Wild Wind: A Chaos Novella (Chaos #6.6)(79)

When she got into the kitchen, she looked at something on the counter, then she lifted her head, caught sight of him, but gazed around before she came back to him.

She raised a piece of paper and shook it.

A note from his parents.

“Your folks made the schnitzel. We have plates if you’re hungry.”

He could eat a whole roast pig.

“You hungry?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“I’m good too,” he lied.

She nodded at that, and pointed out, “They also cleared the table. Cleaned the kitchen. You’re gonna have to give me your mom’s number so I can text her to thank her.”

“Will do, baby, but maybe now we should go to bed.”

She stood there, watching him across the apartment, and it felt like it was as closely as he was watching her.

He dropped his cut down his shoulders, tossed it on her couch, and asked, “You wanna go to bed?”

Not taking her eyes from him, she moved his way.

She stopped close, and still didn’t take her eyes from his as she touched him.

Putting her hands on his chest, she slid them up to the sides of his neck.

He put his hands on her hips.

She squeezed his neck. “You good?”

“I’m good, uh…you good?”

She didn’t answer his question.

Her gaze bored into his and she said softly, “Jagger, baby, you hungry?”

“I’m okay, Arch. You tired?”

She didn’t answer him again.

She urged, “Talk to me.”

He wanted it the other way around.

He wanted her to talk to him, tell him how it felt to lay it out for Elijah. How it felt to be around Shanta when her grief was so fresh and raw.

About anything.

He wanted her to give whatever she needed to him so he could take it from her.

He just didn’t think he should ask.

“Jagger, baby,” she shifted one hand to wrap it around the back of his neck, the other she moved to wrap around his throat, “talk to me.”

He heard the words, but he didn’t hear them.

Because it seemed like all the blood in his body all of a sudden had rushed to his head, his vision had blurred, and his mind had blanked of everything.

Except her hand at his throat.

His voice didn’t even sound like him, it was jagged and harsh, when he demanded, “Take your hand off my fucking throat.”

She did this immediately.

But he was lost.

Gone.

Blind, he couldn’t even fucking see.

Couldn’t think.

What the fuck?

What the fuck?

Christ, he had to get out of there.

He had to go.

He moved.

She got in front of him, hands to his chest, saying sharply, “Jagger!”

“I’m takin’ a walk, be back,” he forced out.

He moved to the side, losing her.

She got in his way again, hands flat on his chest, but this time she put weight into them. “Jagger, what’s happening?”

He tried to lose her, failed.

God.

Fuck.

God.

He shook his head hard.

What the fuck?

What the fuck was happening to him?

She was pushing him back. “Jagger, honey, look at me.”

There wasn’t anything I could do to make things better.

He was moving backward, and he heard Archie demand, “Jagger! Look at me!”

I have a life and a business and I’m falling in love.

He went down.

Vaguely, he understood he was sitting on the couch because she’d pushed him there.

He felt her crawl in, straddle his lap.

She had his head in her hands and was gently shaking it.

“Come back to me, Jagger, baby. Come back. Look at me, baby. Please,” she begged, sounding freaked.

Freaked and distressed and even panicked.

“I don’t know…how to…love you,” he forced out.

“Okay.” She kissed his forehead. “Okay.” She kissed his cheek. “Okay, baby.” She kissed his lips. “Give me more. What do you mean by that?”

“I will be the best father to our kids, Hound taught me that. But I don’t know how to love you.”

“You do.”

“He got his throat slit. Dad. They slit his throat.”

He heard it, the hiss of breath, the sting of pain.

He felt it knifing through him as it cut through her.

Christ, it hurt.

Always…

The hurt.

Then she was kissing his face all over, in between whispering a tortured, “God. God. God.”

“He died before he taught me how to love,” he told her.

She wrapped her arms around his head and held it tight to her chest.

“He loved her so much. She loved him so much. He loved her so much. So much, losing his love broke her. I don’t know how to love you like that. I don’t know how to take care of you. He died before he taught me.”

Her body bucked, her sob filled the room, and she held on tight.

“He died before he taught me,” Jagger repeated. “I don’t remember…” He swallowed. Hard. “I don’t have any of him. I don’t remember his love at all.”