Page 66 of The Plus One
All things good were fleeting, and he already missed her, knowing this would be a happy blip in his endless path of numbness. He missed her with a bright and sharp type of pain, one that had teeth and gnashed its jaws in his chest even though she was right there with him.
Because Jude knew.
He knew his finicky brain and his stained past would always keep him painfully separated from her. He’d been witness to too many awful things to ever be with her the way she deserved.
And Jude, who’d been damming up countless emotions for so long, felt them all at once.
He tore his mouth from hers, locking her curious and tempting hands in his grip. “I can’t,” he gasped out.
“What?” Indira asked, shooting him a confused smile that turned into something deliciously wicked as she rubbed her pelvis against his erection.
“I can’t,” he repeated, finding his last fragment of self-restraint and lifting her off him. “We can’t do this.”
Indira blinked rapidly, eyes still glazed but smile falling.
“But we—You—I—” she stuttered out, her cheeks turning a dusky red. “What did I do wrong?” she finally managed, unable to meet his gaze.
Jude raked his hands through his hair. “It’s not you,” he said, his breaths still coming in near-painful pants.
Indira made a small noise somewhere between disbelief and embarrassment.
“It’snot,” Jude said, reaching over and holding her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting her head to meet his gaze. “I promise.”
“Then what is it?” she asked, her eyes glistening.
She looked so vulnerable like that, with her shirt off and cheeks flushed, her face destroying him with its open vulnerability. And he wished he had words. He wished he could get his brain to work so he could articulate everything he felt. That she was the most tempting thing he’d ever seen. That her moans made him weak. The heat of her body drove him out of his mind with wanting.
But he also wanted to tell her how little he trusted himself. That he didn’t know if the smallest thing would set him off, take him out of a moment and back to that place where the past and the present merged into a waking nightmare. He wanted to explain that he didn’t deserve sex and he was too broken for intimacy.
“It’s…” He swallowed once. Twice. The words almost there. “It’s not you,” he repeated weakly, moving away from her.
“Wait. No no no no no,” Indira said, scrambling onto her knees. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Jude asked, absolutely frozen by her wide, copper eyes.
“Don’t crawl back into that brain,” she said, reaching up and gently placing her hands on his cheeks. “Don’t retreat. You’ve already come so far. Stay with me. Please. We don’t have to do anything, but don’t leave me.” She placed a kiss to the center of his forehead.
“I’m not… I don’t…”
“Jude,” she said softly, moving her arms to wrap him in a hug. “Talk to me. Say anything. I promise no matter what you tell me, you can’t screw this up.”
A cold, bitter laugh escaped from his throat. “This,” he spat out, putting his hands on her hips and moving her off him again, then pushing to stand, “doesn’t exist. It can’t.”
“I refuse to accept that,” Indira said, standing too. She seemed to register that she was topless, and crossed her arms over her chest, looking around. Her bee costume was the only option, and she bundled it up in her arms, a gigantic fluffy shield. The absurdity of it all made Jude almost laugh, but the pain etched around her eyes cut him straight to the core.
“This is real,” Indira said, her voice level and powerful. “Whatever this is between us is real and it hurts and it’s beautiful and it matters. And I won’t let you deny that. You deserve happiness, Jude.Ideserve happiness. And I think we can have that. Together.”
Happiness? Indira thought he deservedhappiness? Jude could say, unequivocally, he did not deserve anything close to happiness.
“Don’t you get it?” he shouted, turning on her. “Ican’tdo that. I can’t doanythinganymore. I can’t think. I can’t sleep. I don’t feel anything but numbness or anger or fear. I can’t trust myself to have sex with you because I’m scared I’ll hurt you. Because that’s what I do. I hurt people and break things and taint every single thing I touch. And I can’t do that to you, Dira. I can’t risk anything happening to you because you matter too much. You’re too important to me.”
His chest was heaving, his eyes wild as he stared at her. Indira was still. Incredibly still. But Jude didn’t sense her fear like he should. Instead, he could almost hear her thinking.
“For fuck’s sake,” he said. “Do us both a favor and leave me alone.”
That was when he meant to leave. When he fully intended to turn on his heel and walk up the stairs to his room.
But he didn’t.
