Rahul was following where she led. The minute he realised that, he resisted.
She gave him a wary look. “Come on. Just sleep for a while.”
Everything about him rebelled at the thought. “Can’t sleep.”
“Rahul, please. I’m worried about you.”
“Can’t sleep.” Why? He couldn’t remember. Felt wrong. Felt like a very bad idea.
“You don’t need to worry.” She hesitated, then reached for him. Put her hand on his shoulder, her dark eyes meeting his. “I’ll stay with you, if you want.”
“I…” I what? He didn’t know. He felt as if something inside him had been burned away, destroyed until only numb remains were left. There could be shards of glass scratching at his soul, and he’d barely feel it. The knowledge of the disconnect was worse than the disconnect itself. Nausea shook him.
Maybe she could tell, because her hand moved to his face. “Rahul—”
“Don’t,” he gritted out, catching her wrist. Today of all days, he couldn’t take an ounce of that casual tenderness. Couldn’t behave as though it meant less than it did. Couldn’t pretend she was just Jasmine to him when she was everything to him. Not today.
The flash of devastation across her face lasted less than a second, but it was imprinted on his brain like the ghost of lightning across a dark sky. The sight angered him. The fact that she schooled her expression so quickly angered him too. How dare she care so fucking much when he was the one doomed to hunger and thirst without end? And why the fuck did she always have to hide?
Shit. He wanted to be angry, and he knew it, and she didn’t deserve it, so he released her and turned his back.
“I need to be alone,” he managed, his voice hoarse. He stared at the view from his bedroom window, the way cheerful, out-of-season sunlight poured through the glass, and tried to feel something other than his crumbling heart.
Didn’t work. The sunlight faded and he saw his father’s face.
“Alright,” Jasmine said, her voice calm. Steady. Utterly devoid of the reaction he’d secretly wanted. He wished she’d give him a reason to scream at her, or a way to scream at the gods, or a brick fucking wall to act as a substitute. He wished she’d give him something because right now he had nothing.
She left on quiet footsteps and he pulled off his glasses and moved closer to the window. Now the sunlight was just molten honey and the city below was living colour. He still saw his father’s face, clear as day. Rahul stared, traced the familiar contours and wrinkles and shadows in his mind with a dangerous sort of love. The sort that belonged more to an adoring child than a grown man, and the sort that might destroy him because now it was lost. He realised all at once that he was crying.
He allowed it.
It did not make him feel any better. It only made time slow and sticky, made his head ache and his mouth dry. It only made him wish that his mother and his sisters were standing in front of him, so that he could examine each one as if testing a jewel and declare them 100% real. Alive. Safe. Still a part of the world with him.
He hadn’t been ready for this. No-one had ever died before.
As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Rahul realised how nonsensical it was. But he couldn’t shake it.
No-one has ever died before.
When his thirst became unbearable and his head pounded and his body shook, Rahul dragged himself off to the kitchen. He needed to move anyway. He needed to punish his idle muscles, to tear them all apart until they matched the state of his mind—but first he needed water.
When he saw Jasmine, she was just a moving shape in shades of earth and night. He hadn’t picked up his glasses. He knew her anyway.
“You’re still here.” His voice sounded as dead as the autumn leaves outside. As dead as his father.
The sound of a running tap was cut. Her movements stilled. Then she said, “Of course I am. I was just giving you space.”
“I told you to leave.” I want you to stay.
“I can’t leave you alone,” she said, but her voice was shaking. “You’re… you shouldn’t be left alone.”
He’d forgotten, only now he remembered, that Jasmine didn’t take rejection well. In fact, she didn’t take it at all. She should have stormed from the flat when he’d asked her to, and never returned. She should’ve abandoned him and time should’ve passed and his heart should’ve stopped beating and he should have turned to stone.
Fuck. He shouldn’t feel like this. People died every day.
