Page 20 of Covert (Ruthless Love #2)

Chapter seventeen

Beckett

T here's a light tap on my door.

It's her second night here, and if I had to guess by the sounds I heard last night, she's in a relationship with Axel and Maddox in some form. So, I'm wondering why she's here, knocking on my door, instead of relaxing with them.

The watercolor of emotions I had at hearing her faint moans and mewls, and masculine grunts and whispered conversation was one I didn't expect.

Jealousy, want, longing, rage, hurt, lust, love.

Instead of inviting her in, I open the door and block the entrance with my body.

It's Nikki.

God, she's beautiful.

She's in her dress from earlier, but fuzzy socks and no shoes.

I wish this were us on a daily basis. I wish I could wake up next to her and those fuzzy socks.

I wish we could have just a normal relationship, where I could touch her and be touched by her.

My bones practically ache with longing for a future I know we can't have.

One that I don't deserve. One where all the broken parts of me are healed and I can be a normal fucking man for once .

She's looking surprisingly sheepish. There's a faint blush across her cheeks and nose, and her hands are behind her back.

"What's up?"

Our conversation two months ago still plays on a loop in my mind.

She wasn't afraid of me. She didn't see me as the monster so many others had.

She'd seen the man standing in front of her and wanted to help him.

The man silently drowning. The man whose life had been reduced to controlled outings and avoiding women.

But she wouldn't let me avoid her. And she didn't judge me for my broken parts.

And then she stared me down and literally put her life in my hands.

I'm not dumb. I know what can happen to girls when they're drunk and vulnerable.

Shit, I know what can happen to girls when they're sober and alert.

I am so physically bigger and stronger than her, I could hurt her, touch her, rape her, kill her, and she and I both know there would be nothing she could do about it.

And she trusted me anyway.

It moved me in a way I never expected. And that made a stupid, traitorous hope bloom in my belly. Like, maybe I could try with her. For her.

"So... I was thinking... and maybe this is stupid, and you tell me to fuck off.

.." She's staring at her feet, her toes scrunching and flexing in her socks.

Finally, she looks up at me. "I was thinking maybe we could try to touch, in like small amounts?

I'm not a threat to you, and we could take it at your pace.

Just, like, little touches here and there? Until you feel more comfortable?"

I lean against the doorjamb. God, if it were only that simple. And then, I realize, maybe it is. She's standing in front of me now, with no witnesses. I have no way to escape if she wants to push me back into my room and claim whatever she wanted to.

I ponder it for a bit before she hands me her worn composition notebook. "I... I don't want you to read this. But I want you to keep it as collateral. I have everything in here that would put me away for two lifetimes."

I stare down at the notebook, wondering what the hell this woman could have done to earn life sentences. What did she do? Not returning a library book? Lie on her taxes? I'm not sure whether I believed her or not.

But I really, really want to. If I knew I had some sort of back-up, some sort of reassurance, hard proof that she wouldn't hurt me, could I touch her? Could I let her touch me? I imagine running my hands over her body. She'd feel tiny in my hands. She'd feel soft in my hands.

I have to take the risk. If I were ever going to spend every waking minute of my life unafraid, I had to try.

I take a step back and wave her into my bedroom. Into the lion's den. I'm acutely aware of how vulnerable she is right now. She said she could kick my ass, but I overpower her by weight alone. There's only so much momentum flipping she could do against a guy like me.

But she passes me as she enters my room and curls up at the base of my bed with her legs folded.

With a more quizzical look, I place the notebook on my dresser.

I sit on the bed by the head, crossing my legs awkwardly since they're long, and let her take the lead.

"So, how do you want to start? What's more triggering? Touching or being touched?" She asks with an incredible lightness to her voice. She's smiling at me like we're about to play a game of Go Fish, not like she's going to try to help me get over my trauma.

But I don't know which would be better. Do I let her touch me, and when the world doesn't end afterwards, I'll be cured? Or do I touch her and maintain some level of control over the interaction?

Yeah. That one.

"Can I touch you?"

She doesn't hesitate, and my heart swells as much as it races. She reaches a hand between us, palm up, and waits.

