I tensed, ready for a sharp rebuke, but it never came. Silence. My eyes snapped to his and I was surprised to see that he wasn’t looking at me. He had turned away. I could see his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. The image of it took my breath away. He was beautiful in that moment. The moon was behind him, casting its shadow over him and when he looked back, he draped both his arms on his knees. His head hung down.
His shoulders drooped as he took a breath. Hearing the shuddering inhale from him, I clasped my eyes closed.
I heard the pain in him. My own matched his and I wanted to go to him. But that was how it happened the last time. Nothing good came out of that except more suffering.
I felt my wall crumble and whispered, “I’m tired of hurting, Jesse.”
He looked back up. The cockiness was gone. The anger still burned in his eyes, but he had stuffed it down. I knew it was there, though. But it didn’t keep me away. His torment was on the surface and he let me see that.
Tears burst from my dam. I couldn’t stop them.
“It’s the exact time that it happened, you know. Right now. It’s 11:05. June 2.”
The pain suffocated me, but I couldn’t turn away. I nodded with my throat full. “I know.”
Jesse sighed again and stretched his legs down. He slid off the trunk and leaned against it. The moonlight flashed over his flask as he raised it again. As I heard it empty, he tossed it aside and crossed his arms over his chest. Even though Jesse was lean, his biceps bulged from the movement. He had always worked out, but since Ethan died he had doubled his time there.
“My god. I f**king loved that guy.”
A hand reached inside and squeezed my heart. More tears streamed from my eyes. I was helpless to stop them, but I choked out, “I know.”
“Drive me home?”
My eyes closed again and I wrapped my arms around myself. There it was. That was the request I knew was coming. My heart thundered while I tried to think clearly. And then I said, “Yes.”
The corners of his lips curved up, just slightly.
We didn’t speak after that. We didn’t need to. I went to the driver’s side. He went to the passenger side and neither of us said a word as I drove past his black Ferrari or even when we pulled up to the mansion his father had built when Jesse’s mother had been dying. As we walked through the hallways, up the stairs, and to his back bedroom my heart was calm. I was calm. And that made me not calm.
I shouldn’t have been calm.
Jesse went to his bar and poured vodka into a glass. He slid it across the counter to me. I picked it up and waited until he poured one for himself.
It was the third time we’d done this. Ethan’s funeral. Ethan’s birthday. And now the anniversary of the day Ethan’s car wrapped itself around a tree. He died a year ago and nothing was the same.
CHAPTER TWO
When I woke up, I rolled over. I wasn’t surprised to see Jesse beside me. Images of the night flashed in my head as I relived the erotic moments. There was a bittersweet taste in my mouth. I couldn’t stop myself from looking at his back. He was turned away from me with his arms bunched around the pillow under his head. He was on his stomach and I could see the sculpture he had created over the last year. He’d been ripped before, but he was defined, molded, and a piece of art now.
I sighed and wet my lips. The night had been one big blur of blind primal need. A carnal lust took over when I was near him and that was the problem. Jesse hated me. He needed me on the nights when neither of us could escape Ethan’s ghost, but the next morning would be another story.
As he stirred, I hurried out of the bed and dressed. When I couldn’t find my shirt, I spied a sweatshirt on the chair and grabbed it.
“What the f**k are you doing?”
I froze from the savagery in his voice. Then I turned around as I pulled the sweatshirt over my head and gulped. He sat on the edge of the bed with clear hate in his eyes. “What?”
The small hope I’d had for morning pleasantries, maybe more, died inside. I looked away as I felt tears coming. I shoved them down, deep down, and hardened inside as I looked back.
He still glared at me, but the loathing had been blanketed. Slightly. He gestured to the sweatshirt. “That’s mine. You can’t have it.”
“Are you serious? I don’t know where my shirt is. I need a shirt.”
He rolled his eyes and pushed up from the bed. His stomach muscles contracted from the movement and his arms bulged for a moment before it went back to his lean build. Then he disappeared into his closet. He came out a second later with a different sweatshirt in hand and threw it at me. “You can keep this one.”
It was white with a green four leaf clover on the front. “How generous.”
He flashed a smirk and rolled his shoulders back. “Whatever. Go in your bra for all I care.” He stuffed the other sweatshirt in a ball and tossed it across the room. When it landed on the bed, I gasped as I saw the front for the first time. I launched for it.
He caught my wrists in his.
“That’s my brother’s! I want it.”
My body was pressed against his as I strained for the shirt behind him, but he held my hands above my head and nudged me backwards with his hips.
“No!”
He kept going with his head down. I tensed as I felt his lips skim my shoulder and then I realized I was against a wall. Body aligned with mine, he leaned closer. His hips pressed against mine, his chest was against mine. Slowly my hands separated and he slid them down against the wall. They curved underneath me with him still holding onto them.