Trace suddenly broke, or something broke—it was as if all the frustration, all of what she’d been holding on to—released. And it was like I could physically see Nixon pried from her existence.
In kissing me, she was letting him go.
But she felt too right for me to feel guilty. I knew that the very person she was letting go of was still breathing.
My knee hit the TV remote, turning it on and causing me to jump back and look into her eyes. “Trace?”
She reached for my head, pulling me into another hot kiss. Her mouth crashed against mine. I pulled away slightly. “Trace?”
“What?” she breathed.
Shit, I was going to be that guy, the one that just had to know the truth… “I need to know something.” I played with a piece of her fallen hair and dug my hand into the depths of it as it cascaded through my fingers.
She closed her eyes and rested her head on my hand. “Anything.”
“If he was here, if Nixon was here… would it still be me? Would you be letting me kiss you, and touch you? Would you want this?”
Trace’s eyes opened slowly and then a blush appeared on her face. She slowly licked her lips and squinted. “Chase, that’s not our reality.”
“I can see you letting him go—” I sighed. “You want to. I can feel it. But damn if my curiosity didn’t just ruin everything.” Shaking my head, I rose to my feet. “I still love you. It changes nothing. I guess…” Hell. “I guess I just want it all.”
Her eyes were sad when she lifted her head and sighed. “Me too, Chase. Me too.”
I held out my hand and pulled her to her feet and walked with her down the hall. We didn’t say anything as we both passed each other by and got ready for bed.
I turned the lights off and crawled into my makeshift bed on the floor, placing my gun underneath my pillow.
Yeah, no way was I going to sleep after all that kissing, talking—freaking bleeding my heart all over the place only to find out I’d always be second.
Trace’s breathing became heavy, but my damn eyes wouldn’t close.
About an hour later, as I was contemplating whether or not I should just stay up all night, she stirred.
“No! Don’t!” Thrashing in the bed, Trace let out a whimper. “Please, Nixon. No! No! Don’t leave! Don’t!”
My heart broke. I quickly jumped onto the bed and pulled her into my arms. “Shh, Trace, it’s okay. You’re safe. It’s okay.”
For a moment she tensed and then relaxed into me. “It’s not okay.” Her voice was weak and gravelly. “The only thing that would make it okay would be Nixon still living.” She turned in my arms and kissed me briefly across the lips. “But you’re right.”
It was my turn to tense.
Trace gripped the sides of my face with her hands. “It’s not fair to be second.” Her eyes filled with tears. “He’s gone. You’re here, Chase. You’ve always been here.”
I swallowed.
“You.” She placed a tender kiss on my mouth. “First, Chase. I want you to be first. I choose you.”
Chapter Forty-two
Chase
The moonlight outlined Trace’s tearstained face as she sat in my lap on the bed. “Say something, Chase.”
“Sleep.” I touched my forehead to hers. “We’re both tired and emotional. We’ll sleep and go to lab tomorrow… get you coffee and try to go about life as normal.”
“What about you and me?” Trace outlined my jaw with her index finger. Her eyes were heavy with exhaustion.
“We’ll talk in the morning.” I gently lay down on the bed and held up my arm for her to rest on me. She sighed and laid her head on my chest. Within seconds her breathing had deepened. And I was stuck staring at the ceiling, wondering how the hell I was going to explain to Nixon—that is if he survived—that I had taken from him the one thing he was actually living for.
Sunlight peeked through the windows. Trace’s arm was draped over my chest. I traced little circles along its length, content with merely watching her as she slept, knowing that in my arms she was safe—from everything.
The door burst open.
There was Tex. I thought he’d better have a damn good reason for barging in on us. His eyes scanned the bed and then the floor where I usually slept and then went back to the bed. He swallowed and blinked a few times, still saying nothing, but words weren’t really necessary. He had to know. It was evident from the way we were holding on to one another. Everyone was moving on; damn if it didn’t hurt like hell to keep growing, to keep going.
Tex took a step into the room. “I just wanted to know if you guys wanted coffee. Mo’s making breakfast and… well, it just seemed like it would be nice for all of us to eat together—like we used to before…” His voice trailed off.
Guilt gnawed at me all over again.
But I was unable to say anything to put him at ease. “Sure man, just give us a few minutes, okay?”
“Okay.” He backed out of the room. “If it’s any consolation. I know you love her.”
His words made my hand freeze to a stop. The guilt grew and grew. “I do. I love her.”
“So did he.” Tex nodded and walked out of the room. And I was officially exhausted. I was on borrowed time either way. And so was Trace; she just didn’t know it.
“Hey,” I whispered into her hair. “Sleepyhead, we’ve gotta get up. You’ve got lab with Luca, and maybe I’m too hopeful that you’ll burn down the entire building.”