As if in punishment for the thought, his legs gave out without warning. Rahul slumped against the wall. His father did not die every day. He hadn’t even died today. He’d died three days ago, at the breakfast table, with no warning at all, and Rahul had been just fine. He’d held his mother and comforted his sisters while Jasmine handled details that his mind, for some reason, hadn’t been able to focus on.
Now he found himself sliding to the floor, and Jasmine—Jasmine was holding him. The kitchen tiles were hard beneath him and her arms were tight around him, keeping him together. She settled in his lap where she belonged and held his head to her chest, and he was crying again but his cheeks were dry. He must’ve run out of tears.
“Oh, my love,” she murmured. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He looked up at her with eyes even blurrier than usual, dry and burning. He tried to think in a straight line and failed. He wanted to kiss her but if it wasn’t fucking perfect he might just die himself.
He felt his own hands pushing up her skirt, clumsy and insistent, yet he didn’t really feel it at all. She let him, her hands cupping his cheeks, her gaze steady on his face, simple and assessing. Even when he fumbled with his own trousers. Even when he freed the erection he didn’t understand, because he wasn’t aroused at all—he simply wanted more of her, all of her, touching him—she didn’t say a word.
He pushed her back onto the floor. She’d pushed him onto the floor, once.
When he settled over her, she was soft beneath him. Her arms tightened around him, and he reached between their bodies and pushed at her underwear—
And she whispered, “Are you sure?”
Sure. Sure. He was sure of very few things in life, and one of them was gone. And one of them was Jasmine Allen.
She hadn’t left. Would she ever?
All of a sudden he actually saw her. She wasn’t wearing any makeup and her hair was pulled back tight in just the way she hated. Because she’d covered it for his father’s funeral. She was biting her lip and watching him with wide and worried eyes, and his cock rested against the soft folds of her sex.
He squeezed his eyes shut, opened them again. “You’d give me this?”
“I will give you anything you need,” she said, “because your heart is breaking and I want to fix you. Is this how I fix you, love?”
He shook his head. Suddenly and sickeningly did not know himself. “I…” He sat up, pulled back. Looked down at his bare cock with dawning horror and then shoved it back into his underwear. “Fuck. I’m sorry, Jasmine. I’m sorry. Oh, shit. What the fuck am I—”
“Don’t make a fuss,” she said.
Her tone was firm enough to cut through the clamour of his thoughts. She pushed her skirt back into place, and then she gently moved his shaking hands away from his own fly and took over. Zipped and buttoned him up until he was quite respectable again.
She stood and held out a hand. “Let’s have some tea.”
As if in a trance, he took her hand and rose. She led him to the kitchen table. She made the tea. He drank it scalding hot and it burned all the way down. She smiled at him with gentle approval, as if he hadn’t just tried to fuck her on the cold floor.
He tried to smile back and he tried not to love her.
He failed so fucking badly.
20
Now
“So,” Tilly whispered. “Are you guys, like… together now?”
Jasmine almost choked on her tea.
Thank Christ Rahul was in he
r bedroom—not her bedroom at his flat, the place she’d decorated after their trip to IKEA weeks ago. The place that felt like home.
No; he was in her bedroom here at Tilly’s, casting a skeptical eye over every fucking inch of the furniture, the paint job, the flooring. Not to mention taking a close look at the light fitting. Jasmine had gotten bored and left him to it.
She was starting to regret that decision. Because now Tilly was leaning against the kitchen counter, her artfully filthy fingers wrapped around a Wedgwood teacup as if it were a Greggs coffee, her eyes boring into Jasmine’s.
“Um… no. We’re not together.” We’ve just been doing everything together. Details, darling.
Tilly looked almost comically disappointed. “But he’s so hot. I thought if you stayed with him…” She trailed off hopefully. “You really haven’t fucked?”
Oh, Lord, had they fucked. Everywhere. In every way. Over and over again. Only, under Tilly’s eager gaze, she was starting to feel uneasy about that fact.
