Chapter 32
Brendon
Dominic’s asleep long before my brain even considers shutting up.
He’s heavy around me, all solid muscle, and heat, and those stupidly long limbs that make me feel small in a way I never hate.
His body just automatically locks me in whenever I’m within reach; one arm is curved under my shoulders, hand spread between my shoulder blades, the other loose around my waist.
His breath moves against my hair, slow and even. The kind of breathing that says dead to the world, not just lightly dozing.
I should be jealous of that. I should be annoyed that he can just drop off, while my head is running laps, but all I feel is this hollow little ache of relief.
Every time his chest rises under my cheek, the tension in mine unwinds another millimeter.
He’s here. He made it home. He’s alive. Whatever he did tonight, he came back to me, instead of hiding somewhere I’d never find him.
None of this is normal.
He told me more tonight than he ever has. Not in a neat, sit-down way, with bullet points and dates. Dominic doesn’t talk like that. It’s pieces, scattered between curses and deflections, and that quiet voice he uses when he’s not performing for anyone.
“She trained me.”
“I learned from the best.”
“She will kill anything that takes my focus.”
He never says “my mother did this” in a straight line, but the picture doesn’t need more paint to be clear to me now.
I know what it’s like to be built by somebody else’s hands. To have all the wrong wiring shoved into place under the guise of love, protection, and ‘this is for your own good’.“
My childhood damage comes with Bible verses, disappointed sighs, and subtle, layered guilt. Dominic’s comes with blood and bodies and a woman who could make a knife feel like a hug.
Different languages; same story.
“Everything wrong with you was put there by someone else.”
When he said that to me the first time, I thought he was just trying to dismantle my shame; make me stop taking all the blame for every fucked up want in my head. Sitting here now, cradled in his arms, I realise he wasn’t only talking about me.
Everything… wrong with you.
He meant himself, too.
I shift a little, sliding my hand up from his ribs to his chest under the thin cotton of his T-shirt.
He whimpers in his sleep at the movement.
It’s not loud, more of a breath catching on the way out, but his body tenses.
My palm spreads flat over warm skin, and under it I feel the familiar uneven landscape I’ve traced a hundred times now—raised lines, smooth puckered circles, ridges interrupted by dips.
Scars. So many scars, hidden under tattoos.
I’ve known they were there from the first night he let me see him without a shirt on, all tattoos and ink and shadows that almost hide the white lines underneath.
I always told myself they were from football, accidents, or the childhood he never talks about.
I let myself believe it, because believing anything else felt too big.
Now I know better. She made him into this. Not just metaphorically; literally. Hands-on, in the worst possible way.
My fingers follow one of the longer scars, the one that runs diagonally from his left shoulder, across his chest, and toward his ribs.
He whimpers again and shifts, his grip unconsciously tightening around my waist. That stupid, warm feeling hits me again.
He’s the dangerous one, the one with blood under his nails and bodies in his rearview mirror, and yet his sleeping brain is scared I’ll leave if he loosens his hold for half a second.
“How did I end up here?” I mutter under my breath. “What are you doing to me, Beast?”
I slide my hand lower, letting my fingers trace another scar near his sternum, this one smaller; a circle with faint radiating marks where the skin pulled tight. Bullet, maybe.
He had nobody.
“Everything wrong with you was put there by someone else,” I whisper, fingertips skating over the scar again. “You weren’t born this way, either.”
His head rolls slightly on the pillow, brows pulling together in the faintest frown, like some part of him hears me through whatever nightmare or fog he’s in. His hand slides up my back, bunching the fabric of my shirt in his fist, then relaxes again without him fully waking.
My throat thickens as I lean down and press my lips to the scar.
Just a soft kiss, nothing deep, nothing sexual.
It’s reverent in a way that would make my father throw holy water if he saw it.
I kiss it again, letting my mouth linger against that raised line of skin until my eyes sting and my nose burns, and I have to pull back for air before I embarrass myself.
I move to another mark, a smaller slash near his collarbone, half-hidden under ink and shadows.
I kiss that one, too. Then another where the skin looks a little more jagged, like it didn’t heal right the first time.
Each touch feels like a quiet argument with whoever did this.
