dream and those lovely sentiments as good as a figment of my imagination.
And yet, when I settled on the couch hours later, it wasn’t the years of history between us, the enmity we’d both watered like weeds on the border of a garden that had once been friendship at the very least, that replayed in my mind.
Instead, it was the soft brush of her hand on my cheek and the truth I thought I heard underneath her words I couldn’t shake. Not simply the delicious reality that she’d thought about us together, or that I was almost handsome, especially if I wouldn’t scowl. It was the hint she wished I’d smile for her.
She had no idea.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Jess
The buttery light of early morning cast the cozy bedroom in a warm glow. I surveyed my body, praying the worst was over.
Head wasn’t pierced with pain. My chest was sore from coughing, but I could swear I’d coughed less overnight. I reached for the thermometer Jude had used a thousand times in the last day or so and checked—ninety-eight and change!
Jude.My heart flipped as I registered thinking his real name and then the memories crowded in.
Him washing my hair as I huddled in the freezing bath. Him wrapping me in a towel, those muscular arms holding me close as he carried me to the bed.
Him force-feeding me toast and applesauce and medicine.
Baby.
My head fell back against the pillow. That had to have been a fever-induced hallucination. Didn’t it?
“How are you?” he asked, leaning against the doorframe of the room.
Hisroom. This was his house and his room, and I’d been here for… how longhadI been here? More than a day?
I bolted up and tried to stand, then instantly saw stars. His giant hand wrapped around my wrists and lowered me back down to the bed.
“Easy. You’ve hardly eaten. Move slowly.”
The gruff words made me oddly homesick, though I couldn’t figure out why or for what. All I knew was I’d overstayed my welcome times a thousand, and now I needed to go.
“I am so sorry for this. Let me slip on my shoes and I’ll go.”
He’d resumed his post at the door, arms crossed over his chest and one foot over the other, perfectly at home. “Yeah? You’ll drive home right now?”
I eyed him, because the challenge in his voice was unmistakable. “What? Why are you saying it like that?”
