Page 55 of Salvaged Heart
It would need to be repaired, probably with just a few nails to pin it back down. Instead of troubling Beck with it, I decidedI might as well handle it myself while I was up here. I headed to the study, where we had made similar repairs a few weeks ago, and found a few leftover floor nails as well as a hammer. I brought them back to the bedroom and knelt beside the loose board, tugging it free.
My heart stopped.
There, in the small opening below, lay three orange pill bottles.
“What the hell?”
My fingers shook as I leaned down, reaching into the hole to pull one of the small containers free. It was full, the pills inside knocking into one another as I lifted it, a familiar rattle in my ears. Why did he still have these? We hadn’t spoken about what he'd done with the pills he took from my room, but there wasn’t a single part of me that believed they still were in the house. Had these been hidden here the whole time? Just one floor away from where I fell asleep each night.
I opened the lid and stared at the little white pills that had destroyed my life. They'd taken Jonah from me, pushed away my family, and made me live on the streets, but still, they sang to me like a siren’s call.
Just one,they said.One won’t hurt.
One would ruin me.
I screwed the top back on and dropped it into the hole, jumping to my feet, putting as much distance as I could between me and a bad decision I was seconds away from making. I needed to get back downstairs to Beck. I would tell him what I’d found, and he would get them out of the house for me. All I needed was the strength to walk downstairs.
By some miracle, I found it.
Beck was almost exactly where I left him in the kitchen when I hurtled through the door. He glanced up the way he always didwhen I entered a room, his beaming smile turning into a look of concern as he took me in.
“Everything alright?” He lowered the kitchen knife to the counter and walked around it to me. “Baby, you’re shaking.”
“I’m okay.” I wasn’t sure if those words were for myself or him. “I will be.”
“What happened? What do you need?”
The words were on the tip of my tongue to tell him what I had found upstairs, beg him to flush them down the toilet before the screaming voices in my head took control. But the need for him to ground me won out. I needed the feel of his hands on my skin to remind me that I was alive and thriving and that the high I sort was in his kiss, not in a little medicine bottle two stories above.
Time. There would be time later to tell him.
Now, I needed him like I needed oxygen. I pulled him to me, bringing his lips to mine, kissing him as if doing so would heal every broken piece of me. He didn’t miss a beat, wrapping me in his arms and kissing me back hungrily. I backed him up against the counter, pulling his shirt over his head and tugging mine off after it. His muscular chest was pressed against mine, smooth and hard and warm. I wanted to bite my way along it, suck marks on him. The thought of it was burning me up inside.
He groaned, pressing his hips into me, sweats hitting the floor. I wasn’t sure if it had been my hands or his that pushed them down. We were lost in one another, the world outside these four walls a distant hum as our kiss slowed from a frenzy to something more profound. Something thick and overflowing with emotion. I knew it then, like I knew my own name, I loved this man. I loved him with my entire being, and just the slightest touch, one single kiss, heck, even a smile, was enough to bring me back from the edge.
I wanted to tell him.No, I needed to tell him.
My whole body shivered with it.
I pulled back, lips parting, words forming, “Beck, I…” His eyes were that hypnotic blue they always were, his gaze so intense it was like he was looking into my soul. “I think…” I tried again, pressing my eyes shut as he stole another kiss.
“I know,” He whispered against me, “I feel it too. I…”
Beck went ridged, suddenly pulling back and turning his head quickly toward the doorway. It was abrupt, leaving me cold, tingles running down my spine from losing his warmth. It was then I felt it too. Eyes trained on us, somewhere from the right. A throat cleared, and I didn’t need to turn my head to know who was standing there.
27
ANDERS
“Erm, what the fuck is going on here.” My sister stood frozen in the kitchen doorway, wide eyes ping-ponging between myself and Beck, wildly taking in the scene before her. “What. The. Actual. Fuck!”
“Laurel?” I said, not wanting to believe she was standing right in front of me.
At the same time, Beck said, “Shit.”
I found myself stepping back from him quickly,no, not stepping.I wasn’t moving of my own accord. Beck had both palms pressed to my chest, and he was pushing me backward away from him, desperately trying to remove every point of contact between the two of us. I studied his face, trying to read whatever thoughts were crashing into him, but his gaze was fixed on Laurel, lips parting and closing, fumbling for words.
Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Please don’t say…
