Pieces of Us (Confessions of the Heart 3)

“Almost finished,” I grated, words so rough I didn’t even know how I managed to force them out.

“But I wasn’t good to keep you. Wanted to keep you. Fuck . . . Izzy, I wanted to keep you.” His confession was slurred, edged in sorrow, hinting at desperation.

I had to stop this. Stop this before he said things we’d both regret.

We needed to talk.

But not like this.

Not when our defenses were shot and our sanity had fled.

I moved to the cabinet, inhaling cleansing breaths as I rummaged around for a bottle of alcohol. Unscrewing the cap, I covered the opening with a cotton ball and tipped it over, and I tried to prepare myself for when I turned back around.

But he was still there.

Looking at me like he wanted to devour me. Like he wanted to cry.

God, had we gotten ourselves into a mess. And I tried to remember all the hurt inflicted as I swabbed the cotton ball over the gashes on his face. To remember the way it’d felt when he told me he didn’t want me anymore. That picture of him with her engrained in my head as I bandaged the wound.

“Never good enough, Little Bird. Wanted you to fly,” he rumbled, as if he were hearing every single one of those thoughts. But even if he had, that wasn’t reason enough for him to do what he’d done.

He’d broken me.

Shattered me.

Left me weak.

I’d struggled for so long to be strong. To be the kind of mama I wanted for my boys.

He didn’t get to negate that by still claiming that stupid belief that the two of us didn’t belong together because we were from opposite sides of the proverbial tracks.

“Can’t believe we made a baby,” he kept on, though it was choppy, getting caught on barbs of grief.

Could feel them penetrating both of us.

Arrows piercing deep.

“We made a baby,” he whimpered.

Agony blistered from his body, seeping from his skin, and he dropped his face to my stomach. Those hands that had felt seductive shifted in possession, digging in like a plea.

“I didn’t get to hold him. I didn’t get to hold him, Izzy.”

The magnitude of his pain almost dropped me to my knees.

Gutting.

Obliterating.

“Please . . . stop, Maxon,” I begged. Begged desperately because I couldn’t handle what he was sayin’. The truth that he hadn’t had the chance. The choice because of the bad choices we’d both made.

“You’re breakin’ my heart.” I ran my fingers through his hair, wishing I could take away something—some piece of what we’d both been through. “We’ll talk about this when you’re sober. When we both can think straight.”

But he wasn’t stopping.

A groan left him, a low wail of mourning that rippled through my body. His hands cinched tighter. “What happened to him, Izzy? What happened? What did I do wrong? What did I do wrong? I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

His words turned into a mumble of disorder, mind fading in and out of coherency.

Anguished.

Tortured.

I reached out, prying his face away from my stomach, and forced him to look at me.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. It was my fault.”

My fault.

Grief blistered through my being. The reality of my naivety.

He grabbed my wrist and pressed his mouth to the inside of my forearm. “No. Perfect.”

I trembled under his caress, and I squeezed my eyes closed to break the connection, unable to take it a second more. I pried my hand away and tried not to look at his eyes as I finished applying his bandages.

I had to stop what was happening in this bathroom before I had no chance of escaping it.

“Come on, let’s get you into bed.”

I helped him into his room, trying to keep my distance, which was basically impossible considering the way the man leaned on me as he staggered across the floor.

I sat him down on the edge of his bed, and he flopped onto his back, so close to passing out.

Which was exactly what I needed him to do. Close those eyes and that mouth and let us both rest.

It’d all become too much.

I leaned over him, hating that I felt even an ounce of attraction right then. That my belly would tighten with need, a fire blooming when it should have been left to ash.

Hands shaking out of control, I flicked the button of his jeans and pulled down his fly.

The muscles on his abdomen rippled and danced.

“Izzy Baby.”

“Shh,” I told him as I dragged his pants down his thick legs, tossing my gaze to the far wall to keep myself from looking at him in his underwear, hating that every cell in my body felt heavy and needy at the thought.

I managed to wind them off his feet without peekin’ like a creep.

I pulled down his covers. He rolled into them with a sigh, and I covered him up.