I take in the girl sitting wrapped up in the blankets like a cocoon. She doesn’t seem like she’s about to move, so I guess it’s back to the spare bedroom for me. “You good?”
“I’m better now, thanks. It was Elias, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. He was dr-just being clumsy.” After our confrontation earlier, I try to hide the fact he was drunk. I don’t know why, I just do. Probably because he’s the good guy out of the two of us, and I’d hate for that image to be tainted for her.
“It’s okay. I know he was drunk. I mean, sober people don’t walk into stuff and make that much noise.”
“Right.”
The silence stretches between us, prompting me to walk to the door. I get my hand on the handle when she calls out through the dimly lit room.
“Where’re you going?”
Turning to look at her, I drop my hands to my hips. Her eyes follow the movement. Jesus, she keeps fixating on my body, and I’m going to have to spend some time taking a cold shower before I’m able to fall asleep.
“To bed.”
“Can you stay here?”
I regard her but don’t respond. Is she playing games? Earlier, she accused me of being just like the men who’ve abused her. Now she wants to sleep next to me?
“I won’t touch you or anything. I just don’t want to feel alone, and if Elias is drunk, he probably won’t hear me if I…” Her body slumps. “Forget it.”
My strides eat up the floor in three steps. “Make room, blossom.”
She realizes I’m serious when I plant a knee in the bed and crawl up. She throws the covers back, then scoots over toward the other side of the bed.
I settle a few pillows behind my head and lie on my back. She lies down on my right, close enough to touch, but nearly to the edge of the bed. I jackknife and snag the covers, pulling them over us.
“What were you gonna say?”
“What?”
“Elias won’t hear you if…If what?”
The bed shifts as she tenses. “Oh. It’s nothing.”
“I won’t ask again,” I warn.
The girl turns onto her side, facing away from me. “If I have a nightmare.”
I hold my position even though my body coils with the need to reach out and ask another question. “How bad?”
“What?” she mumbles softly.
“How bad are the nightmares?”
She exhales deeply. “Kicking, screaming, crying. That’s how bad.”
Without warning, I roll to my right, hook her around her belly, and drag her back. My right arm slips beneath her waist, and my left pulls her flush against my chest. She tenses but doesn’t verbally tell me off.
“Relax and sleep.”
“I don’t think this is okay.”
“I’m not like them. This isn’t for me. I’m holding you for you. Did any of those men ever hold you like this?” With each word out of my mouth, I can feel her relax further into me.
“No,” she whispers.
“This shit scares you, and I get that. But you want to get past it, you have to feel the difference. This is me, but if it were Elias, it’d be the same thing. You’ve got to feel the difference.”
She breathes a few more times, seemingly becoming more relaxed. “They’d use me,” she starts, and this time it’s me who tenses. “For their pleasure. I don’t think I’ve ever just been held like this. By a man, that is. The girls, we’d all huddle together on the mattress where we all slept. We found our comfort in each other. This sort of feels like that.”
All I can picture is Molly huddled on some dingy mattress with a group of abused women. Fuck.
“Hold onto that, girl,” I choke in a gruff voice. “Now go to sleep. If anything wakes you, remember I’m right here.”
“Okay, Sin.”
Okay, Sin.
I’ve never heard those words uttered with so much trust and belief. At least not since I lost the person who meant the most to me. And look how badly I failed her. This will end up the same. I can’t get attached, and I can’t let her get attached to me. We won’t survive this. Nobody survives when they put their trust in me.
Her breathing evens out, and within minutes, she’s fast asleep burrowed in my arms.
She doesn’t think she’s ever been held like this? Well, fuck me, because I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed holding someone as much as I do right now. And that’s bad news for both of us.
Chapter Five
Sin
The hot rays of sun streaming in the window against my back wake me. Not only is it bright as fuck in this room, but it feels like an inferno. My eyes feel like they are filled with sand, the grittiness burns in the early morning light. “What time is it?” I mumble to myself and nearly fall out of bed when someone responds.
“Six in the morning.”
When her voice comes at me, I realize the thing I thought was a pillow is actually her tiny body burrowed against my chest. We’re spooned together so tightly I don’t think either of us moved the entire night.
“Did you sleep?” I ask through a throat clogged with sleep.
“Better than I have in years.”
Shock follows her simple sentence. Lying in the arms of a scary bastard like me brought more comfort than she’s felt in years. How is that possible? I intimidate people with one look. I don’t even have to speak, and the ink covering my skin scares people away. Yet this little rabbit laid in my arms, fell asleep for hours, and slept better than she has in years.
I’d be lying if I said that didn’t make me pleased as fuck.
It shouldn’t, but it does.
“Right,” I mumble. “Up, dressed, breakfast.”
Following my own order, I remove my arms from around her after one last whiff of her hair and jackknife out of bed. I drag on my clothes from the previous day that I left in a heap on the floor.
“You don’t…I mean, thank you. But you don’t have to take care of me.”
I shrug my tee over my head, then turn around to face her. “You’re too skinny. Love women of all sizes, fuck women of all sizes, but you need to put some weight on, and you won’t do that unless you eat.”
“Okay,” she murmurs, her eyes wide and face stunned.
“’Kay.”
I leave her alone in Elias’s bedroom, use the bathroom, then make my way into the kitchen.
As I enter the open-plan room, I’m not surprised to see Elias is already up, dressed, and at the stove.
“You makin’ enough for all of us?”
“Am I a piece of shit?”
I grin. “Not usually.”
“Thanks, asshole. I have eggs and bacon almost done. There’s a pot of coffee too.”
I help myself to coffee, then set out two plates on the island. Elias already has a plate ready for himself.
I wake up with my hot cup of black coffee, and a few minutes later, the girl wanders into the room.
“Good morning,” she says in a shy voice and hops up on a stool.
“Good morning, honey. You sleep well?” Elias asks, taking on his role as the gentle, caring man.
I feel like I’m intruding on a moment. Like I should duck out of the room and give them some privacy, and the thought alone pisses me off.