"Bad memories?"
The worst.
"Yes."
"Tried to burn them," he observed, meaning the bombs.
"Yes."
"Didn't work."
I exhaled loudly. "Missed my target."
"Dunno that."
"I do. I feel it in my gut," I admitted, finding myself opening up more to him than I had opened up to anyone. Lo was the closest person I had in the world. She knew what happened because she picked up my pieces off the floor and helped sew me back together, both literally and figuratively. But I had never been able to tell her. I choked on the words any time I tried.
"Think it'd help?"
To kill him? Honestly, I had no idea. All I knew was it couldn't hurt; that was for damn sure. "Probably not."
"Not."
"Speaking from experience?" I cringed at how snippy my tone was. That was me. When someone got to close to the truth, I had to deflect deflect deflect.
"Yes," he answered honestly, surprising me.
"You burned them?"
"No."
"But something else just as lethal."
"Yes."
"And it didn't help?"
"Not me."
Curious, I pushed up on his chest, resting my hand there for balance and looking down at him. "Who did it help?"
He watched me for a long time, long enough that I thought he wasn't going to answer. His hand reached out and brushed my hair behind my ear. "Mom."
That was all I was going to get. But I had the feeling it was more than he gave most people. Maybe he gave it to me because I gave a part of myself to him. That thought had a weird gooey feeling swirling around my belly. "Thank you," I heard myself saying without having consciously thought it.
"For?"
For taking care of me? For helping me open up? For offering physical contact I wasn't even aware I wanted? How did someone thank another person for things like that?
"Janie..." his voice cut into my internal battle, making my gaze snap to his. My hair slipped from behind my ear again and his hand rose. But it didn't do another ear-tuck. It paused for a second then slid into the strands then cupped the side of my neck. I saw the question in his eyes, but I didn't know what he was asking for.
"Wolf, I..."
Then his fingers dug in slightly because he was pulling me slowly downward toward him and I understood. He was looking for permission to kiss me. Kiss me. A thousand objections flashed across my brain in the course of a second, not the least of them being my earlier objections about becoming some pathetic Stockholm chick. But I ignored all of them. Because Wolf's eyes were liquid and heavy-lidded and my belly felt like it was melting in an all too delicious way.
"You good?" he asked as if sensing the small part of me that was begging me to pull away, to put some distance between us, to reconstruct my walls.
I felt my head nod slightly as his hand moved around the back of my neck, our faces a breath away from each other. There was a pause before he applied pressure and closed the space between us, my lips landing on his and sending a shock through my system, making my body jolt.
His lips didn't immediately demand anything from me; they were just firm pressure under mine as I adjusted to the sensations. His beard tickled in a way that wasn't amusing and almost erotic instead. His hand at my neck was hard. The arm around my back had tightened at the contact. My hair had fallen forward to curtain us and my heart suddenly flew into overdrive, making my chest feel tight.
I had expected that trying to get close to someone again would bring with it the memories, would overwhelm my body with the sick, awfulness of it all. That was why I never let anyone get close. I didn't need the punishment; I had suffered enough.
So when our lips pressed into each other and nothing surfaced but the desire, leisurely stretching from its long sleep like a cat, I knew there was no going back.
My head slanted and his lips closed around my lower lip, sucking it in slightly and drawing a surprised whimper from somewhere deep inside me. At the sound, a growl escaped him and his arm tightened on my hips as he rolled, pushing me onto my back and half-covering my body with his. My hands went to his shoulders, digging in, holding on as his tongue pressed forward and moved into my mouth, toying with mine. My hands grabbed him, pulling him closer until he planted his arms on either side of my body and came fully over me. My fingers slid into his hair, holding him to me as his teeth nipped gently into my lower lip.
There was no tentativeness in him. He kissed me like worship, like prayer, like benediction. He kissed me like it was the only thing standing between him and absolution, like together we could wash away our sins and start anew in the Elysian Fields.
And I found myself wanting to believe in the promise he was offering me. But as his hand moved, sliding softly down the side of my breast, an image popped into my mind: unwanted, of a hand there, aggressive, violent, taking things I hadn't offered.
My entire body went ramrod straight; my hands dropped from his shoulders.
Feeling the change, his lips pulled from mine, his body weight shifted upward. "Look at me," he demanded as I kept my eyes clamped shut hard, trying to push the images away and failing. "Janie," he demanded again, his voice like velvet-coated steel- soft but firm. My eyes drifted open to find his watching me, taking in every nuance, seeking answers and finding them. He nodded slightly, rolling off onto his side and pulling me onto mine so we were facing each other. His hand rested gently at my hip, safe, undemanding, taking nothing and offering an anchor. "It's okay," he answered, somehow reading my struggle to try to explain.
"No," I clarified in a small voice. "It's not."
"Not what happened," he said, his fingers squeezing my hip for a second. "Stopping."