‘You’re right.’ He closed his eyes, letting himself breathe in the only scent that had ever calmed him one last time. The only smell he’d drive through black nights for. The only place he’d ever felt at home. ‘It was because of you.’
Her breath ripped. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’
He realised his mistake as she started to pull away. ‘I didn’t mean ...’ He gripped her firmly, his arms unable to do anything besides the most natural, obvious thing, which was to wrap around her and pull her back towards him, back home. ‘I didn’t mean it was your fault. I mean the only reason I’m alive, the reason I only have a scar, is you. Because you found me, you came for me. No one’s ever cared enough to do what you did, Nella. It was stupid and fucking insane, and I’ll never, ever forgive you for risking your life like that just for me.’
‘Just for you?’ Her voice shook as much as her hand. ‘You stupid arsehole, don’t you remember what I said in the water? You know the only reason Daisy ... Sally ... whoever the hell she is ... the only reason she targeted you was because you were standing in her way. In her fucked-up mind, you were a threat, because even Sally Sue could see how I felt about you. How important you were to me. Everyone could see.’ She paused. ‘Exceptyou.’
He tried to not believe it, but the voice that told him when to run, the instinct that felt for the vibrations in the earth before an earthquake, was silent.
‘This won’t be home without you, Jett,’ she whispered. ‘You are my home. Please don’t go.’
‘Come with me.’ The words rushed from him like an arterial bleed.
‘I can’t.’ Her breath was so close to his skin that all of his blood rushed to the spot where her lips hovered, forgetting about his heart. That spot of skin was the only thing keeping him alive right now. ‘My family ... I ... I have to stay. I have to be there for them, I have a duty to them.’
‘I know.’ He pressed his forehead against hers. ‘More than anyone, I know.’
‘She played me,’ Nella said. ‘You were right, all along, about instincts, about my challenges. They don’t work, because Daisy passed all of them.’
‘Nella,myinstincts told me Daisy was the type of girl I coulddate.I think you being hoodwinked by her actual qualifications was more understandable than me thinking with my ...’
‘So how am I meant to do it then? How am I meant to sort the sociopaths from the power-hungry, the ladder climbers from the gold-diggers from the people who genuinely care about me?’ The pain she’d kept hidden for so long was burning through her eyes like her blood had singed to coals.
‘It’s easy,’ he said wryly. ‘You get held at gunpoint on a cliff and see who comes to rescue you.’
What could have been a cry broke into a shocked laugh that reverberated through her body into his. That’s when he realised there was no going back. The movement stirred everything he’d tried to shove back into the attic, but now, after Devil’s Pool, the door was jammed open.
‘You finally get it,’ she said.
‘Do I?’ His heart felt boxed against his ribcage. If she came any closer, all of his resolve, every box he’d stacked neatly upon each other in his attic would fall, and he would lose every piece of control.
But it wasn’t until she pressed her lips against his, still salty from her tears, that he got it. Finally.
43
Nella
He got it; she could tell by the way his mouth responded to hers. It wasn’t like it had been in the car: hot and forbidden and daring. It wasn’t like in the office: shocking, guarded, undeserving. It was hungry, but not the ravenous, starved desperation of the previous times, where they’d frantically attacked each other before the glass illusion around them shattered. This time, there was no illusion – it was just them. He wasn’t kissing her on her pedestal, or as his boss, or his kryptonite. He was kissing her like she was Nella and he was Jett. And the pressure of their lips, their hips, their stomachs ignited her entire body.
Pieces fitting into places they’d always belonged but had never been.
He tasted like mint, like he’d just brushed his teeth, and his skin was cool and floral-smelling from the shower – but he still smelled like pepper and leather. It made her crazy. Out of control, the one thing she never wanted to be. She was a car with her brakes cut, hurtling towards a cliff and all she wanted to do was fall over, and over, and over again.
He backed her into the garage until their joint, frantic form hit the first solid obstacle. She leant against the flat hood of one of his projects – a silver something – or it could have been pink, for all she cared.
‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ she said, pulling away for an agonising moment to breathe out those words.
His tongue caught hers back into a breathless, sliding rhythm. ‘The only way you can hurt me,’ he murmured, his fingers gripping her hips, pushing her up against the bonnet, ‘is if you stop.’
Kissing was no longer enough. Nothing was ever going to be enough. Not with him.
There was no belt. Her fingers slid easily through the band of his grey tracksuit pants and the groan he pressed into her mouth as she took him in her hand sent bolts of lightning through her bloodstream. She had never felt so powerful, so vulnerable. This was Jett, her Jett, standing before her, completely and utterly turned on by her. His fingers were on her hips, where they’d been in the office, but this time they were under her shirt, scorching her bare skin.
‘I love your butt.’ His voice was as reverent as an oath sworn in court. ‘I lose my fucking mind when you wear these.’ His fingers dug into the satin of the incriminating pants. ‘I used to think you wore them specifically to infuriate me.’
‘Maybe I did.’ Her words coupled with the movement of her hand turned his eyes black.
He growled. ‘Bedroom, now.’
