Grim and Bear It
Chapter Thirty-Four

Rule #6: It is absolutely imperative a reaper does not spend more than four hours away from Isle of Grim... -The Reaper Code of Ethics, official handbook.

Poppy

I hadn't had to actively worry about time for twelve years, but the press of each hour, each minute, each second grew heavier as the four-hour mark of my escape encroached. Would something happen to me? Would it come and go without notice? Would it hurt?

I glanced at the clock again. One hour and eighteen minutes left. I turned back to Jake, checking that he was still okay. We had made it to Billy's in one piece and recounted the story for a worried Grayson, Hazel, Raine, and Fenton. "I'm coming with you tomorrow," Grayson said. "I'm still a decent hunter."

"Should we call in a SHAP team?" Romi asked. "Even with the leak, it's risky without it."

Loren and I said no at the same time. "This will be in vain if they get the Vixen before we do," I explained. "It's us or nothing."

No one bothered to argue. Loren had restitched Jake's bicep, and Hazel had slathered something on the wound and given him a tube of something else to help with his leg.

While they were twins, Hazel's powers seemed to concentrate on the holistic spells-including healing potions-whereas Romi's powers were more about reading spaces and people. And seeing death, apparently. I wanted to ask her if she could see Jake's death, if these were the final few hours I'd have with him. I wanted to ask what happened to her, how she and Fenton made it work while she was dead, but I didn't have the courage. Not with Jake having to translate. After another hour of throwing out potential backup plans, Loren ran his hand down his face and blinked hard. "We should get some rest. I'm wiped. We'll meet at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow to finalize a plan."

"I checked you into the hotel," Hazel said. "We got two rooms since I wasn't sure if you wanted your own space."

"Thanks." Paris gave Jake a smile. "I think you need to talk to Poppy more than you do me."

He nodded.

Loren stood. "Come on, I'll give you a ride."

Without much fanfare, we stood, and I followed Jake to the truck. I wasn't used to walking everywhere, but it seemed appropriate right now. The night was chilly, and I missed my cloak. Without it I felt even colder, especially my bare feet. It wasn't that I could feel the pavement, but my body registered the impact of moving across the cool ground.

It only took five minutes to get to the motel and as Jake and I walked into the tired but clean motel room, I crossed the four-hour mark. I watched the clock intently as a full minute passed. I looked down at my hands, rotating and flexing them. Then I pressed my palms to my face in several different spots. I bounced up and down on the balls of my feet, relieved that my legs were holding steady.

Jake dropped a bag on a chair and turned to face me. "You okay?"

Another minute passed. No sharp tug in my chest.

“Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay." I gave him a small smile. “Just haven't been in the human world longer than four hours since I became a reaper. Glad to see nothing bad happened."

He walked over and gave me a tight hug and I relaxed into his chest. He kissed my forehead, then leaned back, tucking my hair behind my ear. "I need to clean up. Can you give me a few minutes? Then we'll talk."

I nodded, grateful for the small break to regroup. While he showered, I sat on the edge of one of the queen beds, trying to calm my nerves. My fingers itched to play the violin again, to take these emotions and channel them into something tangible.

My chest burned like I needed to cry. I had lost contact with my entire family barely four hours ago. In all my years dreaming about spending a whole day with Jake, I never thought about the opposite side of the wish. Would I ever get to apologize to my parents? Would I ever get to hug my sister again? Was I going to be stuck in this in-between forever?

And what about when something happened to Jake? Because as much as I wished he could live forever, he was human and very mortal. I pulled my knees up to my chest and rested my chin on them.

"You used to do that pose when you were too tired to cry," Jake said.

I startled and looked up. He was wearing a towel low on his waist, his damp hair messy, his eyelashes darker than usual. I hadn't seen him bare-chested and in the light since I was human, and my mouth fell open.

"Whoa," I breathed. Gone was his lean teenage body, replaced by sculpted arms and wide shoulders. A tattoo over his left pec peeked out over a dusting of dark hair that spread over his chest and narrowed down into a trail that disappeared below the towel. "What's your tattoo say?"

The corner of his lips lifted. "I'm surprised you don't recognize it."

Eyes on his chest, I slid off the bed and walked over to him. The floor fell out from beneath me when I recognized the cursive letters from the secret notes I used to leave him in the treehouse. Love you forever. My eyes flew to his. "Jake..." He put his hands on my waist and pulled me into him. Lowering his mouth to just above mine, he whispered. "My heart's always been yours, Poppy." He sealed the words with a kiss.

The moment his lips touched mine, I wrapped my arms around his neck, standing on my tiptoes to kiss him harder. I'd almost lost him, lost this. I tightened my grip and deepened the kiss. What if this was the last one? Or the next one? Jake flinched and leaned back, breaking the kiss. "Sorry, need to try some of Hazel's cream. Sore."

I laughed off my desperation. "Yeah, sure. Of course."

