Page 82 of Wait for Him

“Breathe, baby.”

I rub one hand slowly up and down her back, the other cradling the back of her head while I let her soak the collar of my shirt and whatever's left of her pride into me.

I've seen Rose drunk and heartbroken. I've seen her furious enough to make grown men reconsider their career choices. I've carried her home, watched her hide pain behind sarcasm and watched sarcasm fail when the pain got too big.

But I've only felt her come apart like this once before.

And I had hoped like hell I'd never feel it again.

My stomach turns. What the fuck happened tonight?

I don't get to ask it out loud. With her face still wet and her breathing still coming too fast, Rose kisses me. She comes at me urgent and messy, both hands catching my face as her mouth crashes into mine, her tongue sliding against mine salty with tears. And for one traitorous second, the whole fucking facade goes up like paper.

Every boundary. Every promise. Every carefully maintained inch between us.

Gone.

Then I get my hands on her shoulders and pull her back.

“Let him out.”

“Rose—”

She slaps me before I can finish my thought. Open palm, sharp enough across the cheek that my head turns with it, and I have to fight it down. The exact urge she wants me to lean into. Before the sting has even fully registered, she's diving back in. She's grinding against me in my lap now, which, in hindsight, was a catastrophically stupid place to put this woman.

Her fingers fist in my hair hard enough to hurt as she drags my mouth back to hers.

"Rose," I plead against her lips.

“Please. Just. Please, I need him.”

She breathes the words into my mouth and trails hers along my jaw, sucking at my chin before her teeth graze the line of it.

“Fuck.”

It punches out of me before I can stop it because I'm still a man, unfortunately, and she knows every seam in me whether she means to or not.

“Please,” she says again, but this time it’s a soft sob. And that's the one that does it.

She's drowning.

She's reaching for the nearest thing she thinks might shut her head off for five minutes, and tonight that happens to be me. If I let her use me for that, she'll wake up tomorrow and hate herself for it.

Probably hate me too.

I catch her face in both hands, gentle where she's being anything but, and hold her still until she finally looks at me.

“Hey. Look at me.”

Her eyes are wild.

Fuck.

“Not like this.” My voice comes out rough, and I force it down into something steadier. “Not when you're hurting like this. I'm not going anywhere. I've got you, I'm right here, but we're not doing this tonight.”

Her whole face twists with anger in a way I’ve never seen. Not once.

Then her head falls back, and a guttural scream tears out of her so hard it curdles something in my stomach.