“No,” she lied smoothly. “You know I don’t fuck my friends.”
The rule existed for good reason. Several reasons. Relationships of any kind were hard enough, stressful enough, without complicating categories. She had to keep the many sides of herself separate, distinct, because being everything all at once was a little too close to being herself.
And being herself was dangerous, because when things ended or people left—and they always did—she’d start to feel like she was to blame. Like they’d left because she wasn’t enough, or because she was somehow repellent.
And if that happened, she’d have to waste valuable time writing therapeutic diary entries and giving herself pep talks in the mirror and drinking entire bottles of gin just to feel human again.
Tilly took a dainty sip of tea and shot Jasmine a surprisingly direct look. “Fucking your friends isn’t the same as having a boyfriend, though.”
“Good thing I don’t have a boyfriend.”
The sound of Rahul’s steps down the hall had Tilly’s mouth snapping shut. She straightened up and smiled as Rahul entered the kitchen, her gaze going from direct to flirtatious in seconds. Jasmine was arrested by the disturbing urge to throw her tea in Tilly’s face.
Rahul paused in the doorway, looking slightly unsettled to find both women staring at him. “Hi,” he said finally, moving into the room. “Everything looks good in there.”
“Of course it is!” Tilly giggled. Did she always giggle? Jasmine couldn’t remember. A large part of her brainpower was currently being taken up by the little triangle of soft, golden skin at the base of Rahul’s throat. Maybe she’d kiss it later.
In the week since their trip to Lucky’s and their odd nighttime confessions, not much had changed. Which was good, because changing perfect would always be a downgrade.
But the date she was due to leave had loomed large, like a deadline neither of them could acknowledge. And now it was here. Tomorrow, she’d be packing her shit and returning… home. Home, which wasn’t Rahul’s flat, no matter how much her heart seemed to disagree.
Suddenly she was sick of her tea. She looked down into the cup and found the mellow, brown liquid more disgusting than enticing. Vodka would be good right now, but she didn’t want to ask for it.
Setting her cup down with a sharp click, she said, “Rahul and I have to go.”
Tilly blinked. “You do?”
“Yes. We lost track of time. We have a very important professional engagement.” With that utter nonsense, Jasmine stalked across the room.
Her confusion clear, Tilly called, “I thought he was an accountant?”
“Yes!” Jasmine said brightly. “He’s my accountant! Got to dash.” She grabbed Rahul’s arm and flashed him a glare that she hoped said, Get that look off of your face and go along with it.
Maybe he picked up on the silent message, or maybe he was just used to her nonsense. Either way, he gave Tilly a confident smile and a little wave. “So sorry to rush off. We’ll see you tomorrow!”
That just made Jasmine pull him harder. Because they’d see Tilly tomorrow when they brought all of Jasmine’s things so she could move back here.
She really, really didn’t want to move back here. And that knowledge lodged in her throat because the feeling was so fucking intense, and she couldn’t possibly mistake the reason why.
She didn’t want to leave Rahul.
Which was ridiculous. She wasn’t leaving him. They’d never lived together before and it had never felt like a problem, and nothing had changed—
Liar. Everything’s changed.
Nothing had changed. She yanked him through the front door and into the poorly-lit corridor, towards the stairwell. The lifts in this place always smelled like piss. She latched onto that fact, tried to convince herself that she’d miss Rahul’s half-decent building instead of his constant presence, but that wasn’t true at all, was it? All of a sudden, all she could see was his smile, and his face when he came, and the way he looked when they played poker and he tried—and failed—to bluff, and—
“Jasmine.” He’d been following along as she dragged him, but when they reached one of the platforms in the stairwell he pulled her to a halt. She snapped around to face him, and Christ, he was so…
She was doomed.
“What’s wrong?” He asked softly, his hands taking hers. He pulled her close, and she should have resisted but she couldn’t.
Oh, dear.
