Jennie

My head lies in Solar's lap as her fingers rake through my hair. She rocks in time to the melody of her unsteady voice. "No one here can love or understand me …" she sings. Her voice wanes to a shaky hum.

I know I've done something I can never take back. Something I would never want to, even though most people would feel regret. But I don't. I feel relieved. I've finally opened the gate where a monster lay rattling its bars on the other side, begging to be freed. Now that it's out, there's no way to close it back in.

And I don't want to.

"My parents will fix this," Solar whispers as she presses a kiss to my hair. "I'll tell them what you did for me. They'll help us. You can come home with me."

My hands are wet. Sticky. I raise them into a sliver of moonlight from the window. They're covered in crimson blood.

When I lower my hands, I see the body on the floor. The artistic director of Ashborne Collegiate Institute.

And my one wish is that he'd rise from the afterlife so I could do it all over again.

"I'll arrive late tonight …" Solar sings, "Blackbird, bye, bye."

"Blackbird," a different but familiar voice says. I surface from the murk of memory and dreams that never let go. When I open my eyes, Lisa is there, sitting on the edge of the bed. Her hand sweeps the hair from my face. "Just a nightmare."

I blink and take in my unfamiliar surroundings. Light spills from the en suite bathroom to illuminate a slice of the guest room, decorated in hues of deep gray and white and pops of yellow that lose their cheerful brilliance in shadow. Moments come back to me from the haze of strong painkillers. Memories of agony as Jay rotated my arm. The pain in Lisa's eyes as she held my hand and reminded me to breathe. The relief of the bone sliding back into place. The way Lisa rested her head next to mine when it was over, as though every moment had carved a deep slash across her heart. When she rose and looked at me, there was both distress and regret in her eyes, and I couldn't tell which one was worse.

And even now, they still linger in her eyes.

"What time is it?" I ask as I sit up a little with a groan. My shoulder aches, but there's a certain comfort in having my arm strapped across my body in the sling.

"Eleven thirty."

"I feel gross," I say as I look down at my leggings and the button-up flannel shirt that I've just slept in for the last few hours. I haven't showered in well over a day, not since the morning of Harvey's house of horrors. It's as though he haunts me through the film that coats my skin.

"Come on." Lisa offers a hand to help me sit. "I'll start you a bath. Might help some of the soreness."

She leaves me at the edge of the bed and heads to the sliver of light, as though she knows I need a minute to get my bearings. I hear the faucet squeak, the water rush into the tub. For a long moment, I just linger in the dimly lit room until I conquer my inertia and join Lisa in the bathroom.

I say nothing as I stop at the vanity to stare at my reflection and try to will the tears away despite the sting in my eyes and the knot in my throat. Deep purple bruises follow the curve of my eyes, the imprint of Harvey Mead's bootprint even more vibrant in my skin than it was when I first saw it in the car. Dried blood still rims the edges of my nostrils. My nose is sore and swollen. Fortunately, however, it's still in the right place. Which is good, because I already look like a fucking dumpster fire and I don't need a broken nose to add to the current shitshow.

"Ready," Lisa says as she switches the water off for the bath. When I don't answer, she comes closer, her reflection drawing to a halt in the periphery. I don't take my eyes from my ruined face. "I'll get Rose to help you."

"No," I whisper. Tears gather on my lash line despite my best effort to keep them at bay. "You."

Lisa doesn't move for a moment that feels stretched thin. When she approaches, she stops behind me, the weight of her gaze so heavy on my reflection that I can feel it through the glass. "Beautiful."

An incredulous laugh that sounds more like a sob escapes my lips. "I look like shit," I say as the first tear falls. I know I shouldn't care as much as I do. It's only temporary. In a few weeks, this will be nothing more than a memory, probably even a funny one. But the problem is, I do care, no matter how hard I try not to. Maybe I'm just tired from the pain and the stress and the hours on the road. Or maybe it's just hard to see that my vulnerability isn't just trapped on the inside. It's staring out at the world in full color. It's staring at her.

