My thighs jerked with his words. “No, I want to give you more,” I replied, my voice husky. “I want to give you everything.”
“You already do.”
I wrapped my leg around him, pressing him harder against me.
He hissed through his teeth.
“Fuck me, Heath, please.”
He growled. “As if I could say no to you.”
And then he did.
He didn’t go slow, gently. No, like last time, like the first time, he surged into me.
And like the first time, there was pain.
But not just physical.
No, there was a searing emotional pain that threatened to tear me in two.
“Polly?” Heath demanded. “You’re here. With me.”
His words chased away the worst of it.
Then he moved.
And there was still pain.
There always would be.
But we both found pleasure in it.
A lot of pleasure.
Heath
It was three in the morning.
Heath knew this not because he glanced at a clock, he couldn’t even if he wanted to, Polly didn’t keep clocks in the apartment. Something that should’ve bothered him since his home had always had clocks in every room since he’d become a Marine.
It didn’t bother him because he hadn’t had a home until this cluttered, colorful, chaotic, clockless apartment.
He didn’t glance at his phone to know either. Polly did not allow phones in the bedroom.
“We’re too connected. We should be allowed to have a sanctuary where we’re not accessible,” she’d said, snatching it from his hands the second week he’d been staying here after her kidnapping. Her face had still been bruised, swollen.
And it killed him every time he looked at it.
But he did his best to hide that.
Because he knew his pain at her injuries would add another bruise to his beautiful Polly, just one he couldn’t see.
“Plus, the light’s bad for your eyes right before sleeping,” she added.
Then she’d stomped into the living room, placed his phone in the fruit bowl, next to a banana and her own phone, stomped back, climbed into bed, rested on her spot and promptly fell into unconsciousness.
He didn’t tell her that he needed his phone handy as part of his job. He didn’t have set hours. And if he did, they would be closer to midnight till four than nine till five. He didn’t tell her that because no way in fuck was he saying no to her in any way shape or form.
He’d quit his fucking job if she asked. If it meant he’d get every single night of her laying on his chest and sleeping.
He planned on getting every single night.
But as she healed, as they got into a routine, he’d had to gently tell her about the need for his phone.
“Well, you’ll have a separate ringtone for work emergencies,” she decided. “One loud enough to hear from the living room. And though this apartment isn’t as small as yours, we’ll still hear it,” she decided.
He agreed.
Because he’d agree to anything with her, to get her back to her.
He didn’t tell her that ‘his apartment’ was no longer his. He still had the lease, of course, but was planning on breaking it. He wasn’t planning on sleeping another night in that fucking place. And not because he couldn’t physically sleep another night without Polly in his arms.
Because this was home.
No matter how broken it was right now.
Polly was home.
And now, things were a little fixed with that agonizing truth actualized. Burned into his brain like acid. It was something that he’d never get over. Forget. It was a wound that cut him to the core.
But he had Polly.
And she’d get him through.
In little ways like waking up at three in the morning to an empty bed.
He pushed out of bed and found Polly doing yoga in the moonlight.
Yeah, she was healing. She didn’t think she would be the same, she didn’t think she could be fixed. But the fact she was here, awake, not willing to give in her life to sleep anymore, it meant a little piece slotted back into place.
She came up from a forward fold—he was learning the terms because it was important to Polly and he didn’t give a fuck if that made him a pussy—and caught his eyes. She didn’t jump in surprise, she smiled, openly and warmly.
His heart clenched in his chest.
A broken piece inside him slotted into place with that smile.
“Couldn’t sleep, and it’s a full moon,” she said, looking out the window. “It’s a shame to waste it.”
Only Polly would think that not getting up in the middle of the night to do yoga and charge her crystals—he saw them on the windowsill, and knew she did this every month—would be wasting a full moon.
She was back.
He crossed the room and yanked her into his arms.
“Does it count as wasting the full moon if I fuck you in front of the window?” he rasped.
Her eyes flared with hunger. “No,” she breathed. “No, it doesn’t.”
So he did just that.
Polly
Two Days Later
“I think it’s time I called my parents,” I said sipping my tea, and perving at Heath as he got ready for work.
He froze, looking up from his belt.
“I’m not telling them everything,” I said quickly. “Or even half. I just...can’t. I’m not putting that on them.”
“This isn’t about putting it on them,” he said immediately. “This is about you doing whatever you need to heal. You needa stop worryin’ how that process is gonna hurt others. Because it won’t. Only way it does is if someone who adores you—list is long with me at the top—thought you were hurting yourself to save them. Don’t know your parents, but know the kind of women they’ve raised, so I know they will be of that opinion.”
I blinked at Heath’s words. I wondered if I’d ever get used to the way he spoke. His beautiful honesty. And his ugly honesty too. All mixed up together.
“I know that,” I said. “I know that it’d hurt them more if they found out I’d been keeping things from them. But, sometimes there are things you have to keep from your parents. This is one of those things.”
Your ex-husband kidnapping you, raping you and then selling you to human traffickers was definitely a thing to keep from your parents.
Heath watched me for a long time, testing the truth in my words.
He nodded once and crossed the room to snatch me into a kiss. “I trust you, babe. Trust that you know yourself well enough to make that decision. Not gonna make you change it. But I’m gonna make sure you know I’m here when you call them. When they come. Because my place is at your side. It has been since you were eighteen years old. Now I’m here, I’m not going anywhere. Sooner your parents, and you, realize that, the better.”
Tears ran down my face.
“You trust me?” I repeated.
He frowned. “Of course I fuckin’ trust you. I love you. With everything I am. Fucking adore you. You might deal with shit different than anyone else, you might deal with life different than anyone else, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.” He kissed me. “Means it’s the only thing that’s right in this fucked up world. You’re the only thing that’s right.”