Chapter 28 Fallen Soul

Wren

Magnum took my hand and guided me up more stairs to a door with a number twenty-two on it. He used the key to let us inside a small room with a simple double bed covered in a quilt. For a second, I imagined the old lady at the desk downstairs sewing that quilt especially for this room many years ago.

Yellow stains dappled the wallpaper and twisted wrought iron bars covered the windows. I loved it. It was so New Orleans, so much a part of who he was, part of the culture here. I could spend a year in New Orleans exploring every corner of every room like this.

He shut the cute but very old curtains and turned to me, nostrils flaring, eyes blazing. "Someone takes your bag, you do not pursue. Got it?"

Excuse me? "Why not?" I snapped back.

"Because I'm telling you that's how it is." His shoulders were high, arms back, fists clenching.

Now he was making me mad. He sure took a lot of liberties ordering me around when he had no claim to me except "sometimes fake wife." "Oh, you won't allow it? I can't show my boobs, can't kill Tommy, can't defend myself against a pickpocket?"

He charged me and blocked me until my back was against the door. "I won't allow you to do stupid shit that will get you hurt." He braced his forearms on the door over my head, and my vision filled with his naked chest and tattooed arms. His jeans were hanging low on his muscled hips, and the top band of his black briefs peeked out.

His spicy scent hit my nose, his big body closing me in, and I had to struggle to keep my anger hot. "You have no say over me."

"Oh really?" The mocking undercurrent in his tone pissed me off even more.

"I spent my life doing what my grandfather wanted. Even after he died, I still ran that bakery because, on his deathbed, he asked me to keep it open. I owed it to him for all he'd sacrificed for me. Well, here I am." I raised my arms to the sides as high as possible with him caging me in. "In New Orleans—thanks to you, by the way, very nice of you, I'm not ungrateful—but you brought me here to have fun, and if my idea of that is showing my boobs and chasing down a bad guy, then I'm gonna do it, and you can't stop me."

His lips quirked, and his hand came down to cradle my cheek. "Is that so?"

He was cooling off, but I wasn't done being angry yet because underneath all this was an ugly truth I didn't want to face. I felt rejected by him. Since Valentine's Day, Mag had mostly avoided me. He'd cuddled with me in bed, he'd discussed the plans for the trip with me, but what he did not do was kiss me. Even tonight, with all the touching on the float, not one kiss. "And what's with all these people warning me about you?" I continued.

His brow furrowed. "Who?"

"Stella, the girls at the parade. Seems like a lot of women have opinions about you and feel the need to warn me."

"Stella is Helix's sister. I did not fuck her. She's projecting shit onto me."

"But you did sleep with those other girls? All three of them?"

He sighed and rolled his neck. "Two of them. The third, no."

"Why not the third?"

"I'm not talking about this with you." His hands left the door, and he walked away from me. It felt like a cold wall of ice dropped closed between us.

"Why not the third?" I repeated with a firm tone.

"Despite what you might think, I don't fuck every woman I see," he threw out over his shoulder.

I stepped away from the door and moved closer to him. "Okay, so what are the criteria? You told me no virgins or married women. Why not her? She was pretty enough. All of them were a lot prettier than me."

"Hey now." He raised his index finger and scowled at me. Even angry, he was beautiful.

"Why didn't you fuck the third girl, Mag?" He flinched when I used the f word, which I rarely did. "I want to know who makes it into the fuckable list and why because I'm clearly stuck in the not fuckable group with girl number three, but she was nothing like me, so help me understand."

He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked up at me like I was asking some huge favor of him. I wasn't asking him to make promises, but not too long ago he'd told me he was obsessed with me and showered me in roses while saying he wanted to have sex with me. Then he spent three days pushing me away, and tonight he'd flipped again and was acting like he controlled me. "Tell me, Mag. You owe me at least that."

"Alright. Fine." He rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. "She couldn't handle me. She's too sensitive. You can see it all over her face. If I said anything derogatory to her, she'd drop the water works and make it into some huge drama about how I disrespect women and shit."

That reminded me of what the other woman had said. "What did they mean when they said your act doesn't work to push women away?"

"I don't know. I don't spend a lot of time talking to women afterward."

"No. I think I'm figuring this out. You said if you said anything mean to the third woman, she'd cry, which means you felt that you could say mean things to the other two and they wouldn't cry?"

"Wren, stop trying to find something here. It's not that deep."

I sat down next to him at the end of the bed. "Isn't it though? You only get physically close to women who can handle it? Meaning women who can walk away after you disrespect them after sex? During sex?"

"No."

"I think you push women away because you're afraid of getting too close or falling in love."

"Fucking hell." He looked down and shook his head, his hand on the back of his neck.

"After your foster mother betrayed you, and you left, you never went back to your mom, no girlfriends, no women in your life except your sister. "

He reached an arm out around my shoulders and twisted. He fell back and pulled me down so I was laying on top of him on the bed. "Don't distract me, Mag. I'm onto something big."