“I…” What the hell was she supposed to say? I think I’m unreasonably attached to you? I should’ve known you’d have a magical dick?
She wasn’t even sure his dick was the problem. And anyway, she was overthinking, panicking over nothing. They’d never said it had to end when she moved out. They’d never said it had to end at all. So she’d go home, and he’d be a quick, Friday night fuck like everyone else she’d ever been with, and it would be fine.
Except it wouldn’t, because he wasn’t like everyone else. He belonged to her. When it was over, she couldn’t just forget she’d ever known him.
Over.
“Are we done?” She asked, the words rushed.
He frowned down at her. “Done?”
“You and me. I mean—this. Whatever we’ve been doing together, are we—”
His hands tightened around hers. “No. And if that’s what you want, you’ll have to say it. Because I’m not giving you an excuse.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she blurted out. “That’s not what I want.”
She had no idea how she felt about anything else, or what she did want, but her mind was being very fucking clear about this. She didn’t want to give up Rahul. Ever.
He seemed to relax, as if he’d been holding his breath. “Okay. So what’s upsetting you? Because if you think that’s what I want, you’re way off.”
She chewed on her lower lip. “I am?”
“You are.” He raised a hand to her face, his touch as gentle as his eyes. The harsh fluorescent light glinted off his glasses.
She wanted to take them off, but that felt too intimate for an already painfully intimate moment. The odd, creeping embarrassment was here again, the hot, prickling feeling she could never quite get a handle on.
“Listen,” he said softly. “I know you live here for a reason. And I know we’ve talked about this before, but… Well, I suppose I’m coming from a different angle now. Jasmine… I don’t want you to move out.”
Her pulse thrummed loudly in her ears. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I like living with you. And I don’t like you living here.” He gave the grimy stairwell a dark look. “But you know that anyway. You can live with me, and pay rent if you really want to, and stay in your own room.” He smiled at her, sexy as always. “But you’re welcome in mine, if you want to do that. It’s up to you.”
She nodded slowly. Trying to process over the beating of her heart.
But his eyes lit up, and he said, “You want to stay?”
What? No.
She shook her head frantically, then realised she’d spoken aloud when his face fell. Wanted to fix it, only she’d never been good at fixing things. “I mean—I’m just thinking. How would that work? What would that mean?”
He watched her carefully. “Mean?”
“If we kept doing… this.” She didn’t know what to call it. Every word that came to mind seemed either horribly wrong, or absolutely terrifying.
He didn’t look horrified or terrified. His smile was slower this time, but he spoke with confidence. “You’re asking me what it means if we sleep together, hang out together, live together—”
Well, when he put it like that.
Her throat tightened. It sounded painfully obvious, and also completely impossible, because she was Jasmine Allen. She’d never had a boyfriend or girlfriend or theyfriend, not in her entire life. Not even when she was just a silly kid and all the other girls in her class were playing those kinds of games. She’d known what she was cut out for, and this wasn’t it.
“Most people would probably call that dating,” Rahul said.
She dropped his hand and stepped away. “I don’t do that.”
“I know.” His tone, his words, his gaze—they were all calm. Too calm, as if he were hoping to soothe her. Well, fuck that.
“You know I don’t do that,” she said, “and you know why.”
“No,” he said quietly. “I don’t.”
“You do. I’ll fuck it up. I’m fucking it up right now.”
“No you’re not.”
“Yes I am.” Her voice came out louder than she’d intended. She’d been backing away from him, she realised, as if he were a threat. Her head bumped into the cold, dirty wall of the stairwell. That summed it up perfectly, really; she’d press herself against filth to escape the perfect man.
“Jasmine. Come here.” He held out his hand. “We don’t have to talk about this now. You don’t have to think about this now. I shouldn’t have—”
“Why?” She blurted out. As soon as the word left her lips it grew, swelling between them, its presence oppressive.
“Why what?” He asked, slow and careful.
Wanna Bet?: An Interracial Romance Page 19