Sloth (Sinful Secrets #1) (54 page)

I sigh. Fuck me. I thought this would be so different. I thought he’d be glad to have me here. I thought at the very least, he’d share his feelings. Fess up to liking me at least. Is that selfish? Maybe I’m not being understanding.

He has cancer, after all. The other day I came across the thick stack of consent forms—just for this one particular hospital stay—and learned a little more about what that means for him. Trials usually don’t promise specific survival statistics, but I’ve read the stats for repeat bone marrow transplants online…with a reduced intensity radiation regimen (as Kellan had, the day before I got here) and—
yeah
. They’re not so fab.

God, I really
am
an asshole. Obviously, he’s scared. Who wouldn’t be? He’s scared and feeling bad and I’m here, all up in his space, demanding things. Even if I don’t say I am, I’m sure he can feel it. How I want him to talk to me.

I go to the recliner with my cross-stitching and watch him through the forest of my lashes.

A masochist. He must be. The IV pole stands beside him, and he’s not wearing a shirt. Two IV lines pump chemo into his chest. His eyes are sad and tired, his handsome face perpetually tight. I know it now: his look of pain.

I’m so fucking helpless, I can’t stand it. I prick my finger with my cross-stitch needle. It stings more than I think it will.

I murmur, “Fuck.”

His eyes shift to my face. I roll my eyes. “Pricked my finger.”

I’m surprised to see his legs slow their cycling. To see him move down off the bike, his motions slow and desperately careful. He walks to me in his longue pants, pushing the IV pole. My heart beats like a drum the entire time. And then he’s standing right in front of me. Just standing there.

I want to scream.

He stands there for the longest time. I don’t look up. Not because I don’t want to, but because I know I can’t. All the desperation that’s locked up in me would spill out, and he’d see it and know I care too much.

I care too much. Maybe I really do.

I sit there feeling nauseated. I just watch the needle and the thread, and make the “e” in ‘bitterness.’ Until he kneels in front of me.

His hand comes over my knee, and I can feel his eyes on my face. “Cleo?”

God—I’ve really missed his normal voice. Not just his dirty whispers, but his real voice.

“Mmm?” I feel terrible for it, but I can’t look at him.

His hand squeezes my leg and tension builds between us. “I want to tell you something,” he says quietly.

“That’s new.” I can’t help it. I’m hurt.

“I want you to go after your... after you donate.” His voice is low and husky, making chills roll over my skin. “You’re giving me enough... you’ve been here long enough... you have your own life to get back to. I know I... have to let you go.” The words are thick and soft. I feel a shot of hope. My heart pit-patters as his blue eyes come to mine. “I’m being selfish,” he confesses hoarsely. “It’s my default with you.”

I put my hoop on the table by the chair and reach for his handsome face. His eyes are full of pain. I lean in close because despite that, I feel the need to look at him. I want to kiss him, but at the last minute, I decide it feels better just to press my cheek against his.

“Kell...” My arm goes around his shoulders. “It’s not like that with us.”

He inhales, and I can tell it hurts his ribs because he also tenses. He presses his cheek gently against mine and wraps his right arm tight around my back.

“What is it like?” he whispers. “Tell me.”

I curl my hand around his nape and kiss him near his ear. “It’s like I really care about you. I love you... and I just want to be here with you. Close, so I can see you every day.”

He pulls away. His face looks anguished. “I feel like such a fucking bastard.”

“No.” I pull him back to me. “Why would you say that?”

I cup his head, and he lowers his forehead to my shoulder. His arm wraps back around me. I feel his fist clenched above my shoulder blade. “Everything I do will hurt you.” His voice shakes. “I make you go...” He shakes his head. “I love you, I’m a liability to you. I fucking hate myself.”

“You are
not
a liability.” He lifts his head at that, his blue eyes wide and pooling with emotion. Which gives me hope. He cares what I say here. I kiss his lips lightly. “I love you and I want you any way you are.”

His mouth tightens, as if my words hurt him. He hides his face back in my hair, and for a moment, I can feel him breathing hard.

“It’s gonna get worse,” he says in a broken voice. “You might... watch me die here. I don’t want that for you. Goddamn, Cleo. I want you to
go
. Just get as far from here as you can and don’t look back. If I come through—” he shakes his head, his forehead rocking on my shoulder. “You’re never gonna need this shit.”

He lifts his head. His are wide, intense. “Can you do that? Leave here after the donation?”

I smile sadly. “You know I can’t.” I drift my fingers along his collar bone on the side where he’s still bruised from the wreck. “I’ve got a total Heathcliff thing going for you.” I stroke his neck. “Now I know you know that. You’re English and finance, aren’t you? R. said he was an English major.”

He shuts his eyes. “Cleo, you aren’t Heathcliff. Don’t be. Please?” He peeks his eyes open and pulls me close enough to kiss me. But he doesn’t kiss me. His lips move against my chin, and I can smell the wintergreen mouth wash he’s been using. “You be Cathy. You be rational…and logical.” His voice is soft and low. I love the sound of it. The feel of his words against my jaw.

“You know I’m the one who got your blow-up palm tree, right? And the bubbles for when the marijuana tincture gets here and you’re high? I’m not logical. I don’t want to be.”

I squeeze him to me, nuzzling his scratchy cheek. He hasn’t shaved in a few days, and he’s looking rougeish. “Let’s lay down, okay?”

His eyes slip closed just for a second, then he nods. He reaches around me for the chair, and I step out of his way.