"You're beautiful to me," Lisa says. She reaches from behind me to chase the tear from my skin with her thumb. The next pass of her caress follows the swoop of the bruise beneath my eye. "That color right there, how many things can you think of that are that color? It's rare."

She grazes my bruise again, her touch so soft that I don't feel pain. My lip trembles in the mirror. More tears well in my eyes. "Eggplant," I say, my voice tremulous. "It's the worst vegetable."

Lisa's huff of a laugh warms my neck and sends a current through my skin. "It's not. Celery is the worst vegetable."

"But eggplant is mushy."

"Not when I make it. I promise you'd like it."

"I have an eggplant face. That's basically a dick face. A mushy dick face with a Carhartt logo."

Lisa shifts the hair back from my shoulder and lays a gentle kiss on my cheek. I don't have to see her reflection to feel her smile as her lips linger on my skin. "This is not having the intended effect. Let me try again," she says, amusement warm in her voice. Her other arm wraps around me to unclip the first of two buckles for my sling. My wince of pain is met with another kiss. "That color doesn't remind me of eggplant, for what it's worth. It reminds me of blackberries. The best berry, if you ask me. It reminds me of irises. They have the best scent of any flower. It reminds me of night, just before dawn. The best time of day." The other buckle clicks free and I close my eyes against the pain as Lisa slides the sling from my arm.

"But—"

"You're all the best things to me, Jennie. No matter how many bruises are in your heart or on your skin."

When I open my eyes, it's not my marks I see. It's not the swelling or the scrapes or the blood. It's Lisa, her eyes fused to mine, her arm banded across my waist as her other hand traces slow patterns on my skin.

I place my good hand over her, wrap my fingers around her knuckles where scars crisscross over bone. Then I lift her hand away, every nuance of her expression absorbed by my watchful gaze. I guide her fingers to the top button of my shirt and let my hand rest on the tense muscle of her forearm.

No words are shared between us. Just the connection of our eyes in the mirror, one that doesn't waver.

Lisa frees the first button. The second. The third. The fourth is low on my sternum. The fifth reveals my upper abdomen. The sixth the jeweled bar at my navel. Still she holds my eyes as she works the seventh and eighth buttons free. A slice of skin down the center of my body glows in the light that bathes us from above the mirror.

My pulse pounds. I could see it in my neck if I was willing to break my gaze away. But I'm not. I keep holding on as Lisa's fingers curl around one edge of my shirt.

She folds it open, exposing my breast to the warm air. Then she does the same with the other side. And still our gazes remain locked. It's not until I swallow and raise my brows that she finally lets her eyes fall to my body.

"Jesus …" she whispers. "Jennie …"

My flesh is a mess of scratches and bruises, all the marks darker and more obvious than they were hours ago. Her gaze drifts over every inch of my exposed skin as though I'm something precious yet damaged, a broken revelation. It might not be how she expected, but I know she's imagined me like this before, bared and vulnerable to her gaze, her touch. Just like I've imagined her. But it's different to feel it in the heavy silence that stretches between us. I couldn't have expected the way my blood would charge through my flesh, or the way the whole world would shrink to this pinpoint, this moment in a mirror.

Lisa's gaze rests on my throat, her navy eyes nearly black, her pupils consuming the color until only a thin band of blue remains. It traces a line down the center of my body, her attention so slow and deliberate that it feels like a touch against my skin. It flows over the ridges on my sternum. It veers left and slows over my heart. It traces the rose gold piercing encircling my peaked nipple. Gooseflesh rises on my arms and I shiver as her gaze crosses my chest to the other side and the matching piercing on my right breast.

"Something caught your eye, pretty girl?" I whisper.

"Yes," she says, her voice pained. "God, yes, Jennie. All of you."

Lisa drags the shirt down my uninjured arm first, then takes her time to pull it from my swollen shoulder, her eyes remaining steady on the reflection of my body. The fabric falls away and pools at my feet. She takes a deep breath before she hooks her thumbs into the waistband of my leggings and pulls them over my hips. Her fingers wrap around my ankle to raise my foot from the cool tile and tug the fabric free of one leg and then the next. When she rises to her full height behind me, I can see every strained breath in her chest, every thump of her heart as her pulse surges in her neck.