The shakes start then. Small, little tremors in my hands. My heart beats painfully against the inside of my ribs, and my breathing quickens so much that I start to feel lightheaded.

She must see my hesitation because she tosses me a lifejacket.

"When we were younger, my brother and I got drunk off of our daddy's wine, stole his Ferrari, and crashed it," she says as easily as if she's talking about the weather. She smiles at the fond memory. "Got our asses tanned for that one."

The sheer absurdity of the story has pulled me out of my panic attack. "How old were you?"

"I was fourteen, he was sixteen?"

Fuck. She was so young. I wonder what happened there. Why is she no longer with her family?

"Ferrari? How rich was he?"

Her face falls.

"Really fucking rich. It was his fourth Ferrari."

Jesus.

I thought splurging on my bike after I got the job at the shop was a lot of money.

I didn't realize she came from that much money.

And yet, she drives a beater and lived in a shitty apartment.

Things must have gotten bad at home. Or dad died and didn't leave her anything.

But her brother would have taken care of her, right? Unless he died too?

And that's when I realize. She's given me one of her illegal things that I can use as leverage. I have no proof that any of this happened, of course. I could never go to the police with this information. But I know she's trying. She's waiting for me, giving me all the tools to touch her.

I nod, and with shaky fingers, touch them gently onto her palm. My heart's racing, but after three, four, five minutes, when nothing happens at all, my heart rate starts to slow.

"Can I?" she asks, and although I don't know what she's asking, I find myself nodding.

She slides her fingers up mine until our palms are resting together. It's not quite holding hands, but it's a lot more contact than we had just a moment ago. The ease that was starting to settle has left again, and my chest heaves.

"How old were you when you went to prison?"

"Seventeen."

She looks at our palms, my huge one overtop her small one. Talking about things, making essentially small talk, is helping bring my focus to this moment, not to what happened before.

She slides her palm against mine in a featherlight contact.

"Is she still alive?"

I quirk my head. What a strange question.

"I... don't know. I got as far away from her as I could once I got out. The thought that she could maybe do it again... "

My entire world collapses to the sweet, tender, light touch between Nikki and me.

I'm...doing it. I'm touching a woman, and it's okay.

Of course, I have no guarantee what will happen in the future, but she's gone out of her way to help me, so there has to be some good in that.

And she's been with us for months now. I've seen how thoughtful she is in her accommodations for me, how sweet she is even with Maddox's temper.

My foster sister always had a nasty streak in her - a manipulative one.

I never saw it until the trial. I never believed in evil until that day.

I thought people were bad, they were shit, they were weak, sure.

But pure evil? Not until that day. Not until I watched her sob alligator tears and repeat, in detail, things I'd never done to her.

She was probed and asked questions, and she didn't hesitate. She had an answer for every single one.

My answer? I was doing homework alone in my room. No witnesses, of course. No proof, of course.

I had no idea a single person could be so...just evil.

Still staring at our hands, Nikki asks, "What's her name?"

Her head's tilted, her voice sweet and high, but there's something laced in the words.

"Josephina Miller."

"Josephine Miller," Nikki repeats, dragging out every syllable. I'd caught her interaction with Scar a few weeks ago, where she insinuated she'd killed four people and brushed it off as flirting or bravado, but now I'm not so sure.

Deep brown eyes find mine. "You didn't deserve that, Beckett."

I swallow down a ball of emotion and nod.

"No. I need to hear you say it. You didn't deserve that. "

This tiny, feisty woman comes into my life, demands to know my darkest secrets, and then demands that I say...what exactly? That I'm not a monster? That I'm not broken? That I didn't deserve to have my life ruined by a selfish little psychopath?

But I can see the conviction in her eyes. She's going to believe it enough for the both of us, and she's not going to give up until I tell her.

So, I do.

"I didn't deserve it."

She smiles approvingly, and in the next beat, she stands, breaking our hand contact.

"I'll see you again tomorrow?" she says simply, walking towards my door.

I'm not quite sure what just happened, so I do all I can do.

I nod.