Page 15 of Bones
I have to tilt my head back to meet his gaze this close. The heat in his eyes mirror the liquid heat pooling between my legs. His nostrils flare, and my nipples harden at the knowledge that he can smell my arousal. I take another step forward, ignoring his warning growl. He’s all bark because when I take the last step forward, he widens his legs enough for me to fit between them. I watch him as he grasps the whiskey and takes another long pull before setting it back down.
“I’m trying to do the right thing here,” he tells me. “You don’t know what you want. Fuck, you haven’t had any independence for half of your life. Getting tangled up with me is the worst thing for you. I can’t give you what you need. What you deserve.”
I bring my hands to rest on his thighs, tilting my head to the side. “I might not know everything I want, but I know that I want you to kiss me.”
“Sloan.” My name is a thunderous challenge.
“Bones.”
We’re at a stalemate, our gazes locked on one another. There’s no one in the garage to interrupt this, to interrupt us. Bones won’t bend, even though there’s no mistaking the bulge in his jeans and the desire in his eyes.
“One kiss,” I whisper, almost like a plea. “Just one kiss, so I can stop wondering what it would be like. Please.”
Bones is tense beneath my touch, his gaze so hard that I wonder if he’ll just send me away. Then he’s bending towards me, scooping me up towards him with an arm around my back as he hauls me towards him. “Just this once, dammit,” he curses before our mouths collide.
9
SLOAN
“How was therapy today? Anna Leigh make you take an ice cream scoop to your insides?”
Kennedy’s question teases me out of my quiet rumination I’d found myself frequently more and more recently. Okay, my therapist says I need to stop lying to myself as much. I’ve found myself stuck thinking about Bones and that devil of a kiss three weeks ago. A kiss that had my soul bursting into flames and me more than eager to climb into the man’s lap.
Except instead of pulling me into his lap and taking what I was very willingly offering, Bones pushed me away. He leapt from the copter and stormed to his bike before riding away. He’s avoided me whenever he can since and the few times he couldn’t, he always had another Knight of Hades demon with him.
He must be really freaking happy I officially moved in with Sydney a week ago. A well of sadness at his clear rejection threatens to drag me down. I refuse to let it. I hold fiercely to my anger at his cowardliness. If Bones doesn’t want to explore this clear chemistry between us, then that’s his decision.
Even if I can understand it. I wouldn’t want to get involved with me either. Not when I’m just learning how broken I am.
Sydney snorts at Kennedy’s question as she carries three empty wine glasses, stems threaded between the fingers of one hand, and a bottle of white wine in the other and joins us in her living area.
Her apartment above The Styx bar is nothing like I’d expected when Sydney first told me about it. Kennedy sheepishly told me about how, a few days before the Justiciars attacked the Knights on behalf of the Santi Pastori mafia family, the same mafia had hired guns to take out Kennedy. They’d used automatic rifles and shot up the loft apartment, destroying most of the windows and furniture in the main area and the guest room where Kennedy had been staying.
I consider Kennedy’s question, murmuring a thank you to Sydney when she hands me a freshly poured glass of wine. I’m still careful to take it really slow with alcohol given my lack of experience with it. The ladies have been helping me figure out what I like and don’t like, and what I’ve missed out on during the last decade and more.
“Less ice cream scoops and more like a magnifying glass. If that makes sense,” I finally answer before trying the fragrant wine. I let the sip sit on my tongue, trying to decide how I feel about it. Sydney and Kennedy wait for my reaction from where they both sit. Kennedy is curled up at the end of the couch, one slender leg tucked up under her as she’s resting between the arm and back so she can face us. I’m at the other end of the couch, though I haven’t gotten comfortable enough with the idea of putting my feet on furniture, no matter how much Sydney swears I can. I look at the glass of wine, the color sparkling in the overheadlights like a pale citrine gemstone. “I really like this one, what is it?”
“Called it!” Kennedy says, grinning with smug pride. “It’s my favorite cheap riesling. Elk Cove from up in Oregon somewhere. I’ve told Blaze that when we finally decide to get a house around here, I want a wine fridge stocked with all my favorite whites.”
Sydney tosses the popped cork at her from her seat in the matching arm chair with a grin. “Not that expensive? Your bougie mafia past life is showing, babe. My favorite cheap wine is, like, $12 a bottle.Maybe.”
I’ve found a kinship with Kennedy with our backgrounds. She’s younger than me and married into the mafia unknowingly and her married life had been filled with the finer things in life. Except, like my background, her control was stolen away one beautiful lie at a time until she was as much a prisoner as I was. The difference between our escapes is she’d snapped and attacked her husband before fleeing for her life. I’d been saved by Bones in the middle of an attack that he had every reason to kill me for.
It’s why Kennedy asked me about my therapy session today. Like me, she sees Dr. Anna Leigh regularly. She’s down to monthly visits, though, and I’m still twice a week.
“It fucking sucks to be forced to really look at yourself,” Kennedy murmurs after they stop giggling at their antics. She’s cradling her glass with both hands. “I mean, it’s worth it once you’re able to start healing. It’s just really shitty when you start out. I hope you know that.”
I take another drink, this one larger and nod. “I know it’ll be. I just thought I was better than I was, you know?” My cheeksburn in mortification and I wipe imaginary lint from my thigh. At least I’m wearing my own clothes now, purchased through the funds Cerberus Securities sets aside for client needs. “It makes sense why I froze the first time I tried to order my own food downstairs. Not just because the food was so limited at the compounds, but because I had so little agency.
“Hey,” Kennedy stretches out her leg to nudge my thigh with her toes. I meet her honey colored eyes that are filled with understanding. “We did what we had to, to survive. You’re not broken. Or at least not in any way that can’t be fixed. And you’re a hell of a lot stronger than you realize, too.”
“Fuck yeah,” Sydney agrees enthusiastically, holding up her wine glass in salute. “Women like us are forged in misery and we rise with bones of steel.”
“Here, here!”
Kennedy and Sydney’s exuberance is impossible to resist and I’m smiling enough my cheeks hurt. My chest aches with happiness at the simple pleasure of enjoying the company of people who are quickly becoming friends, in a place I can feel safe in. Even my clothes, the simple jeans and loose heather gray t-shirt are things I picked out. Like Kennedy said, I’m realizing that I’m not so broken I can’t be fixed--even if I have no idea how long it’ll take.
“So....” Kennedy drags out the word, waggling her eyebrows at Sydney conspiratorially. “How did your date go?”
