(Blood and Bone, #1) Blood and Bone (27 page)

My cheeks light up. “Oh, I don’t cook. My neighbor cooks, but she’s diabetic and can’t eat much of anything she makes, so she leaves it here. She knows I eat like a horse.” I’m an idiot. I can take down an entire cartel alone and sharpshoot like I invented it, but I can’t talk to him without saying ridiculous things.

He grins. “I like girls who eat.” He scowls, and I imagine we are suddenly on the same page, the uncool page. He clearly regrets saying it and tries to fix it. “I mean, instead of girls who pretend they don’t eat, or go to the bathroom. You know, they always look too perfect, too skinny.”

It makes me laugh as he somehow ends up digging a larger hole. “I know what you mean.” I step back, letting him come into my town house.

He closes the door, leaning against it and smelling the air around us. “Wow, what is that? Chicken Parmesan?”

I nod, mystified at his ability to smell things and guess so accurately. I thought only I could do it. “Yeah, she knows it’s my favorite.”

He nods. “I love it. My mom always makes it extra saucy so I can drag my bread through it.”

I nod. “I know. We had this conversation once.”

He smiles, making me lightheaded. “Right, of course we did.” I turn. I don’t want him to see me faint, and I don’t want to gawk, so turning away is the safest option. I grab plates, not sure what to say. At work we talk about work things, and here I don’t want to do that. But I know everything about him. Asking questions about things I know would seem stupid.

“You must be excited the whole Samantha Barnes thing is over.” He goes for the safe option.

“I am. I can’t believe what it turned into—what a nightmare it was.”

“Are you upset they’re pulling the plug tomorrow?”

I shake my head. “No. She needs to be free. That’s the only way.” I don’t want to talk about it anymore, so I don’t say anything further on it.

I dish us both up a heaping serving of chicken Parm over the noodles from the microwave. Mrs. Starling hates that I heat them up in there, but I don’t care. I eat from a box most days. “Do you want to pick wine?” I point at the wine rack in the corner. “It’s all red; I’m a picky wino. I never drink white.”

“It wouldn’t go with chicken Parm anyway. Wow, what a great selection. You must pick up some wine for me next time you’re in an amazing foreign country. You can’t get any of these here.”

It makes me smile, like a moron, but I can’t fight it. I want to buy him wine and make him dinner and see him smile. I want his hands to brush against my cheeks. My stomach aches for it as if my body truly remembers his touches. “I would be happy to. Or you could just come next time, see some of the world. It’s pretty
impressive out there. And we can smuggle as much wine as we want, no pesky customs to deal with.”

He glances at me. “I would like that.”

I carry the plates to the table, noticing the way Binx is rubbing against his ankles. My fingers reach up and pinch my arm, but he’s still there, and my cat is still loving him. He grabs a bottle as I grab the opener and glasses. He opens and pours, giving me a longing stare. I am trapped in his green eyes. The gray is almost all gone. The awkwardness is heavy, but I don’t care. It feels like a now-or-never moment. I need to try to tell him how I feel and what I want.

“I like you, Jane.” He beats me to it.

There are a thousand words I want to say, but I don’t. I sit there like a complete douche and stare. It’s like he’s read my mind.

“I have to confess something. It’s weighing a ton on my chest, and I don’t think I’ll ever have the balls to do it if I don’t do it now.” He looks into my eyes. “I saw inside your file, the one with the triggers and memories you fabricated to take with you. When you said something earlier about how you take things with you, I looked in your personal file to see what your triggers were.”

Nope, he read my file. That’s so much worse. My insides tighten. Fuck! He’s seen behind the curtain. He’s seen my creation of Derek, his alter ego who loves me.

He sits, taking the wine he’s poured and handing me a glass and lifting his. “I just wanted you to know, I looked because I was hoping for some insight into asking a girl like you out.”

My cheeks are on fire from imagining him rooting through my bag—not that I have anything in there, but still.

“I crossed a line, and I know that, but I’m not sorry. I like you, a lot.”

