He obviously didn’t hear me and reaching into the bathwater, he only did to get me up and to get me dry. I should have felt exposed before him, naked, and though I had, it wasn’t physically. Mentally, I was showing him all my cards, all my pain.
I need you.
I still couldn’t tell him what I needed, not when he dried me off with meticulous care, not when he spread my legs and touched me there. He did none of this sexually, only taking care of me until I was dry. He moved the thick towel over my breasts, and when he stood, desire laced his green eyes. Apparently, I’d misunderstood his disconnect, his want for me too.
Kiss me…
He wouldn’t, and I knew he wouldn’t, not now and with everything that happened. This was all too much, too fresh, and he wouldn’t want to take from me.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t take from him.
I pressed against him, forcing my mouth against his until he let me in. He dropped the towel, his fingers pinching my chin.
“Em…”
That was the first ounce of it, the first moment of pain he allowed me to feel. It emanated off him through his voice and in his touch when he braced my cheeks. I tugged at his shirt, and he worked it off, a perfect specimen of muscle and flesh before me.
“I fucking need you,” he forced against my mouth. “I need out of all this, my head…”
For tonight. Though, he hadn’t said it. It was what I needed too, some kind of release from all the voices and trauma in my mind. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he lifted me from the tub, my naked flesh warm against his hard body.
He devoured me, not just my mouth but my soul. I bit at his lips with hungry pants, adrenaline burning within me as he took me out of the steaming bathroom with his strong arms.
We ended up in the bedroom, his big body easing on top of mine in his jeans. He was so hard, his fly straining at the seams. I unzipped him and eased both his pants and boxers down. He kicked out of them, then sat back on his haunches, taking the moments to stare at me before rejoining our mouths. I called out his name when he touched me between my legs, wanting him so deep.
“Em.” He pulled my lips apart, ghosting soft kisses down to my chest. “My Em.”
I closed my eyes, my nipples sensitive as he breathed heat across them. He touched his teeth to them, tugging before taking a condom out of his jeans. He sheathed himself and when he entered me it felt so different this time than the others. The others hadn’t been this, all this pain between us. The others hadn’t been this exposed, no more secrets between us. He’d kept this all from me and with good reason.
A husky breath, and he threaded our fingers together, pressing them against the headboard as he rocked inside me. I cried out, telling him I loved him.
“I love you too,” he admitted, his eyes and voice so sad. He pressed his face into the side of my neck, sighing. “I’m so sorry.”
He might have been sorry for loving me, sorry for bringing me into all this. He might have been sorry for my pain, and I was sorry too. I was sorry we were in this together.
I was sorry that this felt like only the beginning.
His fingers drew softly across my shoulder later that night, my brain in and out of sleep. I wouldn’t sleep long before waking up and eventually, just gave up on sleep entirely. I wrapped an arm around Royal’s chest, and when he realized I was awake too, he kissed the top of my head. His fingers returned to my shoulder, and for long moments, I just listened to him breathe.
“It’s because of Mira I even came out here,” he said all of a sudden, a deep voice in a darkened room. He cradled my arm. “She’s the reason we’re both here and even know about all this.”
I didn’t understand, looking up at him. Even in the dark, he was majestic, a dream crafted into reality.
He played with my dark hair. “The night of everything… The night we found out about Paige, I got a text from her.”
“A text when you were with me?” We’d been together that night, slept together like now.
He nodded. “It didn’t come in until after I came over to see you. Woke up in the middle of the night when it pinged.”
“What did it say?”
His expression shifted, going harder. “She said she had something for me. Found out something I’d want to know. I thought it was bullshit and put my phone down, but then I got another text. It said it was about Paige.”
My attention alerted now, I sat up, resting on his chest.
He wet his lips. “Obviously, I went after that. She had me meet her at a twenty-four-hour diner. When I got there she had this file. She said it was Paige’s case file. Claimed she swiped it from her dad the sheriff.”
I supposed that was her dad, and since I knew that now, what he was saying made sense.
“She wanted to do a trade,” he said, looking at me. “Said she’d give it to me if we could hook up. She’s been after me since the second grade.”
“What did you say?”
“The answer was a resounding no obviously, but I didn’t tell her that. I needed that file, so I agreed just to get it. She was clearly fucking desperate for another hookup, and like an idiot, just gave up the file upon getting nothing but my word. I opened it with her, and needless to say, the whole thing was bullshit when I did.”
“How so?”
“Well, for starters the whole thing was redacted to hell. Like permanent maker everywhere. Nothing could be seen but a few names and a couple details here and there, but that’s not what bothered me the most. The case file was complete, thick like it’d been done well before that night.”
That couldn’t be possible. “How could the sheriff’s office have a complete file on my sister’s death if they’d just found out about her?”
“That’s the thing. They can’t and that’s when I noticed the investigation wasn’t even done by the Maywood Heights’s sheriff’s office. It was an outside contractor. A name I felt I’d heard before but I couldn’t put my finger on where I’d heard it. Anyway, I called Mira on her bullshit, but I took that file because something weird was going on here. The sheriff’s office knew about Paige’s death before even the town did. For weeks judging by the case file. And remember that ring you found? That Court ring out at Route 80?”
Because I did, I swallowed. “Yes.”
“Well, that was Paige’s. Mine that I gave Paige before I got it replaced with the one I gave you. It was supposed to be hers after this whole thing. She must have lost it…”
I closed my eyes, chasing down the sickness.
“I looked into that after you gave it to me that day of the fire. Thinking I could find out something about where she’d gone.”
He had missed a lot of school.
“But I came up with nothing.” He squeezed my shoulder. “But now I know why. All this? There was nothing to find. She was gone, and the sheriff’s office knew about that, but kept it quiet.”
I shook. “But why would they? What does all this mean?”
He looked at me. “Well, at the time, it meant that I needed to look into things deeper. I left Mira that night at the diner and she threatened me. Said she knew about the haze and what ‘us guys’ were into. I guess she’d heard from some of the Court’s other girlfriends. She thought holding that over my head would do something, get me to sleep with her, but I didn’t give a shit. I had more important things to look into. The day of your sister’s memorial service, I decided to drive up to the coroner’s office. Figuring money talks, you know?”