Page 22

He’d forgotten what it was like to feel safe.

Maybe he never really knew in the first place because nothing’s come close to this, not before his time in captivity or any delusions within it.

Wade lies awake but keeps his breathing even and muscles lax to fake sleep. He isn’t embarrassed yet about how close they are, intimate in the most comforting of ways. Can pretend he’s where he belongs and this is normal and expected so long as he’s not forced to meet her eyes.

Kara is curled around him like a protective cocoon.

It’s so much better than all his fevered dreams. He isn’t sure how long this massive leap in progress will last, but any internal struggle long since tapered off during the night.

Now he only wants more. He wants to hold her tighter and get lost in the fluttering heartbeat beneath his ear, the only music he ever wants to hear again.

Maybe she feels some small change in his behavior because she tenses, bracing for his reaction.

“It’s only me. Don’t be afraid. You’re in the blue house, remember? With me and the dog.”

She’s telling him these things as if he’d forgotten, but he hasn’t.

Not this time. Can’t find his voice through the sandpaper in his throat, so he only nods, praying she won’t shove him away.

She doesn’t. Her relief comes out in a light exhale, and then she’s all soft curves again.

The best thing he’s ever felt. He lost count of the ways he’d imagine them like this, and now that she’s here, he can’t help but be greedy.

He’s already holding her like a pillow, one arm over the slope of her stomach and curled up her ribs.

All at once, he pulls her in a fraction more, nuzzling his face along her collarbone.

The haze of sleep and endorphins all tumble together into the best drug.

Whatever pheromones she’s putting out are as encouraging as her soft hum of approval.

She didn’t sign up to have him hanging off her like this, but he can’t let go. Her reaction mirrors every time she visited him in his head and returned all his foolish gestures, arms tightening to hold him close, and fingers stroking the back of his neck.

It’s all too perfect. What if he’s not awake?

“Tell me you’re real,” he whispers sadly. “Please.”

“I’m real. Do you want another random fact? I’m sure I can find one.”

He nods, almost childlike, desperate for reassurance. If they’re caught in the eye of the storm, then he wants to stay here while danger swirls around them as long as he can.

“The last time you got transferred to a different foster family, the very last time, I used to find reasons to go into your room after you left,” she admits. “Silly reasons. Laundry, cleaning.”

Nope, he never would have made that up. “Why?”

“Because I missed you, and for a while, it still smelled like you. Like that awful body wash you used to use, remember that? It was sandalwood or smoke or whatever manly thing marketing convinced you was worth a purchase. I missed you when you weren’t around.

Even enough to inhale that terrible scent. ”

He remembers that body wash as clear as day. “Come on, it wasn’t that bad.”

“Sure, sure, not that bad.”

They’re ignoring the reason he was transferred that final time.

The black eye and busted molar he earned from flinging one of their foster father’s friends off Kara, where he had her bent over the pool table in the basement.

The two of them fought hard enough to tear that whole space apart.

In the end, he was the one charged with assault and relocated, and the truth was ignored in an overcrowded system.

Wade had a track record, after all. Violent. Hard to handle. More school suspensions than he could count.

“Were you okay after I left?” he asks quietly. “We never talked about it. Did he come back?”

“I aged out soon after and got the fuck out of there before he could try. I was okay, but only because of you.”

That moment changed her in ways she still struggles with.

Before, she went through life flinching.

After, she started swinging first.

They go quiet for a long moment and his eyes slip closed again while her hand fans out between his shoulder blades. She stays clear of his scars and never strays to the worst ones, but his mind drifts anyway. Back to when her ghost held him all those nights he thought he wouldn’t make it.

“Can I tell you something?” he whispers.

“Mhmm.”

“I used to dream of you when they had me. You’d come to me just like this. Felt as real as you do now.” He’s already lost a few of his own tears to the valley of her breasts, and she joins him with a sniffle.

“Is that why you thought I wasn’t real?”

He nods. “Stay with me? Just a little while longer?”

“Always.”

He has every intention of lying here until hunger forces them up, but a ring of bruises on her wrist startles him.