I swallow, lifting my glass to join his. “I don’t know what to say.” It dawns on me I am scared of him. He is the only thing I fear. He is the type of monster that scares me. He’s the kind you marry and you
love forever. He’s the kind who breaks everything inside you when they die and leave you, so it’s better not to be with one of them. One of those real monsters.

“Say you’ll go out with me and you like me back and that you wish I’d kept my greasy fingers off your personal shit. Say you wished I hadn’t stolen your handbag so I had a reason to come over and that you would like me to leave because I am an asshole for being so manipulative.”

I shake my head, whispering, “You swore.”

He smiles. “I swear all the time.”

“You never swear. You say
Jesus
, but it’s more like you’re praying. And you say other Ned Flanders–like swear words.
Gosh diddly dang
and all of that.”

He cocks an eyebrow. “I do not. Who’s Ned?”

“From
The Simpsons
.” I roll my eyes, clicking my glass against his. “I like you back. Stay out of my personal shit, weirdo. I’m glad you stole my purse, and I’m happy you’re here.”

“Then we don’t need to talk about it anymore?”

I shake my head, praying we never have to talk about it again. He drinks, but his eyes are fixed on me. I cut into my chicken, moaning at the perfection of Emily’s cooking. He moans when he bites his too. “Who made this?”

“My neighbor. She’s awesome. The only family I really have in the world.”

He nods, savoring the flavors. “Tell me how you figured out that you needed to take positive memories in with you, even if they were fabricated.”

He’s the doctor behind the science so I tell him, even though I’m sure it won’t be nearly as fascinating as he’s hoping. And all it’s going to do is make me look like a psycho. We both know I am, a little—I wouldn’t have qualified for the program if I weren’t. “When I got inside the first person’s head, my life melded with theirs. I wasn’t
prepared to share so much with a stranger. I know you don’t know me super well, but I don’t like to share. I don’t like talking about things. It makes me uncomfortable, but you can’t go inside without giving something away. Seeing how sad my life was, little orphan Jane Doe, I created a new one. I got Angie to hypnotize me, but I never told her who the real people were who made up the memories. She knew she was my boss in all things. Rory was my partner. But Derek, the delightful doctor I created, was a mystery. I never told anyone who he was.” I narrow my gaze. “How did you know it was you?”

He shakes his head. “I just did. I saw the description of him and knew. I’m from the East Coast but look like I’m from the West Coast. I’m a fitness freak, or whatever you called it. I’m always trying to stay positive. I drive a silver Mercedes.” He glances down. “And I think you must have known, deep down, how I felt about you.”

I swallow hard.

“You must have known subconsciously that I was in love with you.” He looks scared of everything he’s saying. I know I am. My heart races, and my mouth feels like it’s stuffed with cotton balls.

He puts his fork down, no longer looking at me but instead at the table in front of him. He swallows hard like I do and nods, looking brave. That’s the word I would use,
brave
. “When you’re under, I always talk to you, hoping I can reach you on another level and make you see that we should be together.” He sighs. “And now I look like I should be the person on the table, not the doctor.” He lifts his face, pleading with his stare. “I swear, I’m not some creepy pervert.”

“I know everything there is to know about you. I know you aren’t a pervert.” I reach across the table, doing the thing I think I have always wanted to do, and take his hand in mine. I need to be brave like him. “You are the thing that gets me through. I think I hear your voice and know I’m okay. Somehow, you’re able to find me in the dark and make it light for me.”

“Please don’t ever go back in.” He nods, looking at me. “I hate what I made you do. I hate that you go in there and use science I let the military force down your throat. I don’t want you to go in anymore.”

I squeeze his warm hand, sending chills up my own spine. “I won’t. I won’t go back in unless it’s an emergency. Angie says seven is a lot. But you should know, you didn’t make me become what I am. I might have been a candidate in the beginning, but I could have walked away and declined the offer. No one can make me do anything. That’s how I ended up here. I’m a survivor.”

He smiles, and the air clears of the heaviness around us. “I know you are. I know everything about you too. That’s sort of the problem being us, isn’t it? There might actually be such a thing as knowing too much.”

“No, I like that there are no secrets. I don’t like secrets.”

He squeezes my hand back. “I know that too.” He lifts my hand to his lips, pressing his warm mouth to my skin. We sit, frozen this way for a second, not moving but trembling with the next ten steps we both already have planned out.

