28. The Warden
THE WARDEN
I readied to confess my darkness to her. But the memories threatened to swallow me whole. My throat closed up, choked by all the things I couldn’t say.
So instead, I closed my eyes, letting my fingers fall back to the keys.
I played Requiem for Taibhse again—the mourning for the boy I once was, the man I could have been. The ghost of me.
I hoped Ava might hear it too. That she might feel the pain, the regret, the longing I had buried for so long.
I felt her slip into the seat next to me, and as always, her nearness twisted something deep inside my chest.
I wore no shirt, just a pair of loose-fitting black cotton drawstring pants, and the warmth of her skin brushed against mine as she shifted beside me.
The whisper of her forearm against mine as I played sent a shiver through me, the simplest touch filling me with a longing I had no right to feel.
Every inch of me wanted to reach out, to pull her closer, to hold her the way I’d dreamed of in the dark nights when all I had was her ghost to cling to, the memory of her, the only thing keeping me from going mad in that cell.
The last notes of Requiem for Taibhse faded and Ava’s hand slid onto mine.
Time to be brave, Taibhse , I could almost hear Eamon saying to me.
Words lodged in my throat like stones, heavy and jagged. But sitting here now, beside Ava, I knew I had to let her in. To tell her the things I never thought I’d be able to say aloud.
“I was too soft when I went into prison.” The words grated out of me, like they were scraped raw from the inside. “Seventeen. A boy trapped in a cage with men. With monsters .”
My breath shuddered past my teeth, the memory tasting sour in my mouth. I forced it down, but it still clung to me like a bad dream.
I closed my eyes for a moment, seeing Skellig Mór prison rising up like a rotten tooth from the craggy remote island off the misty west coast of Ireland.
“Those men—they can smell weakness,” I continued. “And they smelled it on me.”
I paused, gripping the edge of the piano, my fingers digging into the smooth wood, trying to anchor myself, but the memories threatened to slip loose anyway.
I felt the cell walls closing in on me, feeling the damp concrete under my knees. The sound of their footsteps. The taunts. The pain. The violation.
“Such a pretty boy.” One of their voices slithered up from the past, making me nauseous. “Open that pretty little mouth…”
My gut clenched, and I shoved the memory down as hard as I could as I fought back the bile in my throat, fighting to keep my voice steady.
I found my fingers touching the scar on my lip and I snatched it away like it had burned me.
I couldn’t look at Ava, couldn’t bear the thought of her seeing the truth on my face, that shameful part of me.
“I suffered,” I admitted. “For weeks. It never stopped. And, of course, the guards didn’t step in. The only time I had peace was when they locked me in my cell at night.”
Ava gasped beside me, and I felt her eyes on me, burning my skin, making my cheeks flush.
I waited for it—waited for the disgust, for her judgment to crush me all over again.
But it didn’t come.
Instead, her fingers found mine on the keys. Soft. Gentle. Her warmth wrapping around my hand like a lifeline.
I glanced at her, bracing myself for what I’d see, but there was no judgment in her eyes. Just a quiet acceptance, a grief that mirrored my own.
Her hand tightened around mine, grounding me in a way nothing else had. Not even my own memories of her had ever felt this real.
For a moment, I was just a man who had survived hell—and she was the only reason I was still standing.
“And then there was you.” My voice cracked, raw. “Dreams of you. Your ghost. Your memory. It kept me going.”
Ava squeezed my hand in hers, so much knowing in it, her understanding cutting deeper than anything else ever had.
Ava had to know the rest. She had to know me .
I continued, knowing that if I stopped talking, I might not get the nerve to start again. “Every day I thought, today is the day they kill me.”
“But they didn’t,” she finished for me.
I shook my head. “One day I got a new cellmate. Eamon. ”
I almost choked on the name I hadn’t spoken in months, the name carrying so much weight, so many tangled emotions.
I shoved away the memory of him, of his broad shoulders and quiet strength, the lines that crinkled around his dark eyes from a rare smile, and the way his deep voice seemed to tickle something inside my ear.
I continued. “At the time, I hated him. He was tougher than the men who hurt me. Unpredictable and… vicious. They left me alone after that. But Eamon was… tough on me.”
Ava’s eyes widened. “He hurt you, too?”
“Not like that,” I said quickly, shaking my head. “He taught me how to survive in there. How to hide my emotions. How to fight.”
Eamon had been a lifeline in prison. A source of warmth and strength.
“I owe him.” A small smile tugged at the corner of my lips as I allowed memories of him to surface—ones that ached with bittersweetness.
The way he’d stick the tip of his tongue out in concentration as I taught him to play chess.
The wolf howl he released along with that stupid twerking dance he did every time I broke a personal best on the bench press.
The way he’d lay with his muscled arm hanging down over the edge of the top bunk so he could sleep with his pinkie pressed to mine so I wouldn’t have to feel alone.
“Good night, Taibhse.”
“Where is Eamon now?” Ava asked softly, cutting through my memories.
I shook my head, shrugging his ghosts off me. “He’s…gone.”