"I need to get my shit together," she mutters, her voice low and gritty, the words not meant for me. She holds out a hand for me and I take it. "Come on. Into the bath before I fucking die."

I drag my feet as she tugs me toward the cloud of white bubbles shimmering in the tub. "Would that mean I'd get an extra win?"

"I'm about ready to forfeit every game, Blackbird," she grumbles. "I don't think we need to go to the extreme of killing me off just yet."

We stop at the edge of the tub. Lisa keeps hold of my good hand as I dip one toe into the warm water. When I take my first step in, I glance up, expecting to catch her focused on the details of my body. But she's not. Her eyes are on mine, a crease notched between her brows as though this whole experience is excruciating.

"You okay?" I ask as I steady myself with her hand and place my other foot in the water to stand in the small tub, my faint smile serving only to deepen her frown.

"Not really."

"You're doing great."

"Shouldn't I be telling you that?"

"Probably."

"Just get in, for the love of God."

"I am in."

Lisa drags her free hand down her face. "How do you still have the energy to take the piss out of me?"

"I always have the energy for that. Your suffering is my number one priority." My smile starts out bright but falters when Lisa's gaze shifts from me to the corner of the room as though she can't bear to keep her attention on my face for a moment longer. "What is it? Lisa …?"

"I've been suffering for four years, Jennie. I'm begging you here. Get in the fucking bath."

My eyes don't stray from her profile as I slowly lower myself into the water. Every inch that I fall, I hope she'll meet my eyes, but she doesn't, as though she suddenly can't. Like she's put herself into a box that wasn't there just a moment ago.

"Technically, three years," I say, trying to resurrect the levity between us as I submerge myself until the bubbles consume my chest, only my shoulders and upper back visible above their diaphanous embrace as I curl forward and hug my knees.

Lisa's long exhalation is unsteady above me. "Four years."

"Harvey's place was three—"

"That was yesterday. That means we're in year four now. And it feels like eighty."

"Okay," I say with a teasing grin that she doesn't see. It takes a moment before she squats down to my level. My gaze is still fused to her, and she still avoids it.

Lisa takes a facecloth from where she laid it out at the edge of the tub to saturate it in the bathwater. She's careful not to touch me beneath the surface. She withdraws the cloth and slides it across my uninjured shoulder to cleanse the grime from my skin with slow strokes, and though I stay perfectly still on the outside, my thoughts churn with the force of a hurricane.

I swallow, still unable to look away from Lisa. My voice sounds small when I say, "So … four years?"

Lisa's eyes darken, their focus snagged on the motion of her hand as she sweeps the cloth across my skin. She doesn't graze me with her fingertips, not even once, despite repeating the motion of the cloth until the water in it cools. "You already know. I told you at Thorsten's."

My heart lurches. Lisa dips the cloth through the cloud of bubbles and into the water, this time grazing my hip in a fleeting touch that might have been intentional. Before I can be sure, the cloth is out of the water and sliding over my spine.

"You … you remember that?"

Lisa doesn't answer. I don't think she will. So when she dips the cloth into the water for a third time, I grab her wrist beneath the surface, and finally her eyes meet mine.

"Hey," I say, my voice gentle. "I'm right here."

"Jennie …" Lisa presses her eyes closed and takes in a long breath as though hoping to wash away the pain. When she meets my gaze, she looks just as agonized as she did a moment ago. "If I touch you again …" she shakes her head. "It took everything in me just to get you undressed without bending you over at the bathroom counter and fucking you until you beg me to stop."

My cheeks pink, but I try on a cocky smile, one that only darkens the agony in Lisa's eyes. "Not sure I see the problem with that idea at the moment."

"You're injured."

"Just my shoulder. And my face. Okay, my ribs are a little sore too, but I'm fine, really. Hazards of the job, right?"

"I need to look after you. It's my fault you're like this. The game was my dumbass idea."

"Hey, do not shade the game. It's the most fun I've had since … maybe ever. As long as I can remember. It's the thing I most look forward to every year," I say, the amusement slipping away from my voice with every word spoken as the truth rises to the surface. "You are the thing I most look forward to, Lisa."