His impatient grunt vibrated through my body, and his jaw tensed.

I propped my torso up on my elbows on his chest to catch his gaze, which was defensive and skeptical. "It's not about sex at all. It's about connection. Deep inside you want to heal that wound with a woman, so you use sex to get close, but you put on a mean act, so it doesn't get too serious. That's not working, by the way, because they said it makes you more attractive."

He cringed. "How about we talk about you and how you're avoiding dealing with the heavy load on your mind because you remembered a traumatic childhood event?"

Ooh, sneaky. "How about no?" I pressed my lips together and tilted my head. "Let's talk about how I'm different because we couldn't connect physically because I was with your brother. You weren't mean to me because you didn't have to push me away to keep yourself safe. While your defenses were down, I got in there. I broke through, and you shared your true self with me. Now you're scared because you don't know if you can trust me because you think all women lie eventually. Tell me I'm wrong."

He reached up and pushed my hair back behind my ears. "You're not entirely wrong," he said softly with a sly grin.

I laughed. "I knew it."

"You're so proud of yourself you solved the mystery." His hand trailed down my back to my butt .

"No. I'm not proud. I'm really angry at the people that let you down and the people who know you best who let you keep doing this."

"My brothers in arms..."

"I'm talking about feminine love here. Is Sylvie the only woman you love?"

"Yes."

"That's sad because you're a beautiful person and you have a lot of love to give and the world is missing out on it because you keep it hidden behind your shield of valor. You're always sacrificing yourself for others. Sometimes you have to be selfish. Be the guy in the Casino Menengo commercials."

"I guarantee you, I do not need to be one of those guys." He chuckled.

"You know what I mean. It's a metaphor for letting good things happen to you. You don't have to be a martyr all the time living in the dark underbelly. Let yourself have some beauty for once."

"I gotta tell ya you're cutting me deep, and it would be that way on any normal day. I get you're trying to speak your truth, but what you don't know is Sylvie's sick, alright? She's battled cancer before and beat it, but tonight she was looking skinny and she didn't tell me but I found out that it's back, and she's gotta fight it again."

"Oh no. I'm so sorry."

"So I get that you're trying to reach me, and believe me, you're getting in there, but I'm raw, and you're rubbing salt in it right now sayin' she's the only woman I ever loved because it's true, and if I lose her I got nothing left. "

"Oh my God. I had no idea." I collapsed on top of him, and his hands held me at my waist. "I'm so sorry."

"You didn't know."

"Is there anything I can do?"

His fingers dug into my hips. "You're doing it."

I caressed his face, and we lay there for a long time just thinking about Sylvie and all the events of the night. So much had happened.

"If you need me, I'll be here for you while Sylvie's going through it."

He squeezed me so tight, it pushed the breath from my lungs.

We rolled in the bed and suddenly he was on top of me, his nose buried in the crook of my neck and shoulder. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"I'm sorry I pushed so hard. Everything with you feels so fleeting like it's always my last chance to share my thoughts."

He held his weight over me by bracing on his elbows, and the view from this angle was incredibly stunning. He also smelled divine. "Why do you think it's fleeting?"

I'd hit Mag with a lot of emotional talk tonight, but I hadn't really told him what was bothering me, and I owed him that. "You said you don't have feelings and you're never getting married, so that's a pretty clear line in the sand, and I accept that. I told you it doesn't have to mean anything, and you still haven't kissed me in three days."

"I didn't say never." He grinned and looked at the ceiling as he flat-out lied to me.

"You know you did." I swatted at his bicep .

I got his eyes back and they softened, then darkened before he spoke. "Let me lay it out for you since I didn't quite say it right before. I do have feelings. Mostly toward you, and they are fucking terrifying because I never thought I'd feel this way about a woman. I want to hear all your thoughts because you're incredibly smart and intuitive. You're challenging me to face things I've avoided for a long-ass time, and I like that because not much challenges me anymore. I like being around you, sharing meals with you, watching you break free from your pearls. I like it in a way that's not fading anytime soon."

"Oh." I was absolutely gobsmacked. I did not expect to hear anything like that from him tonight.

"And I wanted to kiss you badly, but I knew I wouldn't be able to stop at a kiss, and I was under the misperception that it had to be a different man who would give you what you need right now because he could do it better."

My heart pounded in my chest. "And now your perception has changed?"

His lips quirked up at the edges, and his eyes were molten. "Now, I want to be the one that gives that to you, imperfect as it is, because I can't stand the thought of it being anyone but me."

"Give what to me?" I could barely speak as he took my face in his hands and lowered his head so our lips were a breath apart.

"My broken heart," he angled his chin down like he was pointing to his heart. "This scarred body," he pressed a soft kiss to my lips, "and my fallen soul, if you'll take it."