Page 40 of The Gathering
“Either you read it or I will,” he said, getting pissed.
More intense staring. “I was going to ask if I have to read it laying down.”
Fuck. He crossed his arms on the bed and rested his forehead on it. “I’m mad at myself, not you.”
“Why?”
“You know why,” he said, raising his head. “And it doesn’t matter that it’s nobody’s fault, I’m still mad, I’m pissed, I'm fucking furious.” He pushed away from the bed. “I’d like to aim that at myself since there’s nothing else I can fucking aim it at.”
He paced, feeling her staring at him. Laying on her back like a patient trapped with a psycho doctor. “You can sit up Ma Petite,” he said. “And read your pages of symptoms.”
She sat up, pulling the sheet across her lap, leaving her perfect fucking tits exposed. “I can rewrite them and number them if—”
“Beth,” he said, his tone biting.
Like his fucking lust.
She nodded, her swallow filling his ears. Fucking bite seemed to love two things. Anger and lust. And he had both—one jacking his gifts up, and the other jacking his cock off.
A fat tear rolled down her cheek, and he was at the bed in two seconds, holding her face and kissing her sobbing mouth. “Fuck, fuck, I’m sorry.”
“Way-way-way emotional,” she squeaked. “First one on the list.”
“Very normal, angel, so very normal,” he swore, beating back his self-loathe. “Would you like me to read it? I can, I don’t mind.”
She nodded and handed him the tablet. “Not out loud.”
The tiny words were full of something that stabbed into him. He mentally dug into the mystery and had a head on collision with her barely masked fear. And shame.
Fuck, how was he not feeling her?
He set the notepad on the bed when it hit him and took her face in his hands. “Beth, look at me.”
She fought with herself, barely managing to straighten her crimped face as she put her gaze on him.
“I’m going to tell you something that I think will help you.”
She gave a nod, fighting down a sob as he pet her face.
“The things you want? I give them to you. The things you don’t want? I don’t give them to you.”
She pulled the sheet up between them and wiped her nose, her forehead creased with turmoil.
“The things you want me to know? I can feel them and sense them. The things you don’t want me to know? I can’t feel them and sense them.”
She paused her nose wiping, eyes filling with tears as her hands dropped to her lap. “So it’s me?”
A sob burst from her clamped mouth and he pulled her head into his shoulder. “Shhh, no-no-no Ma Petite, that’s not what I’m saying.”
“That’s exactly what you just said,” she cried, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“I’m telling you this because it’s the answer to our problem, oui?”
“What? No it’s not…oui, how is that oui? How is me causing a problem the answer to the problem? I’m causing the problem I’m not causing the answer,” she fussed, confused.
“I’m saying you can do the opposite, you can let me feel the problems you have so I can help you with them? Oui?” He stroked her head and back, so fucking relieved to learn this whilehis curiosity regarding her gifts niggled at his mind. What else was she accidentally blocking?
She pushed him off, face frozen in some devastating horror. She clamped her hand on her mouth.