Everything that happened last night, all the terrible moments his mind shielded him from this morning, flood back in.

He wrenches backward away from her, unable to feel the loss as deeply as he thought he would in the face of a brand new sin. “I did that?”

She’s an angel below him, hair fanned out against the pillow and chest lifting in a rhythmic cadence. Doesn’t look surprised at his reaction, almost seems to have expected it.

“You weren’t yourself. You were having a nightmare, and it was a bad one this time,” she tells him, sitting up against the headboard.

“Fuck. Fuck. I knew this was gonna happen.” He doubles over, head in his hands before straightening up to inspect the marks he left behind.

She lets him look. He can’t help but think of how easily it could have gotten worse. The details of his nightmare are long gone, leaving only the purple clusters on her skin as proof that it happened.

“You should clock me right across the chin. I earned it.” He wishes for the pain of her fist connecting with his face to block out the faint memory of pinning her to the bed.

She huffs as if he’s lost his mind. “I’m not gonna hit you. This wasn’t your fault.”

“Whose was it then? Because I’m the only one here. Coulda done worse. Almost did.”

“But you didn’t. You didn’t do anything that won’t heal just fine. You think I don’t know the difference between a man hurting me for sport and one who was ninety percent unconscious at the time?”

She’s trying to make it okay, but her anger would be a blessing right now. He’s used to being punished and longs for that familiar territory in a way that makes him feel sick. He deserves retaliation more than ever, but that isn’t her, no matter how much he begs for it.

“You gotta tie me up tonight. This can’t happen again.”

She frowns. “I’m not tying you up.”

“If you don’t, I’ll hurt you again next time I have a nightmare. Could be so bad that—”

“You’re making this into something it wasn’t. I’m not upset about what happened. I’m not worried it’ll happen again, but if it does, then we’ll handle it. I know what I’m agreeing to here, okay?”

“Not a damn thing about this is okay.” He gets off the bed to plaster himself to the far wall, trying to keep from looking at her while she watches him as if she’d trust him with her life even now.

“I’m not tying you up. I refuse to treat you like a prisoner.”

“Then you can’t sleep in here anymore, or I need to sleep somewhere else. Let me scream alone. I’ll live.”

“You almost cracked your skull open on the side table last night. It’s not safe to be alone right now.”

“Well, I’m sure that would have woken me up,” he snaps back.

She sighs, only barely containing her frustration. “Will you come sit with me so we can talk about this?”

He hesitates, and she tries again.

“You’re awake now. It’s perfectly safe. Please.”

She makes a decent point, so he relents, sitting on the edge of the bed and running a hand over the dog’s head when he presses himself close. “He’s coming around, ain’t he? Doesn’t look so feral anymore.”

Gator is still young enough to adapt. A little food, a warm fire, and suddenly they’re a pack of three.

“He helped you last night,” she says. “Saw you were having a nightmare and licked your fingers. It worked. You went right back to sleep.”

“Coulda hurt the dog, too. We have to figure out how to make sure this doesn’t happen again. If you won’t tie me up, then what?”

“I don’t know yet, but we have all day to worry about that. If you still feel like we need to take more precautions tonight, then we’ll deal with it then.”

At least she’s not arguing, so he takes what he can get. “Okay.”

He rubs the dog’s velvet ears until she breaks the silence with a statement he wishes she didn’t need to say.

“It’s okay if this was too much,” she begins softly. “Too close. You can pull away a little if you need to. I’m not going anywhere, Wade. All we have is time now.”

Too close. Too much. He’s overwhelmed, and she knows it.

He has a weird thought, then. What if she doesn’t want him touching her anymore?

Either because of what he’s done or because she thinks he’s past the point of needing to after last night.

She should tell him to keep his hands to himself.

It should be the last thing he’s concerned about, and yet, here he is, afraid she’ll throw up a barrier when he’s been trying to build another himself.

“Can I see?” He points to her battered wrist, testing her willingness for contact.

She holds it out for him, and he caresses a tender finger over the purple spots. Curves his hand around the evidence and strokes a feather-light thumb where he’d been so cruel.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.”