I See You Part 10

"Fourth."

Those eyes of hers darted up to mine, and it was clear that she hadn't expected my answer. I just didn't know what about it she hadn't expected. "Will you have to go again before you get out?"

"No, I'm just waiting to be released now."

She exhaled quickly, nodding absentmindedly as she did. "Declan says you're a sniper." I held her thoughtful stare until she broke away to let her eyes travel over my body. "Ever since I walked into the restaurant yesterday, I've wondered how I didn't know that first night. The way you hold yourself, the way you silently study everything . . ." Her lips twitched with amus.e.m.e.nt, but she didn't continue.

"Hold myself," I said dully. All I could think of were the Marines who walked around with their dog tags out, and like they were too ripped to put their arms down at their sides.

"Like you're so sure of yourself, but withdrawn. Like you're dangerous, and calm."

"Dangerous? And you didn't run screaming?" I challenged darkly.

She'd been looking down at the sand as she spoke, her fingers trailing through the grains, but her hand abruptly stopped and she glanced up from underneath her eyelashes at my question. Her full lips parted, and the rise and fall of her chest deepened as my question hung in the air.

She didn't need to answer. Not with that look. Not with what I already knew of that night. The energy that was stretching between us pulled tight, begging for me to take her into my arms, to hold her again, to kiss her, to get a taste of that good.

"I should get back," she whispered, and sat back suddenly, making me realize that we'd been leaning closer and closer during the conversation.

"Why are you out here in the first place?"

I didn't think she was going to answer when long seconds slipped by and she rolled to her knees. "Declan wants to talk to Linda about how she's been ignoring me, and I don't. We started to argue about it, and I didn't want to argue, so I figured it would be best if we just took a minute away from each other to calm down."

I nodded slowly. Declan had somehow convinced Aurora and Taylor to come to dinner with us tonight, and Mom hadn't once looked at Aurora or even acknowledged that she was there. I had witnessed it, but I still didn't understand it. "My mom has to be the most caring and loving woman I've ever met, so I can't imagine what happened between the two of you if she reacts to you that way."

Aurora hesitated for a few moments, then admitted softly, "She walked in on-"

"I don't want to know," I said quickly, and ground my teeth at the reminder of what I'd tried so hard to forget. The anger and jealousy I'd felt earlier when Declan mentioned it flared back to life.

Aurora's eyes met mine again when she said, "I don't like this person I'm turning into because of her. I feel like I'm in a constant state of worry that she's going to show up and see something that makes her say, 'Oh sweet girl, bless your heart.' I hate cleaning . . . I hate it. I'm the kind of person who likes things cluttered to the point where it looks homey, and I know where everything is. Now everything is stored up in our apartment closets and I freak out if I see a smudge on the wall. I've never been the kind of person to try to make someone like me, and I hate that I go to these lengths just to get approval from her because I want her to." She blew out a long breath and her shoulders sagged, like she'd just voiced things she'd been keeping inside for too long. "And now I know it's wearing on Dec, too, but I can't stop. I don't know why. I just know I'm not this person."

"I know you aren't," I mumbled softly as I remembered the way Aurora had seemed tense all throughout dinner. Her expression had bordered on nervous, and her words came faster and faster with the slightest tremble in her voice whenever she'd attempted to talk to my mom.

Her eyes rolled. "You say that with such a.s.sertion, and yet you hardly know me."

I reached out slowly and pressed my hand to her chest, and waited until she was looking up at me. "I see you," I whispered gruffly, and searched her conflicted expression. "I knew who you were that first night, Aurora. I didn't need to know your name, or your friends, or what your favorite color was to know you. I still see the girl I met that night."

I knew I needed to move my hand away from her, but the way her heart was pounding beneath my palm was mesmerizing. Her chest's movements deepened and matched my own, and with each breath, a flash from our night together a.s.saulted me.

Her body beneath mine. My mouth and hands claiming her. Moving together in a way that was too perfect for strangers. Knowing that it would never be enough.

Her eyes dipped to my mouth, and she suddenly said, "Purple."

"What?"

She moved away until I dropped my hand, and I tried to ignore the pull between us, but it was impossible. It was still there-in the background-as it always was. A slow burn that couldn't be suffocated or satisfied.

"Purple. That's my favorite color."

A relaxed grin spread across my face, and I nodded. "Of course it is."

Her eyebrows pinched together. "Why do you say that?"

My body moved on impulse, and I pressed two fingers under her chin to lift her head higher so I could study her eyes. "Your eyes look violet when it's dark. That's how I always remembered you: the violet-eyed siren. The good I got to hold for a night."

Awe lit up those eyes of hers before confusion and sadness touched her face and her expression fell. "You mean you had time to think of me between all of your other girls?" Now it was my turn to be confused, but before I could ask, she spoke again. "I heard a lot of stories about you before I ever realized who you were."

