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“If you knew what he now knows, you would be, and I can’t even blame him.” Tears force my eyes shut because I’m so tired of crying. I’m tired of feeling like I’m about to combust from the emotions. “I’d really like to be alone now, please.” Rolling away from Odette, I face the wall and bury my head in my pillow.
It’s a few minutes before I feel her hand on my hip as she gets up to leave, the door closing quietly behind her.
My chest tightens with the sobs I’ve been holding back, and when they finally bust free, I feel myself breaking down into a million shattered pieces of glass. I can’t catch my breath, and my ears ring, making it impossible to form a coherent thought.
Being down in the trenches of uncertainty and despair is the only thing that shuts down my empathic abilities. There’s always a buzzing in my head around the house from the people employed by my father, but when I’m so doused in my own hurt and anger, I get an ironic sort of relief.
It’s both terrifying and numbing because it truly means I am alone in the world. When I don’t feel others’ emotions, I can hardly process my own. I don’t know if what I feel is real or imagined, and the brutal truth is, I don’t know how to be me without the world tiptoeing inside my head.
Being so sensitive and exposed, I can feel my body shutting down. Shivering as if I’ve just climbed a snowcapped mountain in the nude, I slip from bed and head for the shower. I’m cold to the bone and need immediate heat, or I’m going to pass out and work myself into an illness that will only worry my father, and I don’t want that for him.
With my head pounding, I keep the lights low and flick on the water before stripping and crawling into the glass-enclosed shower. Steam quickly fills the stall before billowing out into the rest of the room. Sitting on the bench with a cloth covering my eyes, the warmth is quick to take away the isolated chill assailing my body.
Agony has encompassed me in a cold-hearted hug, and it feels as though every bone in my body is slowly snapping in half. Every hurt I’ve healed, each agonizing emotion I’ve soothed, invades me and inevitably makes it harder to breathe. My heart pounds so rapidly that I’m almost certain it’s bruising my chest.
Anxiety and panic aren’t new friends; we’re old pals with the understanding that this can only happen when I’m alone. The problem is, I don’t think they will obey the rules this time. Usually, it lasts minutes, this time feels like forever.
The water cools, and the shivering returns, but I still can’t find it in me to move. I don’t want to allow the world back into my body and head.
CHAPTER 10
Holy
When I’m not with Della, she’s the only thing I can think about. It’s now to the point of insanity because I swear I feel her with me. What she’s thinking and feeling, it lives inside my bones, deeper than the marrow.
My foot presses harder on the pedal as I enter the city and head straight for the island. There’s this desperate need inside me to be at Della’s side as soon as possible. My chest is being clawed at with razor-sharp nails the closer I get to her, and a panic I’ve never known settles in the cavern where my heart lies.
This type of urgency has never driven me forward before. I run red lights and stop signs, going faster than I should in the city. I ordinarily wouldn’t risk these types of moves, but Della needs me; I sense it in my gut, and as much as that should freak me out, all it does is propel me to get to her sooner.
From the minute I enter the estate, a buzzing inundates my head. Like a thousand bees flying around me. Hurrying to park and running up to the front doors, I slam through them and ignore Carter and Cowboy as they try to speak to me on my way to Della. There’s a frantic need to be with her, and I don’t know if it’s emanating from me or her.
I’m more convinced now than ever before that what I’m feeling, the urgency and desperation, is from my girl. She’s in a world of hurt from a force I know I’m not able to fight, and as I enter her room and see her curled up in bed, I know what I can do is be here for her.
Shedding my jacket and kicking off my boots, I quietly climb into bed with her. Immediately, I’m bombarded with the agony flooding through her veins as she fights my hold. Her heart is broken to smithereens, and the effort it takes for her to breathe is painful.
Holding her tight, I place a hand on her nape and another around her back as my leg settles over her hip. “Della, calm down. You’re not pushing me away.” Not when I feel how devastated she is. I need to know what she’s thinking before I can begin to help her.
“Please, talk to me, Della; tell me what’s happening.” I honestly don’t think she’ll answer me, not when she has this blank look in her eyes and is staring straight through me.
When she finally does speak, I couldn’t be more surprised. “Why does nobody want me?” Her teary question makes my heart stutter.
“Who the fuck said that?” I’ll kill anyone who makes her feel this shit.
“My mother abandoned me. Carter doesn’t think he’s my father. You ran off.”
Whoa. “Hold on, I didn’t fucking run from you, woman. I left to make you safe, and I damn well succeeded. Whether Carter is your biological father or not doesn’t matter, either; that man would take a bullet for you.” Carter needs to fucking fix his fuck up.
“I feel like I’m teetering on the edge of a cliff, and a small breeze could blow me over.” I can’t begin to imagine what she’s going through, but I can help.
Rolling over, I settle on top of Della, her hips around my thighs and my hands in her hair, holding her steady so she’s forced to look me in the eye. “That wind blows, and I’ll fucking catch you, Della. I am the wall between you and the world.”
Dropping my head down, I give her a second to push me away before stealing her lips in a kiss. I give her every promise she needs in the simple act until our emotions and desires take over, and all I want to do is tear our clothes off and fuck.
Sliding my lips down her jaw, I suck on the delicate flesh of her throat until she’s whimpering and rubbing her heated pussy against my aching cock.
“The logical part of me needs to know why we’re so explosive from kissing. The beast in me enjoys the obsessive way we’re attached, and I can’t fucking complain one little bit.” She moans and arches into me.
Lifting her shirt up to her throat, I feast on her abundant breasts. Sucking one nipple into my mouth until she tugs on my hair, then treating the other one to the same sweet torture.
