Sofia unsnapped the leash and let Tish wander. It felt so strange to be in this place without her great-aunt.
But at least she wasn’t alone.
“Just got this new door up for Luz a few weeks ago,” Burke said, pointing to an interior door in the hall. “It fell right off its hinges, narrowly missed bopping her on the head when it went down.”
“You helped her around the apartment?”
“Yeah, whenever she let me. Stubborn as fuck, Luz was.” He scratched his temple, let his hands fall to his sides. “I’m sorry she’s gone, Sofia.”
“You told me that already.” Sofia walked with him back through the kitchen to the stairs. “Burke?”
“Yeah?” He turned to look at her with eyes that were solemner than they’d been years ago.
“I know you must have questions…about things. Ask me.”
“Fine.” A sigh sawed through his lips. He came closer, and she couldn’t distract herself with his strong back and muscled arms. The flicker of desperation and confusion in his gray eyes was all she could see. “The transplant. Did it save you?”
“I’m standing here.”
“Sofia, are you whole again?”
“When was I ever whole, Burke? Growing up with a dad who was half-afraid and half-resentful of me? Or trying to be a normal kid in school when every week I ended up in the nurse’s office or at the hospital? Or, what, living here and working downstairs and every day falling harder and harder for you? Was I whole then?”
Pain in his expression startled her. “Shit, I shouldn’t’ve brought it up.”
“We were like this toward the end, Burke,” she said, though he likely didn’t need to be reminded of how they’d bickered constantly before she and her father had left Eaves. “We forgot how to laugh together.”
“Fuck that,” he said, and somehow they weren’t on the stairs anymore, but in the kitchen again, and remnants of incense and herbs tickled her senses. “Listen to me, Sofia. Fuck the past. What matters is what’s staring you in the face today. You have panic attacks.”
“That’s not the only thing the surgery left behind.” She glanced downward.
“A scar. It’s between your breasts, right?” He drew a line down his sternum.
“What, Burke, you researched heart transplants?”
“Yeah, damn it, I did. Just like you researched drug addiction.”
Pressing her lips together, she closed the kitchen door, rested her head against it. “You’re right about the scar,” she said quietly. Turning, she did what she’d wanted to do from the moment she spotted his flannel shirt at the convenience store. She gathered the fabric in her fists and buried her face in it.
The shirt smelled less of tangerine incense and more of wind and the blend of scents she’d encountered at Bottoms Up. Lime was on his breath and bourbon on hers.
Burke’s arms folded around her, but she resisted sinking into his chest. She couldn’t let him hold her up. She couldn’t let herself enjoy something that would end tomorrow, when she put Eaves in the rearview mirror again.
She shouldn’t dance with trouble, rocking against the man she’d loved back when they’d been two fucked-up teenagers staring death in the eye.
“Let me see it, Sofia.”
Burke’s arms went lax, and she watched her own hands slide up her breasts to the collar of her leather dress.
I can’t blame this on grief. This is me. And I can’t do it. None of the men she’d kissed, danced with, or dated had ever seen her naked. Outside of medical necessity, no man had seen her scar—her damage.
“Sofia?”
Shaking her head, she released her collar and resisted all urges to turn around so he could pull down the dress’s zipper. “No. I…I’m not going to show you.”
There was so much to say, but she didn’t want words and thoughts and truth now. She wanted the comfort of his flannel shirt and his hands on her. Grappling for the fabric again, she made a frustrated noise and pressed her body tight to his.
If the past didn’t make it impossible for them to be friends again, then the palpable and greedy want between them did.
A virgin spending the night above an erotic boutique and in the arms of a man who could undoubtedly fuck her to forgetfulness. Was it appropriate to laugh or cry at that?
“The scar,” she said, taking control of a situation that had her feeling as though she were disconnected from gravity, “is here.” Taking his hand, she placed it between her breasts. The gnarled and knotted scar tissue tingled at his pressure and heat.
“Sofia…know what you’re doing?”
Glancing up, she found him watching her. Closer than even his touch was his gaze on hers. It might’ve singed her, if she weren’t so cold to begin with. “I’m showing you my scar. You’re going to look with your hands, not your eyes. Okay?”
“Okay,” he said solemnly, taking what she could spare.
“And it goes down, like this,” she continued, guiding his hand along the path of the scar. Heat built, curling the edges of the old hurt they’d caused each other.
He put her arms at her side, said something against her ear.
“Full circle?” she echoed.
“We went from me just wanting to sleep with you, to being friends, to hating each other.”
Burke’s hands skimmed her neck, found her shoulders, traced her scar. One hand, then the other, then—oh, God—his fingers splayed and he cupped her breasts.
Sofia felt her eyes slide shut as he squeezed her flesh, but they opened again when he teased her nipples and drew a moan from her bourbon-flavored lips. She’d never known trouble could touch her like this, make her feel like this. “You’re back to just wanting to sleep with me? Is that all you’re after, Burke? Because if it’s not”—her arms swung out to hook around his neck—“then we haven’t come full circle at all.”
