Burn for You

Inside my head was the sound a freight train makes when it slams on its brakes, then topples off the tracks, spilling its load of munitions and poison gas, which promptly explode in an enormous orange ball of flame, scorching the earth and destroying all life in a fifty-mile radius.

Clearly for Bianca, this wasn’t the start of something deeper between us. This was the itch that needed to be scratched before it could be forgotten. This was the annoying, tickling pressure that had built to the point where it could only be relieved with a reflexive action, like a sneeze.

Bianca was going to sneeze me out of her system. She’d told me flat out, “it would be a good idea if we got it out of our systems.”

And I’d gone and fallen in love with her. What a fool.

“Right,” I said, shuttering my eyes.

She examined my expression for a moment. “What’s that face you’re making? I don’t recognize that face.”

This is what heartbreak looks like. “Nothing,” I said flatly. “I’m fine.”

She pushed me in the chest so hard I flopped onto my back. My eyes flew open in surprise. I grunted as she threw herself on top of me.

“No!” she shouted. “No, you don’t get to do that after you were just inside me not even five minutes ago! You do not get to be all weird and withdrawn and noncommunicative, do you hear me? Talk!”

She jabbed me in the chest with her finger. Glaring down at me with her dark hair wild all around her face and her eyes blazing black fury, she was a little bit terrifying.

But I was madly in love with her, so I had to tell her the truth. “I told you once wouldn’t be enough,” I said gruffly. It sounded like an accusation.

“So? And?”

It was a challenge, which pissed me off.

“So,” I snapped, “you fucking seduced me!” Her eyes flared in outrage, but I was only getting started. “And now you’re telling me this weekend is all I’m getting! And I already told you I didn’t want to fuck this up! So now it’s too late because it is fucked up because I won’t be able to have you just once and I’m going to go fucking insane trying to keep my hands off you now, because to you this was only sex but to me it was a lot more, and you told me I was beautiful!”

I roared it into her face with so much force her hair fluttered back from her cheeks. I stared at her, panting, enraged, all the tendons standing out in my neck.

Then her eyes softened and she smiled. “Oh, Jax,” she said tenderly. “We’re going to have to do something about that temper.”

She took my face in her hands and kissed me.

I was completely confused.

“Kiss me back!” she demanded when I remained frozen beneath her.

I sputtered, “Are you having some sort of psychotic break I should be aware of?”

She sighed and tucked her face into the space between my neck and shoulder, snuggling closer to my body. “You conveniently forgot about the ‘ten or twenty times’ part of our conversation, Beastie.”

When I remained stiff and unresponsive, she sighed again. “And the part where I asked if that would all be in one day and you said you’d need a lot more time than that?”

When I still didn’t say anything, she tapped me impatiently on my sternum. I turned my head and looked at her. She was smiling up at me indulgently, like I was a giant, fussing baby.

“I’ll be very clear, since you seem to be having trouble processing what I’m trying to say.” She cleared her throat, becoming businesslike. “Mr. Boudreaux. When I said we were having a sex weekend, I didn’t mean we were only having a sex weekend.”

All the breath left my body in an audible rush. I put my hand over my eyes to hide my relief.

More gently, she said, “I’m not putting any rules on this. When I said sex didn’t have to change anything, that was the truth. I hope it doesn’t make things awkward when we get home if—if—one of us decides it’s better to remain friends. Seeing as how this is a business deal and all.”

I couldn’t help myself. I growled.

“I know,” she whispered. “It’s an odd situation. For us both, obviously. But if it even has a chance to work out, we have to promise to be completely honest with each other.” There was a long pause. “And I was being honest when I said I thought you were beautiful. So. There’s that.”

After I corralled my stampeding emotions, I griped, “You’re not so bad yourself.”

She burst out laughing. “Such flowery, romantic words! Oh, I’m overcome!”

I rolled her onto her back, pinned her down, and kissed her all over her face as she laughed and laughed and my heart expanded like a balloon.

The problem with balloons is that at some point they have to either deflate or burst.

After I brushed my teeth and changed into clean clothes, I left Bianca dozing in my bed and went downstairs to find my parents.

They were eating breakfast in the solar off the kitchen, a large, sunny room with a glass ceiling to let in the light, the noisy chatter of my mother’s caged songbirds coloring in the air. I stood outside the doorway for a moment, watching them, a band of steel tightening around my chest.

What had Bianca told them? And would it change anything?

My father looked up and saw me standing there before my mother did. His face transformed. “Jackson,” he said, smiling. “Good morning.”

My mother looked up, slowly set her fork down onto her plate, and blinked, gazing at me like she’d never seen me before.

All in all, it was unsettling.

I walked stiffly to the table. My father stood. I cleared my throat, awkward words of greeting on my tongue, but he canceled that plan when he opened his arms and grabbed me in a bear hug, squeezing tighter than a man in his seventies should be capable of.

“Son,” he said, his voice choked. “Oh, son.” He gave me a good, hard shake. “It’s so good to have you home.”

Wide-eyed, I looked over his shoulder at my mother. She was dabbing at her eyes with her napkin.

My father released me and clapped me so hard on the back I almost pitched forward. I caught myself in time and took refuge in a chair, where I sat looking between the two of them with trepidation. My mother reached over and grasped my hand. A miracle.

A servant deposited a glass of orange juice on the table in front of me. “Breakfast, sir?”

I waved my hand, and the servant melted away. I couldn’t deal with food right now, but the orange juice was too great a temptation, so I chugged it.

“We owe you an apology,” said my father, instantly prompting me to choke.

He had to pound me on the back several times before I was able to catch my breath, and even then I wasn’t able to speak, only stare at him in watery-eyed, gasping disbelief.

“Oh, now don’t gimme that face,” he said, snapping his napkin over his lap. “You’re not innocent in all of this, either! You never even told us we had a grandson!”

The sound that came out of me wasn’t technically a word, but my father snorted like I’d disagreed with him.

“Yes, Bianca told me you adopted Christian’s son, and I’m damned pissed off that you’d keep that from us! You know how much your mother wants grandbabies! And you could’ve told me what really happened with Cricket—it would’ve saved us years of grief!”

He looked at me, stricken. “Not that it was anything like what you probably went through, of course. I didn’t mean that. Only . . . well, shit, Jackson. You never gave your mother and me a chance to be there for you. You just disappeared, and when Rayford found you, he wouldn’t tell us anything, either, and we never saw either one of you again! It was like the two of you went into the witness protection program!”