He grabbed a pair of boxers and the cream and shuffled slowly to the bed. He sat down and put his legs through the boxers, pulled them up, and removed his towel. Then he slathered some of the cream on his hand and leaned on his right side, rubbing it into his left hip.

I walked over and knelt down in front of him, picking up the cream and putting some on my own hand. When he nodded his consent, I began rubbing into his calf and moving up to his knee. A strange cooling sensation covered my hands, and the smell of peppermint burned my nose. I frowned. I usually couldn't feel or smell objects in the human world. Jake had been the exception. It probably had something to do with it being a magic-based formula.

When we were done, Jake wiped his hands on his towel, and handed it to me to do the same. Then he reclined in the bed and I just stared. His body stretched out, clad only in boxers. I hadn't seen this much of Jake in twelve years. "God, you're beautiful," I whispered.

He smiled and patted the bed next to him. "Come here."

I hurried around to the other side of the bed, slipping in and resting my head on his chest. I closed my eyes and listened to his heartbeat, steady as always. "I missed this."

"Me, too." He wrapped his arm around me, his fingers playing with the end of my hair. "You said a lot of things back in the forest."

I nodded, kissing his chest, but didn't answer. I didn't want to ruin this moment with my story.

"Poppy, what happened?"

I was silent for a long moment, afraid to tell him and break this peace. "We can talk tomorrow, after your mission is done."

"I think we need to talk now, love." He leaned forward and kissed the top of my head. "Tell me."

I blew out a long breath and told him, starting at the moment I left Sylvia to save his life and finishing at replaceing him in the woods. His heartbeat was no longer slow and steady but pounding hard, as if he was chasing someone. I pushed myself up to look at him. "Jake?"

He sat up. "You told me very specifically that me seeing you had nothing to do with me dying. Yet you risked your very existence to research that exact thing."

"I had to know!" I explained, choosing not to admit that just seeing him was already risking my entire existence. What was a little B&E on top of that? "What if I had been wrong? What if there was something I could do that would stop it? If only I had gotten into the main computer room-"

"Poppy!" he interrupted. "The most important thing to me is the people I love. I'm okay with not knowing when and how I will die. What I'm not okay with is you were almost banished from literal existence, and you lied to me about it! Just like you didn't trust me enough to tell me that you were a reaper."

It was as if a gunshot went off. All the ambient noise in the room went silent. The leftover drip of the showerhead, the whirl of the heater, the footsteps and closing doors of people in neighboring rooms. His accusation hung heavy between us, as if he had carved the words out of the air. "Jake..."

"Poppy, why didn't you tell me?"

"I couldn't."

"Couldn't? Or wouldn't?"

"Both. Neither. I wasn't allowed. And even if I was..."

"You still wouldn't have, would you?"

"No."

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, his back facing me. I wanted to reach over and wrap my arms around him, make him understand why I didn't, why I couldn't tell him.

"Why don't you trust me? I would have done anything-"

"Exactly. If you knew, you would have been obsessed with trying to stop it or coming with me."

He turned and looked at me over his shoulder. "Was coming with you an option?"

I shook my head. "No. Not for you."

He ran his hands through his hair, the aggravated sweeps leaving it sticking up in multiple directions. "Why not?"

"Because you deserved a long, happy, fulfilling life. Anyway, we weren't legally married, so the reapers wouldn't have invited you to join."

"Your parents weren't legally married, either. Same sex marriage wasn't recognized in Michigan until after you became a reaper. So try again." "Your age."

"I was eighteen. Legally an adult. Next."

Dammit. He was right. "Okay yes, there are exceptions. There has to be paperwork filed stating you are in a committed relationship, and even if human laws don't recognize the union, reaper laws do. They don't discriminate." "So what's the real reason?"

"Because I knew if I told you, you would do anything to come with me. And I couldn't let Eliza grow up without her big brother; I couldn't let your folks lose their son because of me. I couldn't carry the guilt of being the reason you weren't able to see your mom in the afterlife."

"You didn't even give me a choice!" he shouted.

I stood on the bed. "I never get the luxury of making choices, Jake! It's all I've ever wanted my entire existence is to make a goddamn choice about my own life! This was the only one I ever got to make."

My hair fell in front of my face and I tugged it back. "I've always known my endgame was being a reaper. I spent my life waiting for the call, and when it happened, I had to do a job I hated for literally eternity. You would hate it, too. But I had the choice to save your life and give you a peaceful afterlife."

"Poppy-"

"I will always and forever make the same choice. Even if it means giving you up. So I'm sorry that sixteen-year-old me didn't tell you because it made it hurt more, but I'm not sorry that you got to continue living your life and will get to be free in your afterlife. I'll never be sorry."

He stared at me, searching my face for a long moment. Then, he reached out, grabbed my knees, and pulled me down to the bed. He rolled on top of me, his hands lifting my arms over my head, and kissed me like it was our last kiss, like he wanted to permanently tattoo the feeling of it on my lips.

I arched into him, and he released my arms. I touched him everywhere I could reach, skating down his back, up his spine, over his broad shoulders. Jake's hands moved over my waist and his fingers went under my shirt to touch the sensitive skin of my stomach. We both stilled.