"So because you heard stories from Declan, you think you have me figured out?" A harsh, irritated-sounding laugh burst from my chest, and I released her face to rub at my jaw.

"It fits with our night, doesn't it?" Her voice was detached, but there was a hint of her hurt on her face again. "Best friend, brother, sniper, player . . . I've heard those things about you more times than I could count. The latter most of all."

I stood to walk a few feet away, only to turn back toward her. Each movement was fueled by my sudden frustration. I hadn't thought about, looked at, or touched another girl since Aurora. For her to say that when this entire time she'd been with my brother p.i.s.sed me off more than I could begin to describe.

I told myself this was where I should leave her for the night, on a bad note, like we had left our last conversations . . . but when had I ever been able to leave her?

I dropped down in front of her to look directly into her eyes so she could see the honesty that poured through every aggravated word. "What other girls, Aurora? There have been no other girls since you, because I couldn't get past you. You are the only girl I have refused to tell anyone about because I never wanted to share even the thought of you. I would have given anything to make that night continue-anything to come back to the States and have you there waiting for me. Now that you're in front of me again, I want nothing more than to remind you over and over again what that night was like. I want to make you forget every other guy, because the thought of you with anyone else has a rage burning inside me that I hate more than you'll ever understand. It is a constant struggle not to pull you into my arms and keep you. But despite all of that, I owe Declan my life. I hate myself for wanting what is his, and I would never forgive myself if he ever looked at me with the betrayal that goes with the guilt I already feel."

Her mouth slowly parted as the weight of my words crashed down on her. Confusion, awe, and denial lingered in her eyes.

"I told you I see you, so I see what you're doing. You're spouting off bulls.h.i.+t to protect yourself. I get it, because I'm doing it, too. Like before, I've been trying to give you every reason to walk away from me before I take you and never let you go. That guilt that you're feeling just being near me, I feel it. That pain of being so close and keeping yourself from what you need, I feel that, too. If you hurt, then I hurt. And this hurts, because it feels like I need you to f.u.c.king breathe, and you're just out of my reach."

A shaky breath tumbled from her mouth as indecision settled on her face. Want, need, guilt . . .

Everything I felt, played out for me to see.

"d.a.m.n it, Aurora, I see it. I can see everything you're fighting, but just say it. f.u.c.king say it so I don't feel like I'm the only one losing my G.o.dd.a.m.n mind trying to keep myself from you."

"The only one?" a sharp, disbelieving laugh burst from her. "But like you just said, Jentry, you love him. I love him. This is so much more complicated than finally finding you again! I thought you were gone. I thought I would never see you again. I don't know how to navigate this now that you're right here! And like before, you're constantly pus.h.i.+ng me away and confusing me more than ever."

"Because like I told you that first night, a guy like me shouldn't be able to stain your kind of good. But that night-f.u.c.k, Aurora, you destroyed me. I have never been the same after it. And now I don't know what to do because you're with Declan when you should have been mine!"

"Then stop challenging me like all I am is a game to you!"

"A game?" I cupped her slender neck in one of my hands and brushed my thumb across her bottom lip as I leaned closer. "This is not a game. It's not about wanting what I can't have. It's about wanting the girl who makes me feel like I'm touching heaven. It's about wanting the girl who makes it easier to breathe because she looks at me like I'm something more than I am. It's about needing the only girl who has made me believe that I deserve something as beautiful as her even though I know I can only ruin her."

"Will you stop?" she begged, forcing her words over mine. "Why are you so hard on yourself? Why do you always say things like that? From that first night it has torn at me that you think so little of yourself. If you could only see what I see!"

"I do," I responded quickly. "When I'm with you."

Her shuddering breath washed over my thumb, and I made another sweep across her lip.

My body was vibrating from keeping myself from her, from keeping myself from what was mine. "Should've been mine," I whispered, reminding us both that she belonged to someone else. "Letting you leave that night was the biggest mistake of my life, but not letting you leave now would be the second. So leave before I start fighting for you in a battle I can't win."

Uncertainty swept over her face again, and her head shook slightly. "Stop pus.h.i.+ng me away," she said, her tone pleading as she leaned closer.

"Aurora . . ."

I was so focused on the girl I'd thought I lost that I didn't hear the footsteps in the sand, quickly getting closer and closer until someone else was right next to us.

"Oh, h.e.l.l no!"

I stood and stepped in front of Aurora in a move so fast that Taylor stumbled backward.

"Kiss my best friend, and you will no longer have the necessary organs needed to reproduce," she hissed at me. Her eyes dropped to where Aurora was now scrambling up beside me, and she pointed to the house behind her. "I could hear you two perfectly from my room. If I could hear you, then Linda's gonna hear you if she wakes up and Kurt stops snoring for five seconds! And Declan was coming out of your room looking for you when I was headed out here to warn you."

Aurora mumbled a worried curse, and Taylor glared at her.

