Whether because of the orgasm or because of Theo’s touch, I sleep peacefully for a few blessed hours before blinking my eyes open again.
He’s awake already—hell, maybe he never slept—and when I lift my head from the crook of his neck, he smiles at me softly. The sadness still lingers in his eyes, just like I’m sure it does mine, but I think he looks a little less haunted than he did earlier.
He tilts my head up a little with a knuckle under my chin, meeting my gaze. “Hey. You okay?”
I nod, and he presses a small kiss to my lips before letting my head drop back down again.
For a few moments, neither of us moves. The smell of his skin is like a drug, better than any fucking anti-anxiety medication out there, and I let myself breathe him in with long, steady inhales.
I don’t know what this means, and I can’t quite bring myself to think too hard about it.
My heart is in rough shape already—I don’t think it can handle the monumental, life-altering truth that hovers just outside of my conscious thought. It’s there to see if I let myself examine it, but I’m too fucked up in the head right now to do it.
One thing I am sure of, though, is that I’m not giving up on Marcus.
Not until I see a body.
Not until I see evidence I can’t deny.
Until that happens, I’ll keep feeding the little scraps of hope that live in my chest, and I’ll do whatever I can to help Ryland and Theo find him. I lived through the night I was shot outside Club 47. So why couldn’t he live through this too?
Those thoughts churn in my head, making me anxious to get up and get moving, to do something.
I shift in Theo’s hold, and he hums in his throat. Keeping his arms wrapped around me, he rolls over to deposit me gently on my back. His face is a little wan and hollowed out as he gazes down at me, but his eyes are warm.
“I’ll let you get up and get dressed,” he says quietly, tucking a lock of my dark hair behind my ear. “I think Ryland slept over, and he’s probably up already. We’ll get some food, then he and I can go over to your place and see if anything is salvageable.”
“I’m coming with you,” I say automatically. It’s a knee-jerk response, out of my mouth before I even think about it, but I mean every word. I bashed my head pretty fucking good when I hit the ground yesterday, but Doctor Adelman cleared me. If there’s nothing seriously wrong with me, I’ll take some painkillers and keep going.
Theo opens his mouth, his brows pulling together in concern, but before he can speak, I add, “I can’t sit around doing nothing. I’ll go fucking crazy.”
He hesitates, understanding washing through his expression. Then he nods slowly. “You’ll have to convince Ryland too. But I’ll have your back.”
“Thanks.”
Theo nods. The fingers that tucked my hair behind my ear linger on my face, tracing the line of my jaw, and I can feel how much he wants to kiss me again. But instead, he pushes the covers back a little and slides out of bed.
There’s a stain on the front of his boxer briefs where his cum soaked through the fabric, and I swear he flushes a little as he adjusts himself. I look away, biting my lip to hide a smile, then watch him move toward the door and quietly slip outside.
Ryland grabbed my whole duffel from Marcus’s house, and it sits next to the bathroom door. I packed some extra stuff, so I’ve got enough clothes to last me for a couple more days in there—although I don’t have my prosthetic arm. I left that at my apartment, and there’s a good chance it melted in the fire.
It doesn’t really matter much. The prosthesis is cosmetic, something I wore when I didn’t want to deal with the looks I got from people as they ogled my stump. It wasn’t actually functional, and I’ve learned to get by just fine with only one hand and part of my right arm.
There’s a cum-stain on the front of my pants too, and something warm flickers in my chest as I shuck my clothes in the bathroom before stepping into the shower again.
I don’t know what that was, and I didn’t expect it—but I think I needed it. And I think Theo did too.
The shower goes quicker this morning than it did yesterday. I don’t need to comb chunks of clotted blood out of my hair, and I’m more coherent this morning than I was then, so I’m a lot more efficient. After I towel off and throw on fresh clothes, I glance at the bloody pile in the corner of the bathroom.
My stomach churns.
Fuck. I need to throw those away.
It hurts to look at them. To wonder how much of the blood on them is Marcus’s and how much is Carson’s.
Shoving that thought forcefully out of my head, I stuff the clothes into the small trashcan that sits under the sink, then carry the whole thing downstairs with me.
Theo and Ryland are in the kitchen, standing at the marble-top island in the middle of the space. They both have cups of coffee in front of them, and their hands are braced on the smooth countertop, their heads bent together as they converse in low voices.
I hesitate in the doorway, still holding the trashcan full of bloody clothes, as I take in the sight of them.
I see it now, more vividly than I ever have—the closeness between them, the way they complement each other and almost seem to share a brain sometimes. It was obvious from the minute I met all three of the men that they had a bond very few
