Page 72 of Slow Burn (Driven 5)
I’ll cope tomorrow. Right now I just want to shut the world out.
Time passes. I hear car doors slam as neighbors come home from work. I hear mothers calling their kids inside for dinner. The night fades and eats up any sign of light until it’s completely smothered. Street lights flicker to life.
And yet I sit here. Not wanting to move. Not caring if I ever do because that means tomorrow is closer, and I don’t want tomorrow to come.
My phone rings and alerts me to texts but it sits on the table where I dropped it, and I don’t have enough energy to pick it up, even if I wanted to. Which I don’t.
I’m so cold, despite the warm night air. My soul is chilled, and my thoughts are frozen, obsessed with replaying the doctor’s words over and over in my head.
“Hey.” The voice from behind me startles me, despite my having known somehow he would find me. I squeeze my eyes shut, expecting the onslaught of emotion to come, to overwhelm, to break me down, and yet nothing does. Abso-fucking-lutely nothing. Feelings, emotions, reactions are so dull, so nonexistent, I should be scared, but I’m not. I wait for the butterflies, for the ache in my heart and the tingle between my thighs at the voice that riles them up, but they’re not there.
Because I feel nothing.
“Your car was in the driveway. I kept calling your cell, and you didn’t answer, but I heard it ringing back here, so I came in through the gate,” he explains, his voice becoming louder as he nears me.
I look straight ahead and murmur incoherently at him as his footsteps continue to grow closer. Once his body is beside mine, it takes everything I have to scrape together some semblance of a smile and force my head to angle up to meet his. “Hey.”
He sees it immediately. I know he can see the emotions warring within me, but he recovers quickly, eyebrows drawn together as he studies me. “Everything okay?” he asks as he lowers himself to the chaise, his hip pushing my legs over so he has room.
Am I okay? Ha. I want to laugh at the question. “Hmm,” I say in response.
He reaches out and cups the side of my face, his thumb rubbing over my cheek in that way that usually makes me melt, but I remain unresponsive in every way. “Everything okay with Maddie?” I nod my head, knowing he’s searching for a reason for my silence. “Did the doctor call? Any news?”
I can hear the concern tingeing the edges of the question, and it’s truth-or-dare time for me: lie to protect him or tell him the truth and test the promises he made at the farm. I teeter on that fine edge of my moral compass, but then my split-second decision is one I think I made the moment I received the call.
“No, not yet. She called to tell me something’s held up at the lab, but in relooking at my scans, she’s not too worried.” The lies roll off my tongue just as easily as the relief they cause makes his posture sag.
I’m going to hell. I just lied to Becks. I’m going to hell, and I deserve it. Every damn lick of fire against my flesh, I deserve.
Then the panic hits me. I shift to place my hands under my thighs so that he can’t see them tremor with the adrenaline coursing through my system. My mind spins in an eddy of fucked-up thoughts, and as each one whips out of the whirlpool and hits my conscience, I feel worse with each passing second.
I should confess, make things right. I know I should, but the words don’t come off my tongue because images of Lexi and Danny and Maddie hop on the eddy, collide with every truth I should reveal, and knock them down.
“Haddie?” I’m brought back to the present when Becks says my name again, and I try to focus on him through the tears that don’t even well, but that burn like hell. Hmpf, like hell—that’s rather fitting and deserving.
“I …” I don’t know where to go with this conversation, which path to take to gain some distance so I can process everything without the pressure of what it will do to everyone else. I think of the heavy knowledge so apparent in Lexi’s lively eyes. Her awareness of what she was leaving behind for us to deal with.
I have three options now: Hurt him so badly that I push him away and gain some distance, fess up to the lie and ask for some space, or beg him to make me feel to see if it’s even possible or if I’m already dead inside.
I stare at him, his blue eyes radiating concern as he grants me patience to figure out the words I need to say. And I’m not ready to talk yet.
I reach out without thought and pull his mouth to mine, desperation emanating off me, causing it to crash into him and take hold. If I’m going to Hell, I might as well get a piece of Heaven first. And fuck yes, this makes me the most selfish woman on the face of the earth, but I can’t make a decision yet, can’t voice my feelings yet, so I give into the greed and take.
Within seconds of our mouths clashing together, between a shocked gasp from Becks and his rush to take what I’m offering, I already have my hands on his zipper and am pulling his thickening cock from his trousers.
“Had—what—wait—are—”
“Shh. No talking, just fucking, okay? It’s day three.” I retrieve the excuse, hoping he’ll just go with it and not question me any further.
I feel the hesitancy in his lips, his mind trying to scramble and catch up to how he’s already hard and ready in my hand. Our mouths remain savage on each other’s, teeth scrape, tug, and I suck on his tongue, earning me a strangled groan that lets me know he’s ready for what I’m striving for: complete mental obliteration.
I shift my positioning and slide off the chaise, leaning o
ver not to break the connection. His hands meet mine as we both work at the buttons on my shorts, shoving them with my panties down to the ground so that I can step out of them. Now free of his undressing job, his hand finds its way back between my thighs, parting my folds, testing my readiness, but I dance backward from the V of his thighs before he can find his purchase.
I don’t deserve this consideration from him, don’t deserve anything from him since I’m giving him nothing in return. I turn abruptly around so that I straddle his legs where he sits on the edge of the lounger, my back to his front. I can’t bring myself to watch him as I do this—use him—and he sure as hell doesn’t need to see the tears that threaten to fill my eyes with each passing second.
I reach down between my legs, and Becks sucks in a breath as I grip his erection in my hand and position it at my entrance. I rub the crest back and forth a couple times over my seam to wet it and then, without giving him a moment to ready himself, slam my hips down hard and fast, sheathing him in one slick movement.
