When he’s fully dressed, he turns and looks down at me where I’m still lying. I feel vulnerable under his gaze, and I fight against the instinct to close my legs, to not let him see his own cum drying on my thigh. As if looking at me like this will allow him to see too deeply, to catalogue everything that I am. Like he’s going to—or maybe he already does—see every flaw, every heartache and pain that has ever ravaged this body of mine.
His eyes are hard. Frigid ice cast in blue and green. Goose bumps break out over my skin as his gaze stays locked on me, his intense focus making me feel cold instead of hot for once.
For just a second, something else enters his expression. His gaze drops to the rumpled, sweaty sheets, and when it finally lifts again to find my eyes, he looks… tired.
Broken, somehow.
He shakes his head, his throat working as he swallows. “I meant what I said. You shouldn’t have come here, Sparrow.”
Then he turns and strides from the bedroom. The soft click of the front door comes a second later, but I hardly need to hear the sound to know that I’m alone.
I can feel it.
The sheets seem colder, the mattress suddenly too wide and big, the quiet too fucking oppressive.
I’ve spent most of my life alone, or trying to be alone. It was preferable to most of the company I had the option to keep. But right now, in the aftermath of a raw fuck that cracked my damn soul open, I can’t find any strength in solitude like I usually do.
I just feel… well, I feel like Gray looked for that split second before his features froze over again.
Sad.
And tired as fuck.
“Goddammit.”
I mutter the word as I roll over onto my side, curling up into a little ball. I feel like I have fucking whiplash, my emotions bouncing from panic to anger to pleasure to pain too quickly for me to keep up.
I don’t want to feel any of this.
The numbness. I want the fucking numbness back.
It doesn’t come, but wallowing isn’t my style, so after a few long minutes of silence, I push myself up and crawl off the bed. I clean up and pull my clothes back on like the grown-ass woman I am, then rummage through my messenger bag until I find the little bag of weed and the new lighter I picked up a few weeks ago.
If I don’t watch out, I’m gonna form some kind of Pavlovian response to the emotional turmoil of my fucked up relationship with Gray.
Have a traumatizing encounter with Gray Eastwood, go smoke some weed.
Whatever. There are worse ways to deal with shit.
I roll a joint and slip it into my back pocket along with the lighter, then step out into the dormitory hallway.
But as the door closes behind me, I stop.
“Declan? What the fuck are you doing here?”
He’s sitting on the floor, back to the wall, knees up. He’s got his phone in his hands, some random game on the screen, and when he looks up at me, I can’t quite read the expression on his face.
“I saw Gray leave. Figured I’d make sure you were okay.”
I scoff. “Bit late to make sure he wasn’t assaulting me.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
My brows furrow as I study him. I’m tempted to ask what he does mean, but I’m not sure I’m prepared to hear the answer. I’m too on-edge, my nerves too raw and exposed right now to deal with anything else.
“Does Gray know you’re here?” I ask instead.
Declan’s deep brown eyes flicker slightly, but he doesn’t answer. Which is all the answer I need.