CHAPTER 4
Burke had been sober for more than a decade, but standing in a dead woman’s kitchen with Sofia curled around him made him feel drugged. There was no thrill with this kind of high, though—there never had been. Just that thousand-mile-per-hour free fall to a place where reality crumbled like chalk and all that remained was a sensation of hollow existence in a world that seemed familiar but was somehow altered.
Sofia was his escape, his emergency exit, and being with her had once distorted his life to make things appear less shitty than they were. A savior was what she’d been, with those fearless big brown eyes and that smile. That damn crooked smile. How many opaque nights and pale mornings had he vomited handfuls of pills or set aside a loaded syringe or cried on the floor, shaking, because his addiction to some dying girl’s smile was stronger than the quiet desperation to take his leave?
He was clean now, but he still carried his addiction. It was a disease he couldn’t shake. Counseling, strength cobbled together from the fragments of his soul, and the grace of God that he doubted he’d ever been worthy of had all pulled him to his feet and continued to guide him. But his connection to Sofia had never been addressed or cured.
If he let himself get hooked on her again, let her shatter him again, what would save him?
“I told you I didn’t want this.” His words were a clipped, careful warning, and his voice the scrape of a blade against stone. “Don’t draw me in, drag me down. Don’t do that, Sofia.”
“I’m not.” Her hands remained linked behind his neck, her slender body pressing gently to him. “Blaming me won’t change the fact that how you feel about me has everything to do with you. It’s your fault that you want me. Hate yourself for it if it helps, but take responsibility. And you didn’t answer my question.”
You’re back to just wanting to sleep with me? Is that all you’re after, Burke?
Sofia was holding him close yet pushing him to confront that question. On some level she had to know the answer. Everything that had brought them together as a couple of scuffed-up kids was laid to rest—their school days, her illness and the monkey on his back,
his old man and now her aunt.
Their friendship was ashes and dust. They had no sweet high school romance to resurrect.
Too damn bad. He’d never kissed her crooked smile or seen her naked. It was because she had been sick, he sometimes told himself. Or because she was too skinny and laughed too much. Or because she was his friend and he didn’t go around fucking his friends.
Sofia was sacred, elevated to some brand of perfection he couldn’t explain. And she was right; he had himself to blame for that.
It was a mistake he wouldn’t make twice. Sofia was a mortal, same as him, and she could be frightened and angered and warned off.
“How’s this for an answer, Sofia?” Burke pried her hands apart and stepped to the table as he yanked his wallet from his jeans pocket. He observed her as he opened the wallet and flipped something onto Luz Azcárraga’s kitchen table.
“A condom?” Confusion slid into disappointment. “Real mature of you, Burke. So you’re reverting to juvenile antics to ask me out?”
“Not even that. I just want a fuck.” Was that even true? It needed to be, because he couldn’t let her lead him to destruction again. That’s all that caring about her and depending on her had amounted to, and he wouldn’t sacrifice his soul twice in this lifetime. “Let’s start by getting rid of that leather dress. Keep the shoes on. They’ll look good when you’re holding your ankles.”
Her face contorted as if she’d been spoon-fed something damn bitter. “Stop.”
“Why?”
“A guy who acts like a jackass to protect himself emotionally is a coward. I’ve had my fill of cowards.” She picked up the condom. “So here. Take your king-size condom and—” She stopped, swallowed, stuttered. “Uh—um, k-king size…?”
Burke crossed his arms. Under different circumstances he might’ve found it cute that she was all flustered and flushing pink in the cheeks. Now he knew better than to be taken in by anything that might endear her to him. “Ribbed, too. You’re welcome.”
“Stop,” she said again, on a breath of sadness. “I know you’re being an asshole to prove something.”
“Oh, yeah? Not ’cause I’m a coward?”
“It wasn’t necessary to come up here with me if your aim was to push me away. All you had to do was tell me you don’t care anymore.”
He cared, and here she was pressuring him to confirm it. Why? For reassurance? For some twisted satisfaction to tide her over until she hit the road for New York?
“The mind games are wasted on me, babe,” he said simply. “You want me to hold you and tell you how deeply I care, huh?”
“If it’s true, then, yes, I want to know.”
“You got a donor’s heart, now you want mine, too?”
Sofia’s heels scraped the floor as she drew back. “Bastard.”
“You’re starting to get it,” he said, but the words instantly made him feel sick and seedy. “Now that we have an understanding, let’s do something about that condom in your hand.”
“This isn’t you, Burke. You were never cruel.”
“You don’t know what time and sacrifice does to a man like me. I told you we’re full circle here. I didn’t care about you in the school cafeteria that day. I was going to do you and move on.”
“That’s not who you are anymore.”
“You’re so sure I’d give you another thought afterward. If I bent you over this table and took you dry tonight, do you think it’d be because I care?”
“Who says I would be dry?”
The quiet words shattered some part of his defense, sucked him into her quicksand, shackled him under her spell. “Yeah, Sofia?”
“Yeah.”
Break free. He had to. “You think I’m going to call or send you flowers or take you out? Is that what you’re used to—New Yorkers wining and dining you? Tell me, then, how much expensive liquor and how many fancy meals will it take to spread those legs?”
