Page 43 of Watch Me Burn
Aaron’s scent—soap and blood and the faintest trace of whiskey—anchors me in a way I’ve never known. I bury my face in the curve of his neck and breathe him in like a prayer I never meant to whisper, like a vow I never intended to make.
“Come with me,” he murmurs, his voice rough and shaky against my ear as he takes my hand. He leads me to the bathroom where water hisses to life, soft and steady in the quiet darkness.
“I can clean myself. You’re the one who’s injured,” I protest weakly, but my voice lacks conviction.
He looks down at our intertwined hands, his thumb brushing across my knuckles. “I don’t care about the injury.”
He undresses me slowly—not like the nights we’ve stolen where passion obliterated logic, but with reverence, like he’s trying to memorize every inch of me before the world inevitably tries to tear us apart.
And when I strip away the last of his blood-stained clothes and guide him into the shower, he follows without hesitation, his gaze never wavering from mine.
The water cascades over us like absolution, trying to wash away more than just blood and violence.
His hands move across my skin—not to claim or provoke, but to worship.
He traces the hollow of my throat, the curve of my shoulder, each touch a silent question about whether this is real, whether I’m really here.
He simply holds me, not like I’m something broken that needs fixing, but like I’m something sacred he’s afraid to lose.
I curl against him, arms circling his waist, cheek pressed to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. He presses his lips to the crown of my head and goes perfectly still, like he’s afraid even breathing might shatter this fragile moment.
Just the two of us, suspended in time.
“I didn’t think I’d ever have this,” he murmurs against my hair. “Didn’t think I could feel this way about anyone.”
I can’t find words. They don’t exist for what’s happening between us.
Instead, I hold him tighter. Because this isn’t about desire or power or the vicious games we played with each other’s hearts like they were expendable.
This is about being seen in all our darkness and damage, and being chosen anyway.
When we finally step out of the shower, the air feels charged with something different.
He towels off carefully, mindful of his wounded shoulder.
I do the same, moving slowly, neither of us wanting to break the spell.
We don’t speak, but the silence thrums with unspoken promises we’re not ready to voice yet.
Of peace we don’t trust but crave with every breath.
Aaron climbs into bed first, moving carefully around his fresh bandages. I slide in beside him, turning toward him in the dim light, memorizing every line of his face like I’m studying a map to somewhere I never thought I’d be allowed to go.
I used to think control was everything. That power meant binding him, breaking him down until there was nothing left but desperate need and submission. But this? Letting him see the wreckage inside me, letting him touch the bruised pieces I’ve kept buried so deep I almost forgot they existed?
This is the real exposure. And it terrifies me in ways physical pain never could.
His hand finds mine beneath the sheets.
“I’ve never felt safe with anyone,” I whisper, my voice fracturing. “I never wanted to.”
Not with my father, who taught me seventeen ways to kill before I ever learned to trust. Not with Lorenzo, who honed my instincts and called it protection while sharpening his own blade behind my back. I never gave them this vulnerable, unguarded part of myself.
But I’m giving it to Aaron. And I don’t know what that says about me, or what it’s going to cost us both.
He doesn’t speak, just squeezes my hand. His pulse presses against mine, syncing in the same fractured rhythm. And still I keep going, because if I don’t say this now, I never will.
“Tonight...when I thought I’d lost you—“ My throat seizes around the words. The image of him motionless on that concrete floods back.
“I’ve killed to survive, killed to protect but if you hadn’t made it...” I pause, drowning in the weight of it. “I wouldn’t have known how to keep breathing.”
Aaron shifts, pressing his lips to mine in the gentlest caress. The kind of closeness that tells me he feels it too, that he understands what I’m trying to say without actually saying it.
That I love him. Completely. Devastatingly.
“I thought I understood fear,” he murmurs against my lips. “Until you.”
I bury my face in his chest, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breathing, the warmth of his skin, the slow thunder of his heartbeat. Tonight we let everything else fall away—control, distance, strategy, the careful silence we’ve wielded like weapons.
We let it all crumble to nothing.
Because for the first time in our lives, this wasn’t about surviving the night. It was about surrender—complete, willing, terrifying surrender.
And that’s the most dangerous and beautiful truth of all.