Page 64 of Juniper Unraveling

There isn’t a bone in my body that doesn’t desire to have Six—even the parts I’ve been warned about. But I didn’t expect to feel the confusion and shame of knowing that I could’ve stopped him, but didn’t. I climaxed during his roughness, as if a part of me craved it.

He pulls out of me, tucks his head into his knees, and slams his fists into his temples with an agonized cry.

With remorse, I sit up and crawl across the blankets toward him. An ache throbs between my thighs and up inside my belly, but I ignore it, because I know the pain he’s suffering is likely far worse.

The hate he has for himself is written in the tautness of his muscles, and his agonized whimper that interrupts the useless noise inside my head.

Whatever turmoil’s settled over me, it’s not his fault, it’s mine. And I don’t know why I’m feeling this way. It doesn’t make sense to me. The perplexity lies in the black void at the back of my head—the part of my mind that fails to make itself known. The part where voices echo and faceless silhouettes whisper.

He kicks away from me, pushing at the reach of my hand.

Anyone else, and I’d crawl into myself and die at the rejection. But I know why Six is doing this. He thinks he’s hurt me.

Maybe he has. Maybe that’s just the nature of us. I hurt him by inviting him to hurt me.

The world might call us sick. Perhaps even made for each other.

After all, good men are supposed to be made of sturdy bones and steel flesh, but Six is neither. He’s shadows and pain wrapped in a broken husk.

But there’s goodness in him, too.

I’ve felt it. Touched it.

Prying his arms apart, I rise up on my knees, wrapping my arms around his neck, and he pulls me into him, resting his head against my belly. Our sweat-slick skin slides against one another as I hold him, both of us trembling.

“I’m okay, Six. You didn’t hurt me. I don’t know why I’m crying.” I slide into his lap, feeling his arms wrap tight around my back.

His head nuzzles against my breast like he can’t even look at me. His mind must be in absolute hell, and the unknowns swirling inside my head certainly aren’t easing his thoughts.

Against his resistance, I tip his head up to mine and kiss him. All the feelings of want quickly intensify until the electricity hums through my body, like before.

The only way I can make things right in Six’s head is to let him know I want him. I still do. So much so, there’s an ache in my heart at this phantom sensation of regret. It angers me. Doesn’t belong in the place between us.

Wrapping my legs around his body, I drag his now-flaccid length across my swollen sex, and he kisses my neck.

“I want you, Six,” I whisper. “I always want you.”

He pulls me tight to his body, as if he could pull me inside of him and we become a single unit. As connected as two people can be.

We sit with his hardening length pressing into me, until he fills me again, and I slowly rock against him, my arms draped around his shoulders like ribbons tied to stone. With tears in his eyes, he drives into me, studying my reaction with every thrust.

Even at his weakest, there’s something powerful and breathtaking about him.

Six is like a lightning storm in the desert, as mesmerizing as he is dark and violent, with the potential to destroy in one merciless strike. And yet, for some reason, I’m drawn to him by an inexplicable magnetism that electrifies me and sets me aflame.

Two damaged souls trying to figure each other out.

His jaw clenches with every push of his hips as he ruins the little girl I no longer am. Only this time, Six is making love to me.

* * *

Closing the cover of the book, I trace the image of the young boy and his thick black glasses, as Six and I lie naked on the blanket, our bodies cooling in the desert breeze. “Papa gave me this book a couple years ago. A gift. He found it out beyond the wall.”

Six leans forward and kisses my shoulder. In a matter of only a couple of hours, judging by the position of the sun in the sky, we’ve had sex three times beneath the cottonwood.

“Someday, I want to go out there. To see these things he sees. To learn what happened. That day with the Ragers, it didn’t change any of that. I still dream of leaving this place.” I toy with the scar at his knuckles and dip my head to kiss it. “There’s blackness inside my mind, and I feel like the answers are out there, somewhere. I want to know what happened to my mother.” Resting my head against my propped palm, I peer up at Six, whose eyes are fixed on mine. “We can’t leave Papa, though. And I don’t know if I could kill another to stay alive.”

His gaze meets mine, serious and unflinching. He reaches for the notebook and writes on the page: I wud 4 U.