“Are you accusing me of prostituting myself? Is that from the Eaves rumor grapevine or did you think it up all on your own to try to insult me?”
“Does it matter?”
“No, actually. No matter where it originates, a lie’s a lie.”
“It originated from me, just now,” he said, weary, quickly losing the momentum it’d take to break down someone as strong as Sofia. “But you don’t look all that insulted.”
“That would be because I’m not insulted. Food is a valid reason to prostitute yourself. My dad skipped out on me right after the transplant. I was nineteen, terrified, but I didn’t run back here. There were times when I was desperate enough to entertain things I swore I’d never do. Pride and self-respect are nice enough novelties, but they can’t feed me.”
Was she saying she’d considered putting out to quiet a growling stomach? Had she honestly believed that she couldn’t come home—come to him—for help? If the answer to either question was a loud, taunting yes, he couldn’t fault her.
“I went hungry, Burke.” She held the condom up by the corner. “Take this and leave.”
With a casual shrug he walked over but didn’t take it. “Remember this, Sofia. Next time you think about putting your arms around me, remember that I can be a vicious son of a bitch. I have that in me.”
“You can be vulnerable and sweet,” she challenged. “Gentle. Loving. Weak.”
“Damn it—”
“Giving. Honorable. Afraid.”
“Stop.”
“You cried in my arms before. You used to laugh when we were together.”
“I was a goddamn stoner.”
“You were my friend. Asshole.” She crunched the packet in her fist, flung it at him. It bounced off his chest to the floor between their feet. Then it crinkled under Burke’s weight as he took a heavy booted step closer to Sofia.
The tight proximity and heightened awareness amplified the smallest details—the shine of her hair under the lights, the contrast of black pupils flaring at the center of gold-speckled brown irises, the subtle tremble of her plump, frowning mouth.
“Were. That word makes all the difference. I’m not your friend anymore.”
Burke was supposed to turn and walk out of Luz Azcárraga’s apartment, but he had the misfortune of being a dumbass at the most inopportune moments. This being one of them.
Reacting too quickly for good judgment to solidify or for common sense to penetrate the surge of need that had taunted him from the moment he’d seen Sofia appear at the cemetery, he didn’t turn around but instead stepped forward.
Close now, he caught the perfume rising off her neck. The surprised hitch of her breath tickled his ears. He thought she’d put her arms around him again, but she didn’t. He thought she’d shove him. She didn’t do that, either.
She flicked open a button on his shirt.
You don’t want to get into this, Sofia.
It was only a thought, and a slow, confused one at that. He couldn’t string two words together.
All he could do was watch her pop the next button, then the one after that. Her fingers worked quickly and the plaid flannel began to part between them.
When her knuckles brushed down his body, he felt muscles constrict and veins tauten. Burke lunged and he landed—his mouth against her soft lips, his chest against her lush breasts.
He moved with her until she hit the wall with a grunt that opened her mouth to his. Her taste intruded and he groaned, so damn greedy for more.
This was what he’d passed up when they were teenagers, toward the end of them. Senior year for him, junior year for her. She hadn’t been good at hiding her feelings and her crush on him had started to pick up momentum.
Would kissing her then have felt even a fraction as perfect as this, though? Hard to believe it might’ve—he’d been nothing more than a shell, all hollowed out inside, and she had been…
Dying.
He’d almost lost Sofia without kissing her.
The realization rattled him, and he hated that. Burdening her with his frus
tration—because she’d always been strong enough to cope with the intangible shit he couldn’t handle—he changed the characteristics of their kiss, making it hostile, hard, unforgiving.
The woman met him at every turn, accepting the intensity of their contact. She scraped her nails against his exposed skin, moaned at the lash of his tongue, responded to the hard pinch of his teeth with bites of her own. A faint coppery taste was introduced as she let out a strangled whimper, the sound vibrating through him.
“Are we going to have sex or kill each other?” he said, easing back to catalogue the damage her nails had left on his torso. A few scratches, none scored deep enough to draw blood.
“I…oh my God…I’m sorry.” Disbelief and devastation battled in her eyes. “I’ve never—”
“What? Kissed?”
“Attacked. Hey, I really am sorry.”
“You’re apologizing to me, but you’re the one with the bleeding lip. You didn’t do that to yourself.”
Sofia touched her fingertips to her mouth, winced. “Don’t act so satisfied.”
“I’m not.” In fact, he despised himself for what he’d invited to the surface. The only redemption was that they hadn’t gone further than a kiss.
He buttoned his shirt as she went to the sink and soaked a cloth with water.
“What’d it prove, Burke? Kissing me like that?” She turned off the tap, dabbed herself with the dripping cloth.
“That there’s no sweet friendliness between you and me. I’m no different from the next guy you’ll raise your skirt for. And you’re no different from the next woman I’ll fuck against a wall. If you don’t believe me, then you’re hanging on to some crazy fantasy.” Burke pointed to her chest, making sure he had her attention, then he spoke so quietly his voice was a gravelly whisper. “That’s your second chance. The choice here is real easy. You can waste your second chance on a fairy tale or grow the hell up.”
Crossing the cluttered and mismatched kitchen, she held open the door. “Get out.”
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