“I don’t burn things,” came her grumbling response. “What time is it?”
She lifted her head and blinked a few times, as if trying to make the image of my face less fuzzy. The breath hitched in my chest. She was so beautiful. Her golden brown eyes bored into mine as a lock of hair fell across her face. I couldn’t find the words. I seriously felt like an idiot because I was totally gawking at her like I’d just lost my mind.
“Chase?” She squinted. “You all right?”
No. I was dying. Seriously dying inside… How could I go on without her in my life? Knowing what it was like to wake up next to her? To hold her in my arms. The familiar pain streaked across my chest, weighed on me as if I’d just been buried under the ocean.
“Um, yeah, just tired. You snore, by the way.”
She scowled. “You sound like Nixon.”
The room fell silent. I didn’t know what to do to make it better, so I simply shrugged and laughed. “Well, we were more like brothers.”
And shit. It was like I hadn’t actually thought about that until now.
Hell. Cousins with some messed-up parentage that almost made us look like brothers. Both in love with the same girl. Weird, because it was like we shared parents, too, or they shared each other—however you wanted to look at it. There had to be some law about that, or something in the Bible that said you’d be condemned to Hell for coveting your cousin’s girlfriend. The same cousin who technically looked a hell of a lot more like your brother and who your real dad parented. Shit, it was messed up. On the bright side, at least Nixon and Trace weren’t married. Right, because that somehow made it less horrible.
“I’m just going to go shower, okay?” Trace interrupted my dark thoughts and walked over toward the bathroom. I grabbed my stuff and went to the hall bathroom. Within fifteen minutes I was ready to go. I threw on my Eagle Elite uniform, black slacks with a white button-up shirt, red sweater vest, and jacket—and made a beeline for the kitchen. The smell of sausage and eggs assaulted me.
“Hey, Harry Potter, glad you could make it,” Tex called from the table.
“You’ve been saving that one for four years, haven’t you.” I shook my head. “Lame, and this looks nothing like Harry Potter. Don’t be an ass just because you don’t have to go to class on Thursdays.”
He smirked.
I snatched a glass of orange juice and sat down.
Mil was reading the paper in the corner, still in her pj’s. “Your eye’s healing up,” she pointed out without actually looking up from the paper.
“No thanks to you.” I snatched a piece of toast. “I’m lucky I survived.”
“Survived what?” Mo asked from the kitchen and then looked at me. “Holy crap! What happened!”
“People really should learn not to drink and walk at the same time.” This from Tex.
Glaring at Tex, I answered Mo. “Apparently, I fall on tables and shit.”
“You should be more careful.” Mo put a plate of food in front of me.
“Right,” I answered. “I’ll be more careful next time I’m around tables named Mil.”
“Huh?” Mo asked.
“Nothing.” Mil smiled sweetly at my sister and then sent me a seething glare. I smiled and took another bite of toast.
“Oh my gosh, that smells amazing.” Trace walked into the kitchen and immediately I started choking.
“Dude, chew your food.” Tex patted my back and handed me a glass of water but I waved him off. Water wouldn’t help. I needed freaking CPR.
Beautiful. Damn, she was so incredibly beautiful that it hurt to look at her. Her soft brown hair was in a high ponytail and for the first time in two days her uniform looked ironed, clean, perfect on her body.
And the killer?
The part that had me ready to jump out of my chair and slam that perfect girl into the wall and kiss her senseless?
She was wearing the boots.
My boots.
The ones I gave her.
I smiled as she stuck out her leg for approval.
With a wink in my direction she grabbed a plate from Mo and took a seat next to me. The smell of coconut wafted off of her and into my airspace. I was starved for it. I leaned closer to her and placed my hand on her bare knee.
We ate with the rest of the group.
Things were almost normal.
Except they weren’t. Which I was reminded of the minute I opened the door to go outside, only to find every single one of the men I had placed to guard the house—gone.
“What the hell?” I dialed my father’s number. We needed those men to get us to school without anyone seeing Trace. My father would have been the only one who suspected she was dead and I was taking a huge risk by even allowing her to go about life.
We needed a driver. And we needed to be able to sneak her in and out of classes, not because a college education was that important but because Nixon had specifically said to go about life as did Luca. Besides, the last thing we needed was for Tony to show up at the house now that my men were missing. School was probably the only place he wouldn’t go snooping around.
The phone rang and rang.
Finally my father picked up. “Chase, I’m a bit busy right now.”
“My men,” I barked into the phone. “Where are they?”
“Son, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Right,” I snorted. “Let’s try this again. You work for me. I’m your boss. If I don’t have my men back within the hour I will personally drive my ass over to your house and slam my fist into your head. Got it?”