Page 29

Dravin

I haven’t truly slept in around seventeen years and tonight isn’t going to be the night I start.

My back feels as though I’ve been flayed alive.

I suppose, with the top few layers of skin chewed up, that’s maybe true.

It alternates between aching and burning.

Healing this is going to be a bitch. All those places that I can’t scratch.

Not that anyone should scratch healing ink, but I already know it’s going to be hellish.

If it dries out and needs ointment put on after taking off the weird skin bandage Crow spent half an hour meticulously putting on to seal up the wound, I’ll have to ask Kael to apply it. As for taking off the wrap, I’ll probably just ask Crow if he can do it for me when it’s time.

My back isn’t the biggest distraction.

Kael is taking up most of the bed. She’s lying on top of the covers, fast asleep.

She insisted I get into bed the second we got up here.

Having my jeans on over the fresh ink on my ass was a special brand of hell, so I shucked them and got in while she was in the kitchen getting me some water and ibuprofen that of course, I never took.

She left it on the nightstand, then sprawled out on top of the comforter.

I asked her if she was going to stay there all night, watching me sleep, and she said that’s exactly what she intended to do.

Except, after ten minutes of awkwardly staring me down, it was her lids that got heavy.

It’s the middle of the night. She’s snoring softly, her hand tucked under the pillow, her body curled into itself with her knees drawn up.

I’ve thought about getting her a blanket or leaving the bed so I can tuck her in, for hours. I haven’t been able to move, and not just because the pain is so uncomfortable. I’ve had worse, but everything is relative.

What I haven’t had is this woman, so perfect and unguarded, sleeping beside me .

She makes giving up control look easy. She just closed her eyes and found oblivion, trusting that I’d be here to keep her safe.

She’s gone from spitfire abhorrence to tenderness fast enough to give me whiplash. I still don’t understand it.

Normally, I’m more than able to keep up with change, no matter how fast it moves. There hasn’t been a situation that my training and experience hasn’t equipped me to handle, however awful, but I’m nearly lost right now. Why is violence so much easier for me to deal with than this woman’s softness?

“Hey.” Her sleepy voice catches me off guard.

It’s just another way that I’m slipping. She’s right beside me and I wasn’t even observant enough to realize that she was awake.

She pushes up onto her elbow, rubbing her eyes and drawing her hand down the bridge of her nose before she sniffles into it.

Parts of Crow’s shop below stays lit up all night and there’s the glow of the streetlights that come through the cracks in the blinds.

That ambient light hits Kael, and even half asleep, eye makeup smudged, and hair mussed, it looks glorious on her.

“You’re awake?” Her hand lands on my cheek, stroking down to my jawline.

She stops and wriggles closer. It takes all my control not to turn my face and kiss her palm.

“Have you even slept?” My silence is answer enough.

“Are you in a lot of pain?” She peeks up over me to the nightstand to see if the pills are still there.

They are. “You could take something to take the edge off.”

“It’s not that.”

She plants a kiss on my temple before I can stop her. She moves closer, until our knees are touching. She plants one palm against my chest and smooths the other hand from my shoulder to my wrist.

“Do you ever have nightmares?”

“Sometimes, I guess. Most of the time, I nap, and I don’t think I ever sleep deep enough for them to truly hit me. Maybe my conscience and I have a sort of truce.”

“I…” Her lips purse in hesitation. I can practically feel the pain radiating from her.

I press my thumb to her lips to let her know that she doesn’t have to share.

She can keep this for herself if she wants to, but she kisses my finger and slants her face to the side, so it falls away, determination written all over her.

“I do. Sometimes. I see… what it probably would have looked like.”

“Did you ever…”

“No. In that one thing, I listened to you. It never would have helped me to see those photos or read those news stories. Marcus wouldn’t have wanted me to.

It’s much better when I dream about us as kids.

My mom is there too.” A diamond sheen of tears glistens in her eyes.

She stares unwaveringly at me so that they don’t fall. “Do you ever think about it?”

“I think about the past.” I tilt her chin up, smoothing my thumb in small circles over the little indent below her bottom lip.

“It’s not all bad. I made good friends and received training that I’ll use for a lifetime.

