Scorch (Virtues & Lies 2)

Christopher

I’m not sure of how long we sit here, wrapped around one another, but the soft light of dawn is diffusing into the room. The dusty, diluted red light bathes the space, and Arabella’s warmth seeps into my body, under my skin.

Sweeping over my shoulder, her fingertips trail up to my lips, running back and forth again and again until they dip down to my chin and stroke along my jaw. My heart is racing so fast that it’s impossible she doesn’t feel it.

With a deep exhale, her breath tickles the crook of my neck, her head unmoving from my other shoulder as her other hand rakes along the top of my back.

“It’s always been you, Christopher. I will only ever want you. But I need to make this right.” When I try to look down, she holds my chin up with her fingers. “I need to try and make up for what I did wrong.” Cupping my jaw, she continues holding my head up, her thumb stroking along my lips lightly. “They gave me a way to do it and to protect you. I only wanted to protect what was left of us…of my heart.”

Sitting back on my thighs, she pulls my arm from around her until she can grasp my hand in hers. Gently she inspects the cuts on my knuckles, and when she turns it in her palm, she shudders. Puffy eyes closing with a wince, she sucks her bottom lip into her mouth.

“I never wanted to break you.”

I can’t help but watch the way her dark lashes fan above her cheekbones. The way her cheeks hollow as she sucks harder on her lip. And the traitor that he is, my dick hardens, pulsing in my underwear at the sound of the air pulling between her teeth.

Coming closer, she rises on her knees either side of me, her nose skimming mine as her hands cup my face. I could never forget what it feels like to be surrounded by her, but this feels so much better than I remember it.

“I never wanted to break you, cariño.” Her eyes flutter open on mine, and although they are dark, they shine. And my chest might actually burst any moment now from the way it feels to hold her. To have her this close. “I didn’t want to hurt you. But I—”

“I needed you.”

“I know.”

“I needed hope, and you left me.”

“There wasn’t any left in me, Christopher. It was all gone. All of it. I only wanted to hold her. Just once. For a little bit. Just one little bit. For a small second.”

She thinks so, but the thing about holding something so special is that you never forget what it feels like. Nothing else ever lives up to it. And our daughter…she was incredible.

Lowering herself onto my lap once more, her gaze finds mine as her hot flesh grazes mine.

“What was she like?” Pressing the side of her face to my chest, she twines the rope holding her rings around her finger.

All I can think of is the photo on my phone, and although I should show her, I can’t. She’s not ready. She might never be ready. And that photo does our girl no justice. It doesn’t show just how much fight she had. How fucking strong she was for something so small.

When she nuzzles into my chest, waiting for me to give her what she wants, I hold her tighter. All of a sudden my hands feel so empty and bare. I imagine that’s what a person with third-degree burns would feel. Too much pain for it to translate coherently, and so all you can feel is raw and exposed.

“Too much,” I manage before my eyes glass over. My chest tightens and cold, sharp pain splinters inside me. “She was just too much, Belles.”

I swallow, hoping that my tears shrink back into my ducts. They don’t and I can’t control them the more I think of how I can explain to my wife how amazing our baby was.

“Too beautiful. Too feisty. She was like you—too much fight.”

Shaking, she presses closer to me, her hands clawing into my flesh the longer we sit in silence. Her nails bite deeper with every second, and I wish that the pain inside was as easy as their pinch.

“She was too fucking perfect.” The painstaking gasp that fills the air is enough to ruin me for good. Shuffling up the bed, I take her with me until I can lie back with her on top of me, her trembling body wracking with chills.

Arabella says nothing. Her quietness at a time like this normally suggests that she’s taking the situation in, trying to grasp where to go from here, but something tells me that she’s trying to think of what she could’ve done to change things. How she could’ve saved our baby.

Sadly, I think fate has a way of hardening people. It tries to prepare you for what it’s going to throw at you down the road. I just don’t know if there is any tragedy on this earth that could outdo this. I can’t grasp the possibility of there being anything worse than watching your child take their last breath and hoping against all hope that it’s all make-believe. That they’ll take one gasp and open their eyes. That you’ll blink and it’ll all be a nightmare you wake up from.

Pulling the edges of the duvet around me, I cocoon us from the cold. As a man you think crying is as bad as it gets, but it’s worse when you physically run out of tears and you’re too hoarse to sob. You’re being consumed inside out, and there is no outlet. Your mind screams and your heart howls; every part of you roars, and not a grass blade moves.

The world is none the wiser and not in the least affected by the hurricane inside you. And that’s it. That’s the thought that settles it. Because if this world isn’t tender enough to feel her loss, then it isn’t worthy of her.

Our little girl deserved better.

“I don’t think this world could’ve handled her.”