Pieces of Us (Confessions of the Heart, #3)(43)

“I didn’t get to hold him. I didn’t get to hold him, Izzy.”

The magnitude of his pain almost dropped me to my knees.

Gutting.

Obliterating.

“Please . . . stop, Maxon,” I begged. Begged desperately because I couldn’t handle what he was sayin’. The truth that he hadn’t had the chance. The choice because of the bad choices we’d both made.

“You’re breakin’ my heart.” I ran my fingers through his hair, wishing I could take away something—some piece of what we’d both been through. “We’ll talk about this when you’re sober. When we both can think straight.”

But he wasn’t stopping.

A groan left him, a low wail of mourning that rippled through my body. His hands cinched tighter. “What happened to him, Izzy? What happened? What did I do wrong? What did I do wrong? I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

His words turned into a mumble of disorder, mind fading in and out of coherency.

Anguished.

Tortured.

I reached out, prying his face away from my stomach, and forced him to look at me.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. It was my fault.”

My fault.

Grief blistered through my being. The reality of my naivety.

He grabbed my wrist and pressed his mouth to the inside of my forearm. “No. Perfect.”

I trembled under his caress, and I squeezed my eyes closed to break the connection, unable to take it a second more. I pried my hand away and tried not to look at his eyes as I finished applying his bandages.

I had to stop what was happening in this bathroom before I had no chance of escaping it.

“Come on, let’s get you into bed.”

I helped him into his room, trying to keep my distance, which was basically impossible considering the way the man leaned on me as he staggered across the floor.

I sat him down on the edge of his bed, and he flopped onto his back, so close to passing out.

Which was exactly what I needed him to do. Close those eyes and that mouth and let us both rest.

It’d all become too much.

I leaned over him, hating that I felt even an ounce of attraction right then. That my belly would tighten with need, a fire blooming when it should have been left to ash.

Hands shaking out of control, I flicked the button of his jeans and pulled down his fly.

The muscles on his abdomen rippled and danced.

“Izzy Baby.”

“Shh,” I told him as I dragged his pants down his thick legs, tossing my gaze to the far wall to keep myself from looking at him in his underwear, hating that every cell in my body felt heavy and needy at the thought.

I managed to wind them off his feet without peekin’ like a creep.

I pulled down his covers. He rolled into them with a sigh, and I covered him up.

“Little Bird fly,” he muttered, close to incoherent.

Still, I heard it somewhere in my soul.

One second later, he was passed out, and I sat there in the muted light, watching him breathe.

The steady rise and fall of his chest.

The man so beautiful it wasn’t fair to my broken heart. My mind so conflicted and confused I had no idea where we stood.

My gaze caressed over him.

Like a fool, I reached out and traced my fingertips down the dragon he had tattooed on his left arm.

It appeared as if it were perched on his shoulder, the tail wrapping down and around his arm, the monster’s eyes red and confused.

Beautiful and deadly.

“My dragon.”

I knew if I got too close, I was gonna get burned.





Eleven





Mack





Seven Years Old





Mack darted through the forest, moving tree to tree, hiding behind their fat trunks as he stalked around the perimeter of the meadow.

Stealthy and fast.

He crouched down, peering out behind a big oak, her sprawling, spindly branches twisted and gnarled. Some stretched toward the sky before they drooped to the side, and others crawled along close to the ground, like fingers reaching out to dip into the yellow flowers that grew wild in the clearing.

Streaks of sunlight sheered through the sky, touching down like glittering darts on the toppled trees and gurgling stream.

Movement rustled in the middle of it, and Mack jerked, shooting to attention, before he went running to pounce.

Sprinting as hard as he could, he hurdled over a downed log, splashing into the water, coming up fast on the other side.

He dove, just barely missin’ the rabbit that went scurrying away.

He flopped onto his butt.

Dang it.

He wasn’t ever gonna be a hunter, especially if the only thing he could hunt with was his bare hands.

He froze when he heard the rustle from above. The tinkling laughter that filtered down, impaling him like those laser-beam rays of light.

He peered up into the dense tree that sat at the edge of the meadow. Already knowing what he’d find. Or who he’d find.

Her face peering down just as intently as he was peering her direction, the girl at least twenty feet up in the tree, and his chest was clutching in a strange way.

In a way that made him want to shout at her to get down.

“You missed it,” she said, like he didn’t know.