She swallows, her expression a thin veil over whatever conflict is chewing her up on the inside. When she shakes her head, the sting of sudden, restrained tears burns in my nose. Maybe her suffering isn't what I wanted, as much fun as that seemed just a few heartbeats ago.

"I wanted to play," I continue, my voice still sure even though I don't think it will be for long. "I was scared when we started, afraid that I was making a huge mistake. But finding someone who could understand me for all the shattered pieces beneath the mask? I needed that. Before you came along, something was missing. You, Lisa. You were missing. You made it safe to feel seen. Safe to play on our terms. Safe to have fun, even though our fun might not be everyone's idea of a good time."

Her jaw clenches, like it's a struggle to not bite out her next words. "That is the problem, Jennie. It's not safe. It's the farthest thing from it." When I open my mouth to argue, Lisa grasps my chin with her hand to trap me in her stern glare. "I almost lost you," she says, every word punctuated by a pause, as though she's trying to push each one into my head.

"I am right here," I reply in the same cadence. My fingers fold around her, guiding her palm to my heart to lay it flat against the surging beat. "Right here."

"Jennie—"

I've had enough of words.

I close the space between us and press my lips to hers. She stalls with shock and I squeeze her hand where it's still damp and hot on my chest, my tongue a demand against her lips. Let me in. I realize at this moment that I've always been in, in Lisa's thoughts, in her plans, maybe even in her heart, and now it terrifies me that she could suddenly shut me out.

She kisses me back, but it feels tentative, like she's trying to keep me away even though she doesn't want to.

I drag her hand across my skin. Her breath shudders when I stop at my breast, the piercing at my nipple resting in the center of her palm. A conflicted groan escapes Lisa's control. Her hand presses harder to my flesh. But the kiss is still not the same as it was in the barn, not when it felt like we'd escaped one fate to fall into a better one.

So I move her hand. I pull it to my sternum. Glide it down my skin. Let her hand slip into the water, slow and gentle over my navel. I know she likes that piercing too. I could see it in her eyes when she watched me in the mirror.

Our kiss breaks when I keep going lower. Her breath floods my senses, the hint of bourbon a phantom between us. I inhale the scent and trap it in my lungs as my pulse hums in my ears.

I press Lisa's palm to the apex of my thighs and hold it there.

She sucks in a ragged breath.

"Jennie … is that …"

My hand floats away as I let her explore. Her fingers find my clit and the triangle piercing there and I bite down on my bottom lip at the burst of sensation. She then moves down to the symmetrical outer labia piercings where the bars on each side are capped with small titanium balls. By the time she reaches the fourchette piercing, she's nearly vibrating with tension.

"Out of the fucking bath," she growls as she grips my good arm and hauls me to my feet. A wave of water sloshes over the edge of the tub and soaks the bottoms of her jeans, but she doesn't seem to notice.

"But I just got in, as instructed, I might add."

"I don't fucking care."

I give her an innocent smile, one that earns me a sharp and heated glare. "I thought you said you needed to take care of me."

"And that's exactly what I'm going to do."

The moment my second foot is out of the tub and touches the bath mat, she lifts me into her arms. She doesn't give me a towel, doesn't wrap me in anything but her embrace. Fat drops of suds slide from my body and drift to the floor as I soak her shirt.

Lisa yanks the door open with more force than necessary and marches toward the bed.

"But I'm no fucking angel, Jennie."

She sets me down on the edge of the bed and steps away. Her chest strains against her wet shirt with every breath. Arms folded, she glares down at me where I sit, my legs crossed, my good arm clutching the injured one to my body as the water cools my skin.

"Show me," she demands.

My brows hike as my heart tries to spear itself against my ribs. "Show you?"

"You heard me. Get up on that bed and spread your legs and show me."

"I'll make it wet—"

I don't even get my last word out and she's in my face, barely an inch away, her hands bracketed to either side of my hips. "Do I look like I give a fuck? Do you really think I care?"