“Can I—” help, I’m going to ask. But he pulls himself up, wraps his hand around the IV pole, and steps over to the bed. I hang back and let him get settled on his own. It’s hard because I can tell he’s sore, and I feel so bad that I let him kneel there for so long.

When he’s lying on his not-sore side, I climb up behind him and snuggle up against his back.

Silence wraps its arms around us. I shut my eyes and focus on the heat of Kellan’s body. I promise myself he’ll be okay. All that stuff he said about me leaving... I tell myself it’s not some prescient feeling he’s having that things will go badly for him. He’s just showing me he loves me.

I rub his back, so smooth and warm, still rippling with muscle, which feels more rigid than it ever has. “I’m really
not
leaving. I need you to believe that... and trust me.” Tears make my throat feel thick. I swallow. “I don’t want to be away from you.”

I feel him stop breathing for a moment. “And if you stayed?” His voice sounds strong, more firm than what’s normal in the last few days. “If you stayed and... things end badly?” he says, quieter now. “How do you think you’d feel about it then?”

All his muscles tense as he awaits my answer. I close my eyes and try to really go there. To imagine if he wasn’t moving and his skin was cold, and this would be the last time I would be with him.

I swallow, because the first thing I think is, we would never get to be together in the long-term. Which makes it crystal clear what my heart wants. I press my forehead against his back. “It scares me... to keep saying this when I’m not sure how you feel. But I love you. I can’t help it,” I whisper. “I... need you. In this way that doesn’t make sense, logically. But feels natural to me.” My heart pounds, because it’s terrifying, being so straightforward. “But if you died? I think I’d get comfort knowing I was here as long as I could be. Kinda saw you through... and didn’t leave, you know?” Tears drip down my cheeks, trekking across my face toward the pillow. “I couldn’t leave you. I just can’t, so please don’t make me.”

I guess he hears the tears in my voice, because Kellan takes the IV lines in one hand and, with a wince, turns over to face me. He frames my face with both his hands, even though I know it hurts to move the left one.

“I didn’t think you’d come up here. I hoped you wouldn’t find out Ly was your recipient. But now—” he looks into my eyes—“I know I fucked you over. I should never have let things keep on with you. Selfish.”

The low beeping that I’ve almost tuned out picks up, and I realize his heart is beating fast.

“What were you really? You’re not selfish. Were you curious? Once you found out I was ‘sloth’... what was that like?” It’s a question I’ve been longing to ask him.

He shuts his eyes and squeezes my hand. “I loved you too. Before we even spoke. Just watching you.” His eyes open and focus on my face. “I didn’t know it at the time, that that’s what all the interest was. If you tripped on a fucking crack I wanted to go help you. You smiled at someone, I wanted that for me. I would watch your hair...” he works his fingers through it, “and I would want to touch it. See how soft it was. After a while, I realized I didn’t like it, knowing I couldn’t have you. Or anyone, because it wasn’t fair. To let anyone get close to me...” He leans his head down to my chest and hugs me carefully. “The whole thing... started getting to me. I told myself I was pissed off that you were threatening the business. All the charitable deliveries, they depend on the sales. I thought I just needed to get you under heel. But I think even then I knew it could go more places than that.”

“We were meant to meet each other.”

HE LOOKS AWAY FROM ME,
and I can sense a wave of pain come over him. I can tell because his body tenses, and after a few seconds, he draws a deep breath.

His eyes shut, and slowly open. “You know, to meet you I have to be sick.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Both times I met you, it was because of cancer.” First because I donated to Lyon, the second time because Kellan was here getting diagnosed with his relapse when his dealers had a dry spell and noticed me.

He lays back against the pillows and pulls an arm over his eyes. “You know, sloth is a sin,” he says softly.

“I prefer to think of it as an adorable animal.”

He peeks at me from underneath his arm. His eyes are dark. “I knew in March.”

“That you had relapsed?”

He blinks. “Not ‘knew.’ ‘Thought.’”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing,” he says bitterly. “I like numbers, remember?” He lets a sharp breath out. “I didn’t like the odds.”

I feel his jaw clench. “I drove off the bridge.”

Tears drip down my cheeks. “That hurts a little, not gonna lie. It makes me sad that you felt so backed into a corner. I wish you had talked to me.”

He gets off the bed. Starts pacing. “I didn’t want you to be here. I didn’t want this.”

“You want me to go?” My heart pounds.

“Yes—of course I do.”

“You didn’t say that when I got here.”

“A moment of weakness.” His features tense, but that doesn’t stop a single tear from falling down his cheek. “I hurt... worse than ever, the bone pain... the wreck. All I could think of was your hands. I couldn’t live without your hands on me. I knew I couldn’t.”

I STEP AWAY FROM CLEO
. I can’t think straight so close to her... so I grab a TwoCal Arethea left on the bed side table and walk around to the recliner, where I sit and take a long, disgusting swallow.

“Why’d you come here? Really?” My voice sounds hoarse.

She’s sitting cross-legged on the bed now. Her eyes flash in my direction. “I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone else getting to be near you when I couldn’t. I wanted to comfort you.”

I swallow and look down at my knees. I don’t know what to tell her. How hard I should try to drive her away.
Really hard
, my conscience says. I take a breath and blow it out. “You know I’m going to get really sick. Sicker than this. A lot sicker.”

She nods slowly. “I don’t want that, but if happens, I can handle it.”

She doesn’t know. She’s only had a taste of this, a few days.

When I look up again, I find her looking curious. “Did Whitney stay here with your brother, just like this?”