I learned a lot about myself, the world, and life.

None of it was straightforward. That changes a person.

” I cough uncomfortably. The motion causes my ribs to expand, which sets off a new wave of fire all over my back.

“I’m going to stop before I end up sounding like a huge douchebag. ”

She traces my lips, so sudden that I inhale sharply and nearly choke on my own saliva. “What are you doing?” I probably should have asked her that the second she curled up on this bed right beside me. What are we both really doing?

“I don’t know.” She pushes her finger between my lips. My tongue darts out and tastes her. She whimpers. “Probably the exact thing I shouldn’t be doing.”

She’s right, but I don’t stop her as she presses her lips to mine.

I freeze and she does all the work, teasing my lips with hers.

She leaves me panting and then leaves me altogether, kissing my chin and cheek and then getting close enough to brush her lashes against my cheeks and the bridge of my nose.

I want to pull her in against me. To snug her close and never let her go.

I want to bathe her in kisses, breathe in her clean scent.

What we’re doing—what she did for me in that tattoo room downstairs, it wasn’t sexual.

This is something beyond bodily needs, and yet it’s all wrapped up with that too.

My cock is raging hard, but it’s not just her body that I want.

It’s her sweetness, her kindness, her compassion, her care, her soul.

The wholeness of me wants the wholeness of her, all her broken parts, sharp edges, beauty, intelligence, talent, and uniqueness. I suppose, the term would be intimacy .

I was once a part of a team. We knew each other better than brothers, better than we knew ourselves.

We could anticipate what the other needed.

We were more than just individual parts and pieces.

We functioned as a whole or not at all. I was a part of them, and they were a part of me.

It went beyond brotherhood. I didn’t think that feeling could exist outside of that life, but right here, right now…

It’s terrifying.

My throat closes up with panic. I make a guttural noise that I can’t control. Kael dips down and kisses the sound away. She draws me out, her lips tender but insistent, until the snarled anger in my chest abates and my lungs flex in and out again.

She smooths my hair, stroking a few of the long strands away from my face.

“The weird emo gangster haircut is growing on me, but you should let Tarynn shave the short parts shorter, leave a few longer, and leave the top longest of all. Wear it slicked back with hair oil like you did that day in my living room. That would be hot.”

“A little too hot.” I still can’t believe how I didn’t just lose control with her like that. It deserted me completely and still hasn’t fully returned.

She laughs, playing with my hair, brushing it back then mussing it all over the place. “You know what the craziest part of you is?” She scoots back and away from me, crossing her legs in the middle of the bed, a big smile on her face.

I want to drag her back up against me, stick my leg between hers, encircle her in my arms. Bathe her face, her breasts, her legs, and hands, and feet with kisses before I spread her legs and made a feast of her.

“You’re supposed to ask me what it is.” She points a finger at me, laughing, wide awake and playful.

I’m supposed to be keeping firm boundaries in line. Respecting her grief and giving her space. Looking out for her.

Her eyes sparkle, whiskey in the gold light, drawing me in. There’s no way I can make her leave. I couldn’t earlier and it’s not going to happen now. Not before morning. Maybe not even then. I cave on a sigh. “What is it?”

“You’re actually kind of sweet and wholesome despite the fact that you purposely try to make people terrified and wary of you.”

“I don’t purposely try to do that at all, but if I’m off-putting, that’s good. It’s necessary.”

“I know. But I’ve seen past it, and I think I like what I see. You’re just a big soft marshmallow under all the black scowls, and skull and crossbones vibes.”

“And here I thought it was quite effective. You hated me.”

Her face crumples and her shoulders cave in, but she straightens up, drawing into herself.

“I’m truly sorry about that. I didn’t hate you.

I blamed you for a lot of things that weren’t your fault.

It was mostly grief making me crazy. In my head, I painted you as this terrible thing without feelings.

When I figured out you were the exact opposite and stopped being selfish and ignorant, you became human.

I changed the painting for myself.” A coy smile arches her lips at one corner, softening the crushing impact those words have.

“Bro, would I bone with you if I hated you?”

“Never use that in a sentence again.” The dramatic shudder is worth the pain it causes me. I practically gag again.