My skin tingles as though begging for her caress, but I'm sure she knows it, can sense it in every ragged breath that passes my lips. She's careful not to touch me with anything but the fire burning in her eyes.

"I'm done running around this, Jennie. I've wanted you for four years. And you're going to show me what I've been missing."

Lisa doesn't move as I slowly uncross my legs and release my hold on my body to brace myself with my right hand. I slide up farther on the bed and she looms over me, her fists pushed into the edge of the mattress and her eyes hooked to mine until she seems satisfied that I've made it far enough. When I stop in the center of the bed, Lisa stands straight and crosses her arms once more, her jaw clenched.

"Spread your legs, Jennie."

Her eyes stay fused to mine as I let out an unsteady breath. My left heel slides across the mattress, then my right, my knees still bent and my upper body braced off the mattress with my elbow. Lisa's eyes still haven't left mine even though I'm bared to her, as though she's torturing herself, denying herself of her desire to look down.

"Wider."

Heat surges in my core as I shift my legs a little farther apart. An ache builds beneath my bones, an emptiness that begs to be filled. Every demand Lisa makes is fuel, every word incendiary.

"Wider, Jennie. Stop trying to hide from me, because I promise you now, it's not going to work."

I swallow. My legs spread to the point of discomfort.

A beat of time passes before Lisa's gaze unlinks from mine to travel down my body. I feel it in every inch of flesh, the weight of her desire as it travels over me, her thinning restraint like fire beneath my skin. Her attention settles on my exposed pussy as the muscles of her forearms tense.

"The clit piercing. Tell me."

She doesn't look up when I pause. She just waits, watches. "I was eighteen," I say. "It was my second body piercing, after my navel. It hurt, of course, but not as bad as I thought it would. Once it healed, it helped, I think. With orgasms."

"You couldn't orgasm before?"

"I don't know. I didn't have the right … situation … up until that point. But it felt like it gave me control." I remain still as the muscle in Lisa's jaw jumps. Her eyes are dark, hooded. She knows just enough about my past to cement the gaps in her knowledge with her own imagination. "The labia piercings I got when I was twenty. I liked the way they looked. I know they're small, but somehow they remind me of armor. Maybe that doesn't make sense."

"It does," she says as her eyes anchor to mine.

I give her a faint smile that fades in a heartbeat. "The last one, the fourchette, I got that a few months before I met you. It just made me feel more confident. And I thought a partner might like it too."

Lisa's eyes are a lightless void, her voice a deep and gravelly rasp when she says, "Did they?"

My gaze travels across the room to land in the shadows. I don't look at her when I shake my head. "I don't know. I haven't been with anyone since I met you."

Those words are met with silence. They hang in the air. They consume the oxygen in the room. When my gaze lifts from the shadows, it collides with Lisa's and I see it, the exact moment her restraint detonates.

"Why not," she demands.

I shake my head again.

"I told you already. Stop hiding. It's not going to work with me, not anymore. You want this? You want me? Then fucking tell me, Jennie." Lisa's arms unravel from her chest. Her hands lie on my knees, steady on the tremor in my bones to capture the tectonic shift that's cracking me apart. "You fucking tell me, so that you know when I ruin you for all other men, it's what you asked for. Tell me—"

"You," I say. Every breath shudders through my lungs. "I met you. I didn't want anyone else. Just you. I only want you."

There's no amusement or relief in her eyes, only predatory intensity. She looks at me the way a tiger would a lamb.

A meal to be devoured.

The mattress dips as she shifts one of her legs onto the bed and then the other to kneel between my spread calves.

"Remember what you just said when you think you can't possibly come again. Because you will. We've got four fucking years to make up for." Lisa sinks down between my thighs, her calloused palms wrapped around my tender flesh to keep me bared wide open. Every exhalation warms the moisture gathered at my entrance. Her eyes still hold mine from the length of my body, a gravitational pull I can't escape from. "Pick a safe word. Do it now."

I swallow. Hard. "Chainsaw."

Her breathy laugh is a burst of warmth against my core. "How fitting, love. Now be a good girl and find something to grab on to"—she says, then passes one long, slow lick over my center—"because I'm about to destroy you."