by Jess Bryant
“Okay.”
He couldn’t argue with her. If that was how she felt, then that was how she felt. There was nothing wrong with it and he was certain he shouldn’t feel hurt that she refused to sleep in his bed, even without him in it. Instead he only sighed and retreated down the hallway. By the time he returned with the blanket he’d pulled off his own bed, she had stretched out on her side and was watching him from those beautiful gold-flecked eyes.
Without a word, he tucked the blanket around her. She pulled it up to her chin and he started to step back. She surprised him when she reached out and stopped him with her hand on his.
“Thank you.” She whispered softly, “For everything.”
Since his throat felt tight, he didn’t answer. He only nodded and then retreated when she let him go and closed her eyes. He filled a glass of water, put it on the table in front of her and then headed for his own bed, alone.
After flipping the lights off, he watched her for another long moment. She looked so damn small and vulnerable out there alone, on his couch. He wanted to earn the right to curl up with her, to hold her and help her through this. He would earn it, he told himself.
He’d made the decision as soon as he’d realized the kind of trouble she was dealing with. She’d come rolling back into his life in the worst possible way. But she was here now, and he wasn’t letting her go again, not without a fight.
Chapter Five
Jemma woke up with a headache that hinted at a hangover and the strangest sensation that she was being watched. She blinked, wincing when her bruised eye objected to the sudden movement. She darted a glance around the room and screamed when she saw the source of her creepy feeling sitting in a chair just a few feet away.
She scrambled upright, struggling to hold the blanket over her breasts and breathe. It took a moment for the flicker of familiarity to hit her. Blue eyes, intense, intelligent blue eyes, on a hard, square face that could only be considered ridiculously handsome since his wide smile flashed dimples at her. She forced air into her lungs as recognition hit and she shivered when his gaze trailed over her slowly.
“Colt?”
“I’d say the one and only but since there’s two of me…” His head turned as a door crashed open down the small hallway.
Jemma turned at the noise as well and what small amount of air she’d succeeded in pulling into her lungs after her surprise wake-up call left her. She’d woken up face-to-face with one half of the Bomar twins looking her over like she was fresh meat. All she’d felt with Colt’s eyes on her was the chilling sensation that he could see too much of her, that she needed to cover up, hide even. But when Cash stumbled into the room, clearly still half-asleep and full of concern as he looked her over, her entire body sat up, wanting more of his attention.
He was wearing only a low-slung pair of mesh shorts and shirtless he was even more impressively built than she’d dreamed. And he was all she’d dreamed about. He was all hard lines and coiled muscle. The only marks on his gorgeous body were the occasional raised slash of a scar and a tattoo on his chest, just over his heart, that she would have to see closer to believe.
She’d known a handsome boy but she was looking at a full grown man now.
With his hair mussed, sticking up in every direction and stubble on his jaw, he managed to look boyish despite his big build, and her mouth practically watered. Her nipples pebbled and she shifted awkwardly as a rush of desire pooled between her legs. She tightened her hold on the blanket covering her and swallowed past the lump in her throat when their gazes collided and held.
Desire, it was there, swift and fast and consuming.
How could she want him like this? After everything she’d just gone through, she shouldn’t be thinking about anyone or anything sexually. After everything he’d done to her, she shouldn’t even be able to look at him. But last night, he’d been so good to her, been there for her when she’d had nobody else, that something inside of her had shifted.
All of the hate that she’d held onto for so long wasn’t there this morning. In fact, for the first time in a long time, she could admit that it wasn’t hate at all. Mostly, it was hurt. Oh, there was a sizable helping of anger but for the most part it had always been hurt. It was strange that she could face that now, when she never could before, but she supposed until yesterday she’d never fully understood the concept of hate.
She didn’t hate Cash. She never had. She’d felt a lot of things for him but hate had never been one of them. Love. Anger. Lust. Pain. Longing. Confusion. But never hate.
“You okay?” His gruff voice made her shiver.
She nodded.
“I heard you scream and I thought…” He shook his head, as if he didn’t want to give voice to those thoughts and he didn’t have to, she could see that he’d thought the worst.
“I’m sorry.” She tried to offer him a comforting smile, “I was just surprised to see Colt when I woke up.”
Cash looked away from her for the first time since he’d come rushing into the room. His lips thinned and she glanced between the twins as they stared one another down. Clearly they were having some sort of telepathic conversation because Cash looked more and more annoyed but Colt only tipped up one eyebrow, his smile growing bigger and bigger.
She took the opportunity of having his intense gaze elsewhere to look at Colt. Last night, she remembered Cash telling her they didn’t look identical anymore. She remembered him saying it was because Colt had tattoos but even if her brain had been working properly she wasn’t sure she could have imagined this.
Colt’s hair was the same sand color as his twin though it was cut differently. He had the same piercing blue eyes, the same strong chin and dimpled cheeks, and where Cash’s body was big, Colt was built just as impressively. To a stranger, to even someone with a passing interest, they would have looked identical… except for the tattoos.
