Page 218 of Entangled

“You didn’t... do that. You stopped. You stopped, and I’m fine. And even if you didn’t, I would have been fine—because it’s you, and as messed up as it is, I like it when you use me. I love it when you claim me. I love all of this as much as you do.” I bite my lip. “And I should have told you when I started getting worried. Beau told me a hundred times about the traffic lights.”

Green for good, red for stop—and yellow to slow down.

I should have said yellow.

Jayk looks away, his throat working, the hard lines of his face for once looking soft.

“Fuck, Eden, stop. It’s not your fault.Ishould have told you about all of that shit. I should have noticed you were... I was too angry. I never should have touched you.” He runs a hand over his mouth. “I fucked up.”

“Youdidnotice. Youdidstop,” I assure him. I close the last bit of space between us, touching his arm, needing him to be okay.

“Stop comforting me.” Jayk closes his eyes on a sick grimace. “You shouldn’t be the one comforting me right now.”

I stroke his skin lightly, his muscles are rocks under my fingertips. Even wrecked with worry, he’s gorgeous. Somehow more gorgeous for that worry. His eyes are darker than midnight, tormented and lonely. His smooth, shaved face is still throwing me, and so is that lovely button-up shirt. All the ways he’s trying to smooth himself out for me when he shouldn’t.

I love him rough.

“So comfortme, then,” I suggest, wondering if this is the right way to go.

His eyes open, then search mine with more hesitance than I’ve ever seen from him. It looks strange on his gruff face.

“How?” He asks it low, like he’s ashamed, and my stomach flips.

“Sit down.”

Silent and guilt-stricken, he slides to sit at the base of the tree. I straddle his wide lap, the way he did to me earlier, and sit. His jeans abrade my sensitive inner thighs, and I shiver.

“Now hug me,” I whisper.

He stares at me for a moment, then he slowly brings his large, solid arms around me. One slides around my waist, and his fingers wind into my hair, only this time he’s gentle, so painfully careful as he holds me. I nestle into him, working into the right spot. It’s a different fit to Beau—Jayk is bulkier and a touch shorter—but I find my nook.

His heart is racing. We stay there, silent, until the rough hand in my hair starts to move in soft, reverent little strokes and his pulse finally starts to slow.

All these misunderstandings between us need to stop. I’ve been naked with him more than anyone except possibly Beau, but we haven’t really stripped ourselves bare. Jayk is right that it’s not just him. I’ve never pushed him to talk to me, even when we had days of nakedly wrestling in every glen we could find on our way back to Bristlebrook. I hadn’t wanted to talk then—I was so lost in my own head.

But I’m starting to see a path out now.

“I grew up in a trailer park,” I whisper against his neck, and his hand falters in its strokes. “I know you keep calling me a princess, Jayk, but I’m really not. I lived in a single-wide with my grandmother after my mother took off to chase drugs. Again. And it was the best thing she could have done. At least the trailer was safe and clean. My grandmother fed me and clothed me and put me through school. It wasn’t so bad.”

“Bullshit. You don’t talk like?—”

I pull back a little and give him a tart look.

“Not everyone who grew up like us speaks like a bruiser, Jayk. You have to admit, you lean into it. My grandmother was quite firm about presenting well—and what she didn’t catch, my husband trained out of me.” I run my fingers over his smooth jaw, memories escaping me. “All this is to say, we’re not as different as you think. I do know what it’s like to have nothing. I know what it’s like to feel like... less.”

There’s a long beat of silence as he stares at me, darkness swirling in his gaze. The breeze is brisk around us, but between us, a soft-curling warmth starts to draw us together. He releases a hard breath and shakes his head slowly.

“You’re not less.” He catches my hand against his jaw, and his swallows mine whole. “You’re everything, Eden.”

As if realizing what he just said, he tears his eyes from mine and drops our hands, his jaw flexing, and my heart pools in my chest.

Staring at our joined hands, I twine our fingers together. “When you storm off... like when you left the other day... you can’t do that. It kills me.”

It hurts to say—this part especially feels like I’m handing him a tool to destroy me.

Only I know he won’t. If anyone would understand this, it’s him.

“So many people have walked out on me, and I never knew if that was it. I spent so many nights just wondering, watching the door, waiting and waiting. For my mother, for my husband... I don’t count on people easily, Jayk. I never have. I thought I’d stopped watching doors for people—but I’m watching yours.” My words finish small and vulnerable, and I’m not sure how he’ll take them.

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