“Nell, I’m sorry.” Regret weights his voice. His hand settles on my back. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
I shake my head and cry harder, both embarrassed that he’s seeing me like this and relieved that some of his anger seems to have drained.
I let the pressure of his hand soothe me, but it’s a long time before I finally lift my hot, sweaty face from the pillow. I’m a sniveling, sobbing mess, but he wipes my cheeks with the back of his hand and brushes my damp hair away from my forehead.
“I’ll get you some water.” He leaves briefly and returns with a glass of water and a cool washcloth.
After I take a hiccuping sip of water, I press the washcloth to my face and exhale a sigh.
“I’m sorry, Nell. That was wrong and horrible of me. I apologize. I’ll talk to your father and—”
“What?” I lower the washcloth and stare at him. “You think you’re going to talk to my father?”
His jaw clenches. “I abused you. I have to tell him.”
“No, you don’t. And you did not abuse me, for god’s sake.”
“Nell—”
“I am not a child!” I sit up, frustration a heavy pressure in my chest. “Stop thinking of me as one. I’m eighteen. I don’t have to tell my father a damned thing if I don’t want to, and I’m sure as hell not going to let you tell him about this.”
“You should.” A muscle twitches in his jaw. “I’m a lot older than you. Not to mention I’ve known you your whole life. The power dynamic is on me. I’m the one who needs to be in control. And when I lose control, you’re not safe.”
“That’s bullshit.” I gulp back a lingering sob. “I have spent my entire life feeling unsafe. I was never safe with my mother. I never knew what she might do to me or herself. And school? The other kids scare me all the time, whether because they bullied me or because they all have lives I’ll never have.
“I wasn’t safe at the institution with doctors and therapists all thinking they could fix me. I thought I was safe at home until my father had me institutionalized, and ever since then I’ve had to be careful about everything because I’ve been so afraid of doing something that would make him put me back there. I refuse to be scared of him anymore.”
Pain etches his strong features. “Nell, your father—”
“Stop.” I hold up my hand. “Don’t defend him. I love him with every part of my being. I know he did what he thought was best. But that doesn’t mean it was for the best. It made me feel at risk in my own home. And what I’m trying to say is that for God knows how long, the only times in my life I’ve ever felt completely and unequivocally safe are the times when I’ve been with you.”
He stares at me, a pulse visibly pounding at his throat, brackets of tension lining his mouth.
Tentatively, I place my hand on his chest. A jolt of pleasure goes up my arm at the sensation of his warm body against my palm. His heartbeat is heavy, a powerful, thumping beat like a drum.
“When you visited us after so many months away…” I swallow hard, staring at my pale hand against his T-shirt, “…and we all sat in the living room, having cake and listening to stories about your travels—the nice ones about families in Egypt and schoolchildren in Africa? I felt so safe. So good. When you read me stories about flying ships and Captain Nemo…I loved traveling into those other worlds with you. When you played frisbee with me on the beach or we went out on the rocks or even into the caves, I never once worried about waves and riptides because if something bad happened, I always knew you’d save me.
“When Mom died, and I was so scared of the future, you got down on your knees in front of me and looked right into my eyes and told me I would be all right. And I believed you because you were Uncle Darius. You were the man who ran into war zones, who risked his life to tell other people’s stories. You’d survived gunshot wounds and car bombs and IEDs. Your life, your entire career, was built on danger, and yet for me, nothing and no one in the universe was safer than you.”
Beneath my palm, his heartbeat increases. I slide my gaze upward to his. He’s still watching me, disbelief darkening his eyes to the color of the earth, his breathing fast. Sweat trickles down his temple.
“So this…” I wave vaguely toward the living room, “…doesn’t scare me the least little bit. And seeing you fighting like that, I’m terrified for you, but not of you at all. I never will be. You’re my safe zone.”
“I…” His throat works with a swallow. “I didn’t know that.”
“Well.” I manage to give him a faint smile, even though everything inside me is raw and exposed. Hurting. “Now you do.”
He chuckles hoarsely and slides his hand over my hair. “You’re a sweet, sweet girl, Nell.”
Though my heart warms at the compliment, I shake my head. “I wish you’d think of me as more than that.”
He closes his eyes briefly, another humorless laugh rumbling from him. “That’s all I’ve been able to think about lately. No matter how wrong it is or how hard I’ve tried not to.”
“You don’t have to try anymore.”
Because I want to be yours.
I swallow the words, knowing that hot, blooming wish can never come true. That my time with him is limited, that all I can hope for are a few furtive, secret months of an intimacy I’ve never before experienced. And probably not even that.
Instead, I shift tentatively closer and tuck myself underneath his arm. For a heart-stopping second, I’m afraid he’s going to move away, but then he pulls me against him.
Relief floods through me. Only when I press my cheek against his chest do I realize how frightened I was that tonight would break things between us. But his arm is tight around me, his heartbeat is slowing, and for a long time we just lie there and breathe.
I’m touching him.
My hand rests on his rock-hard abdomen. I can feel his body heat through his T-shirt, the adrenaline still simmering in his veins. Experimentally, I rub my palm across his ribcage. He tenses.
“Careful, Nell.”
“I’m always careful. Too careful.” I find the courage to ease his shirt up a few inches and touch his abs, which are a fascinating landscape of muscled ridges. Just settling my palm on his bare skin jolts me with a surge of awareness. I fix my gaze on his flat belly, where there’s that line of hair leading straight down to…
Is that…
He’s getting aroused. Or is he fully hard already? I can’t tell, but there’s a definite bulge pressing against the front of his track pants.
A shiver runs down my spine. I ache to know what his penis looks like, especially when it’s hard. I want to know how long it is, how thick, what it feels like. I want to know everything about his purely male body.
He takes hold of my wrist and pulls my hand away from him. “Get some sleep, Nell.”
“What are you going to do?” I swallow convulsively. “Don’t go back there.”
“Don’t worry.” He straightens and starts to ease off the bed.
“I am going to worry if you go back to that hellhole.” I push away from him.