Cash’s body was clean. He was standing shirtless in the hallway and there was only one visible tattoo that she could see. She was still shocked by the one word imprinted on his flesh, curious as to when he had gotten it, and why, but it was still only one small tattoo. On the other hand, every visible inch of Colt’s arms were covered in ink.
Strange, but her first thought was to question if they’d done it on purpose to differentiate themselves. They’d always secretly hated when people confused them for one another, as if they wasn’t their own person, as if they were interchangeable. They weren’t, not even close.
Her second thought was that Colt being covered in beautiful yet foreboding artwork wasn’t surprising at all. Art was the only area of school he had ever excelled at to her recollection. She remembered him curled over his desk, etching designs into the wood tabletop and getting detention for it even though the forest he’d designed had been intricate and eerily beautiful. His wrist had a similar forest, done in ink, with ominous black birds rising up his forearm, hinting that he had drawn his own tattoos.
“Well…” Colt turned back to her and winked when he caught her staring, “Clearly I missed a lot last night. Who wants to fill me in?”
“Nobody. What are you doing here?” Cash growled.
“Uh, I live here?”
“I told you to stay elsewhere last night.”
“I did. It’s morning.” Colt’s grin only grew.
“I told you I had a guest.”
“Calling her a guest is a little like calling Decker a dad. It sounds nice but it just don’t feel right does it?” Colt chuckled. “Besides, guests usually stay in a room. She’s on the couch. That makes her fair game.”
“Colt. Don’t.”
Ignoring his brother, Colt stood up and leaned over her. She didn’t even have time to think about cringing away from him. She wasn’t sure if she would have given the chance because he simply brushed his lips against her temple as he spoke softly, just for her to hear.
“Welcome home sweetie. He missed you.” He winked again when Cash growled behind him.
“Don’t touch her.”
“Possessive.” Colt chuckled as he moved away, “Some things never change.”
“Protective.” Cash cleared his throat, as if the mention of his clearly possessive behavior embarrassed him, “She’s hurt and she doesn’t need you crowding her and making her uncomfortable.”
“Yeah, I was gonna ask about that.” Colt retreated to the kitchen and propped the fridge open, “Who are we killing for damaging her pretty face?”
Just like that, with a few words, her tension over seeing Colt again eased. Of the two of them, he’d always been the more easy-going one. Not that she would call him relaxed, not by a longshot. If Cash was quiet and moody then Colt was loud and volatile.
His moods might be unpredictable but no matter what he was feeling, he had no problem expressing it. If he was happy, he smiled. If he was pissed, he scowled. He wasn’t as difficult to read as his twin. He said what he meant. He meant what he said. She’d never wondered where she stood with Colt and she didn’t have to now.
She was back. He’d accepted it just that easily. Just like that, she was one of them again, someone to take care of, because that was what the two of them did. They took care of each other. Things changed and people changed but that never would.
“His name is…”
“Not important.” She spoke over Cash, shooting him a warning look, “Neither of you are killing anyone. I took care of it.”
Colt grabbed the milk out of the fridge and paused in the middle of lifting it to his lips, “You took care of it?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I knocked him out.”
Cash gaped, “You did what?”
“I take it you knew nothing of this?” Colt raised an eyebrow when his twin scowled, “Yeah, I don’t know why I thought you two would’ve spent the night talking.”
“Careful.” Cash warned.
“Just saying…” Colt held his hands up innocently, “So, this guy that knocked you around, you somehow managed to incapacitate him and get away?”
“Yeah. I broke a lap over his head. He was unconscious and bleeding on the floor when I grabbed my stuff and left.”
She felt a strange sense of pride when Colt gave her a thumbs up. She’d taken care of herself. Maybe it had been a little too late, but she’d done it. Even still, the memory of Hoyt forcing her down onto the bed, his big body holding her down, made her nauseous. It had taken everything in her to reach for that lamp and bring it down on his skull. If she hadn’t been able to reach it, if she hadn’t managed to knock him out, she shuddered when she thought about what he would have done.
“Jesus.” Cash scratched his jaw, “You didn’t tell me that last night.”
She shrugged. It hadn’t come up. She hadn’t wanted to relive her worst nightmare. She still didn’t. Because Colt had no idea the sensitive area he had tread into with nothing more than an innocent question but Cash did. She’d told him about Hoyt, about what he’d done, about what he’d tried to do. And she hated that flash of pity that showed through his eyes when he looked back at her.
“Was he breathing?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
“Good?” Her eyebrows rose, her mind unable to process why the man that had offered to kill Hoyt would be worried about him all of a sudden.
“Yeah, good sweetheart.” Colt wiped milk from his upper lip with the back of his hand, “If he’s breathing, you can’t go to jail for murder. No offense, I know orange is the new black and all, but I don’t think it’s your color.”
The air in her lungs clogged. She hadn’t even thought about that. She’d tried not to think about Hoyt at all after she got away from him. She’d been so focused on moving forward, on putting one foot in front of the other, figuring out her next move, and holding herself together, that she hadn’t paused to even think about what he was doing.