The sorrow clenched around my throat like a vise, making it hard to speak. There were no words for the weight of that loss.
Eamon had shaped me, hardened me in ways that were brutal but necessary. And now, he was lost to me, the silence where his presence once was, still gnawed at the edges of my mind.
“What happened to him?” she asked, her voice soft but probing.
I didn’t answer.
Eamon—the truth about him, about us , the sacrifice he made for me—was a story for another day. A story I wasn’t ready to tell, not yet. Maybe never.
“Do you have a tattoo for him?” Ava asked, her fingers brushing lightly over the ink on my arm.
I nodded and pointed to the tattoo on the inside of my right bicep, the one covering a knife scar about the size of a large coin.
“I hope you don’t mind,” I said, my voice low, almost hesitant .
“Why would I mind?” She frowned, confusion flickering across her face.
I met her eyes, feeling the strange tightness in my chest.
“Because the rest,” I paused, my heart racing at the vulnerability I was about to expose, “the rest are for you .”
Ava’s breath hitched as she looked up at me, her eyes wide with a mix of shock and something else—something deeper.
For a moment, she didn’t say anything, just stared at the tattoos that mapped my skin, the black ink that told a story of my devotion that she was only just beginning to understand.
With trembling hands, she began tracing the outline of my tattoo for Eamon, her fingertips featherlight as they followed the inked lines etched into my bicep—a Celtic cross turned into a key that fit into a broken lock—a small memorial and a way to cover the last scar he gave me.
She tilted her head as her fingers went over the raised scar, but she didn’t ask about it.
My muscles twitched under her touch, a mixture of tension and something far more potent.
All this time, I’d been touching her. This was the first time in five long years that she had touched me .
When she finished with that tattoo, her fingers moved on to the next.
And the next.
Her soft fingers mapped out each piece of me, tracing the ink that honored her. Ava as my dream, my fantasies, my nightmares. Ava as my maiden, my whore, my savior, my downfall. My redemption .
No one, not in all these years, had ever touched me with such tenderness, with such heat and meaning.
Only her.
Always only her.
Perhaps it was pathetic how much I reacted under her simple touch. How much my head spun and my skin burned. How much need and pleasure coursed through my body, the tension rising until my breath grew ragged and shallow, my body trembling from restraint, and I fisted my hands against my thighs.
I wanted to cry, scream, purge every emotion locked inside me. But all that escaped was a deep, guttural moan, torn from my chest.
Her hands were salvation and damnation all the same.
Finally, her fingers traveled up my neck toward my lip. For a moment they hesitated, unsure, her eyes searching mine as if for permission.
I grabbed her hand roughly, making her gasp, and pushed her fingers to the scar on my top lip.
It was so sensitive that I flinched—as sensitive as the day those monsters split it open—split me open.
I let go of her hand, leaving her there, touching my raw wound. Giving her access to the most vulnerable part of me. Laying my broken soul out for her.
Showing her every terrible thing. And begging her to love it—love me —anyway.
She brushed the scar so gently, her voice broken and cracked as she whispered, “They gave you this, didn’t they?”
For a moment all I could feel was a hand on the back of my head, shoving my face into the shower tiles, the copper flooding my mouth, and how I’d choked on it as they —
“It’s me , Ty.”
Ava’s words were so soft, so achingly tender, they slammed me back into my body with a gasp.
“It’s only ever me,” she promised, using my own words against me as she leaned in, “ mo mhaor .”
Moh muh-waar.
My warden.
Ava’s plump lips were so warm against my scar as she kissed it, it felt like her mouth on my most private of parts.
I let out a groan and shuddered, blood surging through my veins.
Her hot breath on my cheeks felt like heaven and my lashes fluttered closed, my breath hitching as I waited—prayed, hoped, begged —for more.
She explored my lip with the tip of her tongue, feeling every bump and crease of my scar.
My cock ached because it felt like she was tasting me . Taking me into her mouth.
Need overwhelmed me. Every single cell in my fractured body demanded to throw her onto this piano, spread her and fuck her.
I rocked my hips against the seat, against air, as I held myself back. Barely. I gripped my pants, my short fingernails threatening to tear through the thin fabric.
I tasted salt as a tear, then another rolled from her lashes and caught between our mouths, cleansing me. Baptizing me anew. Reborn.
Then she pulled my top lip between hers and sucked .
It was too much.
I clutched at her shoulders as I came, as release flooded through me, something physical but also, something that moved through my soul.
I was left breathless, unable to be embarrassed, leaning my head against hers as the room spun, the front of my pants wet.
Ava gaped. “Did you just…?”
I almost laughed. Yes, I’d just come off a kiss.
Before I knew what I was saying, I blurted out something I hadn’t meant to. Something I hadn’t planned for.
But wasn’t that just Ava? She always pulled things out of me I didn’t expect.
I blamed the moment, the closeness, the fact that all I wanted right then was to make her happy, to see her smile.
Once it was out, I couldn’t take it back.
“Ava.” The words tumbled out in a rush. “Do you want to go outside?”