He lifted his head to look at me. "I thought you couldn't remove your clothing."

I looked down at his hand. "I've never been able to before. Maybe it's something to do with being in the human world so long." I lifted my arms and he slowly raised the shirt up, exposing human skin I hadn't seen in twelve years. I had refused to wear a bra-I wasn't going to wear underwire for eternity-yet I was still shocked when my bare breasts were exposed. With one more tug, the shirt was gone. He sucked in a sharp breath.

I raised my gaze to his and smiled. "Kiss me."

Jake's eyes went molten as his mouth moved directly to my right breast, his tongue licking circles around my nipple, then sucking me into his mouth. A spark of pleasure rioted through my body and I gasped in a breath. That hadn't happened since I was human. "Again, please," I begged.

His hand cradled and caressed my left breast while he savored the right, white-hot heat filling my chest and moving lower. He switched his adoration to my left breast, and I moaned, hands in both sides of his hair, holding him in place.

"I didn't know," I whispered, "I haven't been able to..." Then I was lost as his hips moved, his erection pressing against the spot where I needed him most.

His mouth moved back and forth, his hips pressed rhythmically into me, and I whispered his name as a wave of release washed over me. Not a full orgasm, but bliss nonetheless.

I bucked against him and rolled us over so I was straddling him. "I don't want you to hurt your leg."

He licked his lips, staring at me as if I was the most treasured woman in the world. "Fuck my leg." He sat up and captured my mouth in a searing kiss, his hands digging in my hair.

I dragged my lips away from his and kissed his jaw, underneath his chin, and the sensitive skin of his neck. He tilted his head back to give me better access, and I took full advantage. Sucking, nibbling, licking, tasting my way over his whole neck, his collarbone, and his chest. I pushed him back, so he was lying down as I worshipped his chest, his torso, then finally, I was pulling down his boxers.

I might not be able to properly orgasm, but I could do this for Jake. I could unravel him, make him forget everything he was worried about, if only for a few minutes. Make him say my name in that way no other person ever had. While I wasn't completely innocent, I had only done this a few times with Jake before I'd died. It was probably going to be more enthusiasm than skill, but I didn't care. Enthusiasm and rhythm was all I needed.

God I had missed the feeling of him. I licked once, twice, and by the third time he was already groaning my name. He pulled my hair back, keeping it tight in his hands as I took him deeper into my mouth.

He gave over control, his body in my command as I wound him tighter and tighter. I was mesmerized by the way his abs tightened, how his breathing hitched, how he rasped out my name as if it were a benediction. It was only him and me in this moment, connected as close as we had ever been. Gone were the years that separated us, the fear of death, the anxiety about tomorrow.

It was just this, his molten eyes finally closing as the pressure built and released, his body arching and going taut beneath me, his cry of my name on his lips. My entire body throbbed with a wave of something I hadn't felt in so long, I couldn't name the emotion.

Then he was pulling me to him, kissing me as if it were our first kiss, last kiss, everything in between. "Poppy, Poppy, Poppy," he whispered. "I forgot how good you feel."

I snuggled against the curve of his shoulder. "I hope to remind you a few more times."

He laughed and kissed me again. "I love you," he admitted. "Always have."

I took his hand in mine and laced our fingers together. "Love you, too. Forever."

It was minutes or maybe hours or maybe days before he shifted. "Need to stretch," he murmured, his voice thick with sleep. I helped him do his routine, then took over foam rolling his tight muscles. "It's so much better when you do it." "Good. You need to sleep well tonight."

When I finished, he patted the bed and closed his eyes. I kissed him softly and covered him with the blankets, then I pulled on my shirt. I wished I could sleep, pass the time until dawn instead of sitting here worrying about tomorrow. I closed my eyes and snuggled against him and thought about what it would be like if I was really a human.

This lasted an entire ten minutes before I gave up. I had too many thoughts in my head. What I needed was a book. What were the chances the hotel had a romance novel lying around?

Moving as silently as possible, I got up and opened the nightstand drawer. No takeout menus or motel literature. Only a Bible.

I sighed. Well, it was better than nothing. I cracked the curtain a little to let in the moonlight, just enough to make out the words on the page, then climbed back into bed next to Jake. I wasn't religious, but I was desperate. Anyway, learning how different people wrote about the afterlife was fascinating to me.

I lifted my hand to turn the page when it slid over my finger. "Ow," I whispered, then froze. Ow? I held my hand up to the moonlight, seeing a shallow cut over the skin, the first drop of blood rising.

I concentrated on dropping my human glamour, my hand changing back into a skeleton. I looked at it front and back, then pulled my skin back over it. The cut was gone. What the hell?

I closed the book and tossed it to the floor, and tucked my head into Jake's shoulder, looking at my hand out of the corner of my eye. I didn't know what was going on, but forget reading. I'd just hold Jake all night.

I stared at my hand until the sun poked through the curtains.