He’d had an entire day to process his anger and figure out a way to get back at her. Did he know where she was? She’d run home to Oklahoma, not exactly to Antarctica. Had he frozen the bank account? It was joint and he was the primary. Had he reported the Jeep as stolen? It was in both their names too. Or had he foregone all of that and gone straight to the police to accuse her of assault?
“Oh God…” Her stomach turned and she curled up into a ball.
She wouldn’t put it past him. He was controlling and self-righteous. He was also prideful. She’d hurt him and left him and if people found out he would look like an idiot or worse, like the abusive piece of shit he actually was. Every fight they’d ever had, he’d managed to turn back around so that the blame firmly rested on her shoulders, why hadn’t she thought about any of this?
“Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.”
“Hey, it’s okay.” Cash was at her side suddenly, a big hand resting on her shoulder as he eased down on the couch next to her, “We’ll figure this out.”
“He’s going to blame me for this, turn it back on me somehow, that’s what he does.” She felt her bottom lip tremble and hated the flash of tears that accompanied it.
“He can try, but he’s not going to win.” He pulled her into his side and she went willingly.
“He always wins.”
“Not this time.”
“But…”
“Not. This. Time.” Cash tilted her face up with a gentle finger under her chin, “You’re not alone. I’m going to help you through this. I told you that and I meant it. Understand?”
He touched her as if she was fragile glass, apt to shatter, but even still, the current that moved between them was hot and electric. She felt it. She’d felt it last night when she was warm from the whiskey and she’d wanted to wrap herself up in him. If she’d wanted to chalk it up to alcohol, this moment, this one right here, thoroughly proved her wrong.
His eyes darted to her mouth and she knew he felt it to. He swallowed hard, forced his gaze away and released her. She breathed a sigh of relief that he was a good guy, despite all previous evidence to the contrary, and he wasn’t going to press his position with her right now.
“Understand?” He repeated himself.
She nodded.
“Good.” He sighed and then swiped a hand through his disheveled hair, “Look, Jemma, I didn’t want to push you last night because you were exhausted and hurting, but we need to take some pictures of your face and your arms before the bruises fade.”
“Oh…”
She hadn’t thought about that. She should have. She should have taken some pictures yesterday when they were fresh and new. Proof. She needed proof before it faded. She needed proof of what Hoyt had done so that he couldn’t use his manipulation and lies to twist the truth. Not this time.
“I think I tossed my phone in my purse yesterday. It was dead but if you have a charger, we can use it.” She stood, dropping the blanket to go in search of her things.
“Your bag is over there.” Cash pointed and then his eyes darkened before he glanced away, “Why don’t you go get changed in the bathroom and I’ll plug it in for you?”
Changed? She paused, looked down at herself, and felt a fresh wave of heat color her face crimson. Her tank top was so thin it was practically see-through. Her nipples were clearly visible through the pale pink cotton that clung to her like a second skin.
Right. She’d forgotten about that last night. By the time she’d finished scrubbing her skin hard enough to sting to get the feel of Hoyt off of her and crying her eyes out, she hadn’t been thinking about much of anything else. She cringed with the knowledge that she’d all but given Cash a peep-show while they’d been talking last night and he hadn’t said a word. The way he glanced away, shoulders slightly hunched, hinted that he knew it as well as she did and expected her to start yelling at any moment. His gaze went to his brother and he cleared his throat, a low warning growl that had her turning to catch Colt lewdly wagging his brows at her.
“Like I said… clearly, I missed a lot last night.”
Instead o
f commenting on that, she turned on her heel. She darted behind the bathroom door after scooping up her bag. The latch had barely clicked into place when she heard the brothers arguing on the other side of the door. Cash was laying into Colt for staring at her, for touching her, for making her uncomfortable, and from the sound of it, for just generally being anywhere in her vicinity.
She turned the water on in the sink to drown out the words. She appreciated Cash standing up for her but she knew what was going to come next. Cash was going to fill his brother in on what had happened to her, or at least as much of it as he knew, and she didn’t feel like reliving all of it again. With unsteady hands, she dug through her bag and found her toothbrush and then borrowed toothpaste from the tube in the cabinet.
There wasn’t much else in the bag. After she’d knocked Hoyt out, she hadn’t wanted to risk sticking around to find out how long it would take him to wake up. She’d swiped a hand over the bathroom counter and come away with a variety of makeup, her brush and toothbrush. Other than that, she had the clothes she’d tossed on yesterday, the pajamas she was currently wearing and a couple of clean pairs of panties.
That was it. That was the sum total of her life. All of her earthly possessions reduced to less than two full outfits.
After brushing her teeth and combing her hair back into something that didn’t resemble a rat’s nest, she stared at her reflection in the mirror for a long moment. Her face looked exactly how she’d imagined it would. Bruised and turning an array of colors, but the swelling had gone down at least.
The knock on the door pulled her out of her depressing thoughts and she sighed, “Just a second.”
She flipped the water off and stashed her pajamas in the bag. She felt dirty and disgusting pulling on the same clothes she’d been wearing the day before but that was her only option. She tugged her long-sleeve shirt on over the tank top after putting her bra back on. It wasn’t much as far as armor went but it was all she had.
