Page 248 of Shadowblood Souls
This is Jacob too. This is the Jake I knew, even if parts of him have hardened and turned embittered over the last four years.
He said the boy he used to be died, but he’s here. He fought his way up through the rage and misery that consumed him so he could be with me.
But maybe I’m still not capable of forgiving him for how much of that rage and misery he inflicted on me before he pulled free from it, not completely.
With a slight rock of his body, he pushes us so we’re sitting upright on the bed. “It will never happen again. I swear it. I’d rather cut off my ownheadthan hurt you.”
Even through my sobs, I believe him.
I’m smearing tears and snot all over his shirt. “Sorry,” I mumble as I struggle to rein all that emotion in again.
Jacob only squeezes me tighter. “Youhave nothing to apologize to me for. Not ever.” His lips brush my temple. “You’re so strong, Riva, but you don’t always have to be. I can be your armor when you need it. I know I can do that much.”
Hefeelslike a suit of armor braced around me, shielding me from the world while I grapple with my tears. Maybe it doesn’t make sense that he could protect me when he’s the one who set me on this crying jag in the first place, but most of my uneasiness at the explosion of vulnerability fades away.
The embarrassment lingers. When I finally swipe the last tears from my eyes and inhale without a stutter, I keep my head tucked against his shoulder, not wanting to meet his gaze just yet.
“I love you,” Jacob says, his voice rough. “You are my sun, my fucking soul. I’m going to keep showing you how true that is for as long as it takes.”
I know I’m not ready to say those three words back to him, even if I could have four years ago.
I know I’m not ready to form the connection that would fuse his essence with mine, even if I teetered on the verge just now.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t recognize that he’s been knitting my heart back together from the moment he stepped into my room.
Here with him, with his words and his embrace, I’ve found some kind of peace.
“Stay?” I whisper against his chest.
Jacob hugs me with a shuddery exhalation that sounds like relief. “As long as you’ll let me, Wildcat.”
Thirty-One
Riva
Iwake up with Jacob’s sharply cool scent filling my lungs and a needy ache pulsing between my thighs.
At some point during the night, without really thinking about it, I kicked off my cargo pants, which make for poor sleepwear with all their lumpy pockets. Unwise move.
Now my bare knee is hooked over Jacob’s leg beneath the duvet he pulled over us. At leasthe’sstill wearing his slacks, thank all that is holy.
The rest of my body decided to press up against his while we slept, my hand resting on his chest. My head lies against his shoulder, cushioned by the arm he’s still got tucked around me.
I feel the rise and fall of his breath beneath my hand and try to convince myself to pull away. But it isn’t just the shadows in my blood shouting at me to twine myself with him even further.
I’ve recognized how gorgeous he is even when he was acting like a total jackass. My hormones have gone haywire every timehe’s been close to me, regardless of how the rest of me felt about it.
And now he isn’t being a jackass. He shook me out of my self-berating funk yesterday like I’m not sure anyone else could have.
He held me through the whole night like the armor he promised me he’d be.
The thought of giving him my whole heart is still a little terrifying. But fuck, I don’t know how I’m going to concentrate while I’m around him when my defenses against my attraction have crumbled so much.
Is it possible I could satisfy some part of that itch without giving in to the most vulnerable bits?
Is it selfish of me to even want that?
Jacob’s breath speeds up a little, and the waft of pheromones that laces the air tells me he’s awake… and not exactly unaffected by our current position either.
