Page 72 of Kingston
I blink a few times, watching how he hangs onto it like it’s a life preserver. Like he’s drowning.Of course.He told me it was nothing the night he fucked me in the bathroom… I should have known better.Without him telling me, I know it was hers. I squeeze my eyes shut and whisper, “How?”
He shudders, then eases back until he’s staring directly into my eyes, gaze boring into mine. “She had a lot of problems, all stemming from the shit that went on in our home and the way she was treated.” Hesitating, he blinks a few times as he maintains eye contact with me. “She used to cut herself, Elle.”
I jerk in his arms as if he slapped me. A few labored breaths pass through my lips before I finally nod. “It’s okay. Keep going. I told you, I’m here to listen.”
He works his jaw back and forth, searching my face for any indication that I can’t handle whatever he’s about to say. Finally, he mumbles, “She said it was a release. It took away her pain. It made her—” His eyes crash shut.
I gently touch my lips to his jaw, then finish the sentence for him. “Feel alive.” My body is racked with the emotion of the moment. Tears seep from the corners of my eyes and trickle down my cheeks as I stare at him with a lump in my throat. “I’m sorry.”
His gaze doesn’t waver from mine. “I’ve hoped that the pain of losing her would dissipate. Dissolve. Disappear. But it hasn’t.” His hard swallow is visible along the column of his corded throat. “I don’t know if it ever will.”
Several seconds go by, and all I can do is try to get my lungs to function.
My blood to pump.
My nerves to fire.
Slowly, I force myself to bring a hand to his cheek. I drag in a deep breath. “I’m so sorry for your loss. I-I understand.” Blood roars in my ears as it pounds through my head. I don’t know what else to say.
He draws in a breath, lifting me into his arms as he stands and moves swiftly to the bed with me. He lays me down in the center of it and climbs in beside me. “I know you do—understand Juliette, that is.” With those words, deep inside, my chest begins to cave in on me. I can’t get any air. His sorrow-stained face pinches as he watches me crumple, and he draws me close, holding me in his strong arms. “It’s okay. You’re okay.” His hand strokes from my hip down over my outer thigh, over and over again, as he presses his lips to my forehead, to my cheek, and anywhere else he can reach.
I suck in a wet breath. “W-we’re not talking about me right now.”
“Yes… Elliot. We are. I shouldn’t have told you about Juliette.” He lets out a heavy sigh. “I knew it’d be bad. I’ve tried to stay away from you since—”
“Y-you saw them. The night we—”
“I did,” he rasps, “and it gutted me to think maybe something was so wrong in your world you would act similarly to Juliette. That you could be in trouble, too. And because I’m a selfish bastard, I pushed you away to protect myself, to block you from being able to hurt me. I didn’t want to get any closer.” He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Elle, I can’t help myself when it comes to you. I don’t know if you can feel the pull between us. But I do. And it scares the shit out of me.” He touches my jaw with a few fingers, eyes roaming my face.
Everything he’s saying is a jumbled mess in my already slightly foggy head. With my brow furrowed, I quietly whisper, “Why?” Because I don’t believe for a second that he pushed me away only for himself. Or that he’s selfish at all.
His green eyes stare into my dark ones, and his chest rises and falls several times while I wait for his answer. “Because I’m scared you could be taken away from me like my sister was.”
My world crashes in, suffocating me. “I’m so sorry.” And then, I gasp, “I would never, could never— I need you to know that.” The burden he’s been walking around with since he saw my scars weighs heavily on me. I want to say so much more, but the words are all caught in my throat like tiny little daggers slicing away at me.
Kingston cradles the back of my neck with his hand, really looking at me, and it’s like he’s peering deep inside me, like he’s the first person to really, truly see me. It has butterflies flitting around in my stomach. “No.I’msorry. I’m always a moody asshole the week leading up to the anniversary of her death, and then when I saw… I—” His throat bobs. “I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t handle it well. I didn’t know what to do. It’s been eating me up inside.”
I tremble in his arms and tuck my face against his neck, mumbling as I speak, the words too hard to say while looking at him. “I haven’t done it in a while. It was almost always a direct response to my—” I suck in a watery breath. “To Nick, my ex.”
I haven’t had the best luck with most men. The only guy who ever cared for me and made me feel special was Will, and I can’t very well mention him right now. Not if I want to keep some of my secrets under wraps.
But this guy. He makes me want to trust him with everything.
He resumes stroking his hand over my body, everywhere from my head to my back, to my thighs. Anywhere he can reach, he touches, not saying anything for a long while.
It’s like he knows that I need some time. Finally, I let out a ragged breath, unsure I should be so open because I’ve never said a word about it to anyone, though I know Will suspected it. But in this moment with Kingston, I feel safe. Like he gets me. “Our relationship wasn’t good. And like an idiot, I stayed with him for years. He put some horrible things in my head, made me feel like no one else would ever want me. But in the same breath, he constantly made me feel so unworthy. Unwanted.”
I sniff a bit, and Kingston gently eases me away from his chest and rolls me to my back, propped up on his elbow over me. “You’re smart. So beautiful. And so, so worthy of any man’s attention.”
I wet my lips, my chest jerking when I see pure emotion swimming in his eyes. Because beyond the grief of the day, beyond his own pain, I do sense there’s something tethering us together. Soul deep. Like he said, some sort of a strange pull exists between us. I do feel it. But I have no idea what to do about it.
He caresses my cheek with his thumb before sliding his hand down over my chest. On a gritty rasp, he says, “I want to show you how beautiful you are.” He switches positions so quickly I blink and find him kneeling before me. So incredibly gently, his fingertips trace paths from my shins upward, trailing over my thighs as they fall open for him of their own volition. It’s almost as if my body understands his unspoken demand before I do. And I don’t know what possesses me, but I let him see my deepest, darkest secret. I let him touch me and show me I’m worthy.
Bending at the waist, he ducks down and touches his lips to the faint scars on my inner thighs. I shiver. No one else has ever seen or explored this part of my body in the light of day. If I wasn’t already flat on my back, this would have put me there. He reverently places kisses along each and every one of the silvery lines, then inhales slowly before his eyes flick up to mine. “Like any scar, these tell part of your story. You should consider them a badge ofhonor.They say you’ve survived something.” His eyes close, chest heaving.
This moment is insanelyrealfor me. This guy has weathered so much, and I’m a living reminder of how he lost his sister. His actions this week… I understand them now. Not only that, but I understandhim.And I would do anything to make his pain go away—even if it freaks me out a little that I was in the shower with his friends less than eight hours ago. “Come here.”
Slowly, he opens his eyes, the usual glimmering green so intensely wounded, I could cry for him. And I do, tears streaming from my eyes as I reach for him. Or maybe I’m sad for both of us? Either way, he crawls over me, fitting his body to mine with most of his weight held on his forearms as he cages me in and presses his lips firmly to mine.
