Page 8 of Silent Truths (Razor Monkees #1)

Tor

I felt like absolute shit. There was no other word for it.

My head was pounding. My mouth tasted fucking horrible and was so dry, I felt like I was choking when I swallowed.

My limbs were too heavy for me to really function.

And everything was too goddamn loud . Why was the fucking air conditioning so noisy? Was it broken?

“Someone needs to fix the AC,” I mumbled.

The bed shifted beside me, and a familiar body pressed against my back.

An arm draped over my side so they could lean over me and look down at my face.

I blinked at Salem, surprised to find him…

cuddling me. His dark hair was a mess—messier than usual—which meant he’d just woken up. His dark eyes were coated in sleep.

“Why are you in my bed?” I mumbled, closing my eyes again when staring at him just made me dizzy and nauseous. I didn’t even have the energy to push him away from me. Besides… I was feeling shitty enough that I wanted him close just for a moment, even with all the animosity between us.

“I was worried you might overdose or choke on your own vomit,” Salem told me conversationally. I grunted. “You wouldn’t tell me what you took other than pills.”

“Oxys,” I muttered. “I think.”

Salem sighed, clear disapproval in that single noise, but I didn’t have the energy to fight with him. For once, I felt as dead on the outside as I did on the inside. And I was pretty sure I might throw up in the next five minutes.

“You smell like you bathed in alcohol,” Salem finally said. “You need a shower.”

“Can’t move,” I mumbled, my eyes still shut.

Salem sighed again, and then his body heat was gone, making me shiver.

The sick, nauseous feeling in my gut only intensified without him pressing into me.

But a moment later, he gently tugged the blankets back before sliding his arms beneath me.

I gagged and swallowed my vomit back down, the room spinning the moment I opened my eyes.

“If you move me, I’m gonna hurl,” I warned.

“Throw up then,” he told me, not seeming like he cared as he gently—so fucking gently and slowly—lifted me from the mattress and against his chest. “Clothes can be washed. You probably need to throw up whatever is left in your stomach anyway. You’ll probably feel better.”

I blinked at him, trying to figure out what the hell was going through his head. He was acting like the old Salem. Like my Salem. And it was… confusing. I didn’t know what to make of it. Or of him. And my head hurt too damn bad to try to figure him out.

Salem was a confusing mess of puzzle pieces that didn’t seem to quite fit together.

Used to be, my pieces fit seamlessly with his, making both of us whole.

We were part of the same puzzle, each of us having the pieces the other didn’t have.

But in the months we turned our backs on each other after that fateful night, our pieces became jagged. Broken. Ruined.

We didn’t fit anymore. And that… hurt.

“What are you doing?” I asked when he eased me onto the toilet seat in our bathroom.

He yanked his shirt over his head before dropping it to the floor. I forced myself to look away from his abs and toned muscles. From the light dusting of hair on his chest.

From my name tattooed above his fucking heart. Some days, I wished he would just black it out. It would make more sense. Still seeing my name on his skin, right above that important organ, just left me confused.

“We’re getting a shower.”

“Why?” I grunted as he turned on the water.

He turned to face me with an arched brow. “Because you smell like a fucking brewery, Tor. That’s why.”

I shook my head before groaning in pain. I closed my eyes and rested my head back against the shelf behind me. “I meant, why are we getting a shower?”

I didn’t bother looking when I heard Salem’s clothes hitting the ground. I was afraid to. I wasn’t sure if I could handle seeing him naked. Not now. Not after what happened a little over a year ago…and then what happened immediately after.

When he treated me like a stranger. When he’d treated me as if I meant nothing to him. As if he hadn’t been my sole reason for breathing for so long .

“Can you even stand on your own right now?” Salem demanded.

His body heat pressed into me, infiltrating every single one of my senses. Overwhelming me and making me fucking needy for him. When I peeked open an eye, he was standing right in front of me, practically hovering over me, his dark eyes roaming over my face.

“I could’ve taken a bath,” I griped.

He exhaled loudly through his nose. “You’re a right pain in the ass when you’re hungover and feel like shit, Tor. You always have been.”

I glowered at him, my hackles rising. “No one is forcing you to take care of me,” I snipped, immediately becoming defensive.

He suddenly grasped my jaw, his fingers pressing into my cheeks hard enough to bite. My nostrils flared, my cock waking up. Pain had always turned me on a little, but Salem… Salem touching me had the power to unravel me.

And he was shredding me to pieces.

“Stop being a fucking brat, Tor,” he growled.

“I’m trying to make shit right. Last night, I slept like shit because I was terrified you were going to take your last breath because of me.

I was terrified I was going to be the one to indirectly kill you.

It’s a feeling I’ll never forget. It fucking…

it hurt , goddammit. To imagine a world without you in it. ”

My breath sagged from my lungs at his confession. At the raw agony in his voice. At the pain darkening his eyes.

“Salem…” I croaked, a hurricane of sadness and pain swirling in my chest. How the fuck did I have the capacity to hurt for him, too, on top of all my own agony?

He shook his head. “Don’t, okay? Just… don’t.

Just let me take care of you and try to navigate how to make shit right between us again.

” When I opened my mouth again, wanting to know what game he was playing at, he loosened his grip, stroking his fingers over my cheek now.

There was no way to hide the shiver that rolled down my spine. “Please, Tor.”

Swallowing thickly, I finally nodded. I wanted to know where the fuck this left us. I wanted to know why he suddenly gave a fuck about what happened to me. I wanted to know why he was suddenly hurting when he had never seemed to give a shit about what he was doing to me before now.

I wanted to know so many things, but I could clearly see, even in my still sightly-drunk haze, that now wasn’t the time.

Salem was trying to sort through his own shit… for basically the first time ever.

I would give him time to do that and try like hell to not get my hopes up.

I wasn’t sure if I’d survive the crash if he hurt me again.

Salem helped me undress—or well, he did most of the undressing considering my limbs still felt like dead weight.

And because I couldn’t stand on my own, Salem had to hold me against him.

And even though he was still in his boxers, I could feel him.

Feel how hard he was. And it was sending so many mixed signals to my hungover yet still slightly drunk brain.

I was confused. So damn confused.

Did Salem want me? Because fuck, if he did, I’d let him bend me over right now. Fuck me in this shower. I’d give him the best blowjob in the history of mankind if he’d let me.

His soapy hands ran over my body all while he braced me against him.

Shivers coursed down my spine. My cock was standing at attention between us, but Salem was ignoring it.

He literally only touched it long enough to clean it, and even then, he wasn’t actually touching it—just the fucking washcloth was.

It was torture .

I turned my head to look at him, not realizing his face was so close, and our lips brushed. I jerked back in surprise, my heart leaping into my throat, and in the process, I lost my footing. Salem’s hand slipped off my hip when I moved, and he lurched forward to try to catch me.

But it was too late. I knew it, and I saw it when he realized he wouldn’t be fast enough. The horror in his eyes and the fear in his voice were the last things I was aware of.

“Tor—!”

My head smacked against the side of the tub just as his hands found purchase on my waist. My eyes rolled back in my head, and I threw up right before I blacked out, pain slamming through my skull.