A second.
A moment.
Misery the time that ticked on the clock.
A roar rose from the depths of him. “Where are you? Please. Fuck. Can you hear me?”
The whooshing of the flames screamed back.
No, this couldn’t happen. He wouldn’t let it.
He was on his knees. Blind as he searched. A bed. No. A crib.
He felt along the spindles.
He gulped when he felt it. When he knew. When he curled his arms around the limp body.
So light. So small.
He took it into his arms, pushed to his feet, stumbled through the flames.
A window.
He lifted his boot, kicked it, busted through.
Glass shattered and rained and tore his flesh. But he didn’t slow. He lumbered out into the night.
Refusing the pain.
Refusing the agony.
The fire raged behind them, and he ran to the edge of the yard hedged by the trees.
Cradling the tiny frame, he dropped to his knees and gently set it on the ground.
His arms shook.
Shook and shook.
While the flames roared and wood crumbled and the structure gave.
No hope for life from within.
Torment wailed.
As loud as the sirens he heard coming in the distance.
Frantic, he breathed against the child’s mouth. Breathed and breathed. His hands too big and clumsy against the tiny chest.
I jolted awake. Disoriented. Blinded by the old pain that would forever rage. Sweat drenched my flesh and my body shook out of control as I gasped for air in the darkness of my room.
Hands found me in the night, shocking me out of the stupor.
Tender, sweet hands.
Heart battering at my aching chest, I sat up on the side of the bed.
I felt her crawl onto her knees behind me, and she pressed her face to the scars that burned at my back, her lips soft where they caressed the flesh.
“Jud.” Salem whispered it with all the understanding she shouldn’t possess. “What’s wrong?”
I wanted to tear at my chest. Rip out my heart. Maybe give the mangled thing to the girl before it fully bled out.
“It’s okay,” she whispered to the charred, marred skin.
My head dropped into my hands. “It’s not, Salem. It’s not.”
She curled her arms around my waist, held me while I struggled to breathe.
“I see you, Jud. I see you for who you are and not what you’ve done.” She uttered the words like they were truth.
My fucking eyes stung while agony ripped through my body.
Ghosts screaming.
Demons wailing.
“Yeah?” It came out on my own spite. She had no idea. No fucking idea. She would run. Turn her back when she knew what I’d done.
Just like Kennedy.
“I was responsible for an entire family dying, Salem. A fucking mom and her two little kids. Me.”
Horrified shock rasped from her mouth. But she didn’t loosen her hold. She just squeezed tighter.
Agonized comfort coiled in my stomach.
Her lips continued their soft assault.
Sweet encouragement.
Steady annihilation.
Because I couldn’t shut the fuck up. Couldn’t keep it in. “I tried to stop it, Salem. When I realized what was going down. I tried to. But I was too late.”
She tightened her hold, burrowed her face into my back. “I’m sorry, Jud. I—”
“Don’t, Salem.”
Don’t.
Don’t make me want something I can’t have. Don’t make me feel this way.
Like I was grounded. Like in her eyes, I could be better. Like I might stand the chance of being the man I’d wanted to be.
Blasphemy.
“I can’t stop, Jud. I can’t stop this, either.”
Her hands spread out over my front, over the rampage thundering at my chest, this heart that no longer knew what was right.
We were held for a beat.
For a moment.
“I need you,” she finally whispered.
It only took those three little words for a frenzy to hit.
I spun and had her pressed to the bed in a flash of greed. Movements were frantic as I yanked my shirt that she was wearing over her head and tore her underwear down her legs.
She was pushing mine down my thighs as I went.
Wild.
Fevered.
Our hands everywhere.
Touching. Gripping. Needing.
“Please,” she begged.
In the room pitched in black, I drove into her. No thought. No reason. No sight.
No purpose in this moment other than this girl.
Bare.
Our hearts and bodies and spirits divulged to the other.
My hips snapped and her nails grappled for a place to take hold. To sink in. To get into those places I wasn’t sure I could keep her from.
I rolled us, this girl on top, her hair fisted in one hand and the other stroking her clit.
She rode me.
Watched me.
Thunderbolt eyes strikes of lightning in the night.
The need was too much.
Too much.
This frenzy that had lit.
Every move erratic.
Every touch volatile.
I rolled us back.
Drove. Fucked. Pushed. Compelled.
We toppled.
Chaos.
Tumult.
This storm that’d made landfall.
We were on the floor, her back to the rug, her hips jutting from the floor as I slammed into her.
“Jud,” she whimpered. “Oh, god, oh god.”
I gripped her, took her, devoured her.
She came, and I soared.
My cock pulsed. Poured into this woman who I was terrified was going to steal every bit of me.