The moment I move he does too. As I jump up he grabs my body. Nothing is the way I have imagined. It’s better. Our lips slide against one another, our tongues seeking out the loving caress of each other. His hands are firm, rough even. He slams me into a wall; my legs wrap around his waist as he kisses along my neck and cheek until he reaches my mouth. Everything is better. His lips taste like wine, but he kisses in a way that makes butterflies dance inside me. Our hands move in rhythm made by our hearts beating against each other. He lifts me again, carrying me down the hall. I grip him, nodding with my face as he kisses my neck. “This room here.”

He carries me in, laying me back on the bed. I can tell he wants to look down at me and appreciate the moment, but I grab his shirt and drag him down onto my comforter covered in pink roses, my favorite.

The light from the hall is enough to see his body is far better than I imagined it to be. We are naked and writhing against each other, just as I always wished we would.

There is no way I could have been more wrong about every aspect of him. When he’s on top of me, pushing himself inside, I swear I have never felt anything like it. He doesn’t treat me like a gentle creature or pay homage; he’s rough in the right way. He doesn’t quite make love, and that’s the way I like it. He thrusts, lifting my leg higher, so my calf rests upon his shoulder. It’s a steady balance of thrust, pressure, and size, and it brings me to an orgasmic level of joy I couldn’t dream of. We orgasm together, collapsing in a heap of awkward sweat.

He kisses my cheek, whispering into the brush of our skin, “I don’t know if I should apologize or thank you.”

I smile. “Do either and I will murder you.”

“And we can’t forget you actually know how to do it and get away with it.”

“That is a fact you don’t want to overlook.” I turn my face, brushing my lips against his. “Can we just be who we are in this room and forget everything else in the real world?”

He nods. “And make up some story about how we met. Something plain and normal like your cat got out and I found him and we fell in love at first glance?”

“That’s a good story, but who do you plan on telling it to?”

“Just in case we need a backstory one day.” He grins, and I feel it against my lips. His discussing a future “one day,” after we’ve had sex for the first time ever, makes me moan, which in turn makes him laugh. “Did I scare you, Agent Spears? I know how much you like the possibility that one day you might be a normal girl.”

I shove him back. “You’re mean, going for my weaknesses like that.” He ignores my whining and wraps himself around me. I feel his fingers find my scars in the dark. It’s like telling him my secrets,
but with him I never have to explain. I don’t ever have to say the words
My entire family died in a terrible fiery crash
. I lived, but I lost them in every way. I lost my twin sister, Andrea. I lost my father and my mother. I lost everything in a blink of pain and screaming, but then in a secondary way, I lost them again. When I woke from the coma, after six months, I was a blank slate. I was alone in the world. I was an orphan of the truest kind.

A person can only lose so much before God or whatever force there is shines a light upon him or her. That light for me was an orphanage where I learned how to be me. I learned to be strong, because the nuns were strong. I learned how to be fast, because the mean kids at school were faster. I learned to be cruel in response to cruelty being inflicted upon me by kids from the town where the orphanage was. But I also learned there were comforts in the world, comforts you had to find. The sound of dishes and humming and singing and cooking. Those were good sounds. Rose gardens with pink roses everywhere—those were beautiful places to hide and be alone. Shredding paper in the head nun’s office for fun was a comfort. The smell of shredded paper still makes me smile. The nuns loved us in their capacity and treated us with kindness and grace. They taught us to be good people.

When you lose everything, you are grateful for the little things you find.

His fingers tracing the scar where I lost the ability to ever have children is a little thing. He knows what the scar is, and yet he is making up a backstory to be with me. Maybe it’s only in this moment, maybe it’s for the rest of my life, maybe it’s for a year. It doesn’t matter, because to an orphan like me an hour like this one is something to cherish. And working with people like Samantha Barnes is perspective a person can always use. My parents loved me, I’m sure of that. I’m sure they never meant to leave me behind. And at the very least, they never harmed me. They never left me to kill
myself in a concrete room out of desperation to stop myself from becoming them.

No, my parents and my twin sister were good people.