Chapter 564 | You’re Mine, and I’m Not Letting Go

Chapter 564: 564 | You’re Mine, and I’m Not Letting Go

Blair’s eyes went wide.

"You don’t get to order me around in my own bedroom," I continued. "You don’t get to pretend you’re not jealous when you just melted my doorframe. And you definitely don’t get to act like Naomi’s the problem here when you’re the one who can’t figure out what you want."

The ninth ring burned so bright I could feel it behind my eyes, and Blair’s face went through another dozen emotions before settling on something that looked like devastation.

"I know what I want," Blair whispered.

"Then stop running from it."

She stood there, trembling, with her fists clenched at her sides and her eyes wet at the corners. The air around her had cooled enough that I could breathe again, and the anger had drained out of her posture entirely, leaving behind something smaller and more fragile than I’d ever seen from Blair Davenport.

Naomi watched all of this without speaking. Her hand was still flat against my chest, and her thumb traced slow circles over my collarbone while she waited for Blair to make a choice.

"I can’t," Blair said finally. Her voice was barely audible. "I don’t know how to do this. I’ve never done this. I don’t know the rules."

"There aren’t any rules," Naomi said, and her voice had softened now, the challenge replaced by something gentler. "Just people who want to be wanted. That’s all any of us are."

Blair looked at Naomi for a long moment, and then she looked at me, and then she looked at the bed where Naomi sat in my lap with her bare back on display and her wet skirt bunched around her thighs.

"This is insane," Blair said.

"Probably," I agreed.

"You’re both insane."

"Almost certainly."

Blair’s hand came up to cover her face, and she made a sound that might have been a laugh or might have been a sob or might have been both at the same time. Her shoulders shook, and the steam around her collar had stopped rising entirely.

"I need my scarf," she said from behind her hand. "It’s in your blazer pocket. The blue one with the silver thread."

I reached down to the pile of wet clothes by my feet and found my blazer. The scarf was wadded up in the inside pocket, damp but intact, and I held it out to Blair without moving Naomi from my lap.

Blair took the scarf with fingers that trembled slightly. She looked at it for a moment, and then she looked at Naomi, and then she looked at me.

"This doesn’t mean anything," Blair said.

"It means whatever you want it to mean," Naomi replied.

Blair’s jaw tightened. She turned and walked to the door, and she paused with her hand on the bubbled doorframe, and she spoke without looking back.

"Tuesday," Blair said. "After training. Summit House. We’re going to talk about this, Monroe. All of us."

Then she was gone, and the door swung shut behind her, and I heard her footsteps cross the living room and the front door open and close.

Naomi let out a breath she’d been holding and sagged against my chest, and her forehead dropped to my shoulder, and her whole body went loose and warm in my lap.

"That was terrifying," Naomi whispered.

"You were incredible," I said.

"I was shaking the whole time." She lifted her head and looked at me, and her pink eyes were wide and a little wet at the corners. "I’ve never talked to anyone like that in my life. My mother would kill me if she knew."

"Your mother would be proud," I said. "That was the most backbone I’ve ever seen from you, and I watched you punch a sea monster this morning."

Naomi laughed, soft and shaky, and she kissed me with her lips still trembling. Her hands came up to cup my face, and her thumbs traced along my cheekbones while her mouth moved slow and grateful against mine.

"I meant it," she said between kisses. "You’re mine. I don’t care who else wants you. I don’t care how many rings you have burning in the back of your skull. You’re mine, and I’m not letting go."

The silver-pink ring flared bright enough to hurt, and I pulled her closer, and her bare chest pressed warm against mine, and the vault counter in the corner of my vision pulsed at eleven of twelve cups.

"You still need to fill that cup," I said against her mouth.

"I know." Naomi pulled back and looked at me with her eyes gone dark and her lips swollen from kissing. "But first, I need you to tell me something."

"Anything."

"When she comes on Tuesday," Naomi said slowly, "when she shows up at Summit House to talk about whatever this is, what are you going to do?"

I thought about it. I thought about Blair’s face when Naomi called her out, the fear and the want and the desperate confusion all tangled up together. I thought about the bet we’d made, and the kiss on the ferry, and the way she’d melted my doorframe because she couldn’t stand watching someone else touch me.

"I’m going to give her what she needs," I said. "Same thing I give everyone."

"Which is?"

"A reason to stop running," I said. "And somewhere safe to land when she does."

Naomi studied my face for a long moment, searching for something I couldn’t name. Whatever she found must have satisfied her, because she nodded once and her expression shifted from serious to hungry in the space of a heartbeat.

"Good answer," she said. "Now put your mouth back where it was."

I did what I was told.

The vault counter climbed to twelve of twelve, and Naomi came apart in my lap with her fingers twisted in my hair and my name on her lips, and somewhere in the living room Belle was typing frantically on her laptop, documenting every sound that came through the thin walls for posterity.

Tuesday was going to be interesting.

But that was a problem for future Jace. Present Jace had a beautiful woman in his arms and a full vault and a graft that hummed with satisfaction behind his ribs.

Present Jace was doing just fine.