"We are going to have the longest talk when we drive home. As for you." Taylor shoved her hand against my chest, then pointed toward the water when I didn't move. "Declan's putting a s.h.i.+rt on, but if you don't want him to know that you were out here with his girlfriend then you better disappear, like five seconds ago."

My nostrils flared with my rough breaths. Turning to look at Aurora's worried face, I held her stare and spoke softly. "You know you have to be the one to leave."

Everything in me begged her not to go. To give me a reason to fight for her even though I knew it would kill me to do it.

Now that I was on alert, my attention snapped to the house just as the back door shut to see Declan walking across the porch.

None of us spoke as he walked down the beach toward us, but I finally looked back to find Aurora staring at me with the most heartbroken expression. Her eyes broke away just as Declan got close.

"Didn't know we were having a party out here," he said warily.

I laughed quietly and slipped my hand in my pocket to pull out the cigarette when neither Aurora nor Taylor said anything. I held it up briefly and said, "If your girl giving me a verbal beating for smoking is what you consider a party, then welcome to it. Came out to smoke and found her; apparently I didn't know what I was walking up on."

He laughed, and the suspicion instantly left his face. "Ah. Yeah, I think I forgot to warn you, Jent."

I felt like a b.a.s.t.a.r.d for deceiving him so easily.

11.

One Month Ago

Aurora

Once I had water heating up in the kettle the next morning, I turned to grab a mug out of the cupboard. My movements slowed as awareness p.r.i.c.ked at my skin. I didn't have to turn to know he was there, but that didn't mean I was capable of keeping my eyes away from him.

Jentry glanced at the book I'd set on the counter for a few seconds as he walked into the beach house's kitchen, then let his eyes drag over to me. "You're up early." His already husky voice was even raspier this early in the morning. I wanted to hear it again.

"Morning person." I lifted a shoulder in a weak shrug. "I like reading and watching the sun rise."

I glanced over my shoulder to follow him when he walked to the fridge, and fought with words I'd been thinking since we'd all come in from the beach the night before. Jentry and I had left so many things unsaid, and now I didn't know how to approach them.

Talking to him in the dark had been easy, effortless. But with the sky lightening outside, and the kitchen lights on, it all seemed different. I felt exposed.

The door to the fridge shut and he began walking out of the kitchen with a bottle of water in his hand, and I was afraid that if I didn't say something now, I wouldn't get another chance. There would always be someone else with us until we left.

Dropping my eyes to the floor, I asked, "What happens now?"

I listened as his footsteps paused, then he hesitantly came closer. "What do you mean?"

"What happens when you leave? With us," I clarified, and glanced up in time to see his eyebrows rise.

"With us?"

The way he asked made me feel like I'd gotten everything wrong from the night before, but I only had a second to regret bringing it up before he huffed, "Didn't you make your decision last night?"

"What?"

He took another step closer and dropped his voice so it wouldn't carry throughout the house. "When Taylor and Dec showed. You looked terrified that Declan would know what we'd been doing, and you didn't say anything to him or Taylor."

I stared at him blankly for a few seconds. What had he expected me to say? "You had just shaken up everything I thought I knew, Jentry. I had just been on a roller coaster with you, and suddenly my boyfriend was coming out to look for me. Everything happened so fast and I froze. And don't forget that you tried to get me to leave again."

"Because no matter how much I want this, it is eating at me to even think about it. I told you, it would be entering a fight I can't win. None of us will win. Not when Declan and I are as close as we are. We may not be blood, but he is my brother."

"You think I haven't already thought of that? Haven't thought about what would happen to the two of you? But we will still lose, Jentry. When this weekend ends, you and I still know things that change everything. Do you know that I've felt like I was betraying him our entire relations.h.i.+p because of you? Because you're-" I cut off with a rough exhale.

Jentry's dark eyes filled with want and need. His voice dropped when he demanded, "I'm what?"

Heat rushed to my cheeks, and I wished I could take those words back.

He took the last step between us and pulled me close to him. "I'm what, Aurora?" His mouth went to my ear, and regardless of the way my mind shouted at me that someone could walk in, my head rolled to the side. Goose b.u.mps covered my body when his lips brushed against my skin. His tone was low and seductive when he asked, "When you scream, whose name is on the tip of your tongue?"

A s.h.i.+ver raced down my spine and I gripped his s.h.i.+rt in my hand.

His fingers dug into my back possessively, but his lips ghosted along my neck.

Hard and soft.

"When you beg for more, are you wis.h.i.+ng it was me instead?"

My voice was as soft as a breath, as though my mind knew I shouldn't respond, and my soul rebelled against it. "What do you want me to admit that you don't already know?"

"f.u.c.k, Aurora," he growled, and leaned back enough to look into my eyes for long seconds. "Tell me you don't think of that night, so I'll stop."

"You know I can't."