‘You didn’t win. He’s still here. He’s loved. ’
“Idiot,” I murmur against his chest, voice shaking more than I want it to. “My stupid, beautiful idiot.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and breathe through my nose until the prickling feeling fades, refusing to let tears fall.
I know myself well enough to know that if I start crying right now, I’m not going to stop—and then he’ll wake up, and I’ll have to explain, and I don’t want to explain this. I just want to keep this moment for me.
How did I fall in love with a sinner?
The answer is messy, stupid, and also simple. One day at a time. One bad decision at a time. It didn’t happen all at once; there was no lightning bolt, no grand revelation. Just a thousand small moments where he chose me, or touched me, or looked at me with softness he always tried to disguise.
I look at his scars, and I want to rip time apart and pull that boy out of every room she ever put him in. I want to stand between him and every lesson she taught him with a weapon in her hand. I want to throw my body over his, and tell him he doesn’t have to earn love by performing violence.
I can’t do any of that; the past is done. All I can do is kiss these marks, and try to be different than what he expects. Try not to flinch when he comes home with blood on him. Try not to pretend he’s anything other than what he is. Try to love him anyway.
I end up straddling his hips, my knees planted on either side of him, thighs snug against his. My palms lie flat on his chest for balance, feeling the slow, steady beat of his heart under my hands.
There’s a slackness to his face he never has when he’s awake. No smirk or carefully controlled blankness—just a young man who’s bone-deep exhausted. I never let myself think about how young he actually is when we’re awake together. It makes everything too raw.
I lean down again, closer now that I’m above him. The position feels intimate in a different way than when we’re doing anything sexual. There’s power here, yeah; technically, I’m the one hovering, but it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like I’m guarding him, for once.
My lips move slowly, mapping a path across his chest. Scar to scar.
Old wound to old wound. The older ones are smoother, pale lines that feel almost silky under my mouth.
The newer ones are tighter, less faded, and he twitches when I kiss one near his ribs; a tiny flinch, as if his body remembers the pain, even if his mind is off somewhere else right now.
“Shh,” I whisper. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
It feels strange to say his own line back to him. He’s the one who usually says that. “I’ve got you.” He says it like a promise and a threat all at once; like he’s reassuring me and anchoring himself at the same time. Saying it now, to him, makes my chest squeeze.
I kiss along the edges of his tattoos, tracing the black lines inked over old damage.
I wonder how many of those tattoos were chosen to cover what she did.
How many designs were picked because he couldn’t stand the sight of a certain scar anymore.
How many times he sat in that chair, under a buzzing needle, and thought, ‘if I put something beautiful here, maybe I don’t have to see the ugly underneath’.
“I love you,” I whisper, so quietly the words barely leave my lips.
Saying it out loud feels like stepping off a ledge, even if I’m pretty sure he won’t hear it.
“You’re a mess, and you kill people, and you make the worst jokes, and you piss me off more than anyone I’ve ever met—and I love you so much it scares me. ”
His grip on my thigh settles and turns more relaxed, his breathing deepening again.
Whatever his subconscious was reacting to seems to calm under the steady pattern of my touch.
It hits me then, in a quiet, simple way, that I can do that for him.
He’s not just the one who pulls me back from the edge; I can drag him away from his own hell, when he falls too far into it.
I kiss the scar that sits closest to his heart again, lingering there, one hand sliding up to frame the side of his face. My thumb brushes along his jaw and the faint stubble there, tension visible even asleep.
“I love you,” I breathe against his skin, so quiet I’m not sure if I said it out loud or just thought it.
He makes a sound.
It’s small, but distinct; a rough little noise that carries my name wrapped in it. His hand slides up from my hip to my lower back, pulling me down a fraction more. His eyes blink open, unfocused at first, pupils huge in the dim light.
“Bren,” he croaks, voice wrecked with sleep. “What’re you… doing?”
I freeze, caught like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar. “Couldn’t sleep,” I say, because that’s true. “You were… whimpering. I was just…”
“Just…?” he prompts, throat working as he tries to drag himself fully awake.
“Just… kissing your scars,” I quietly admit, cheeks burning, even as the words leave my mouth. “I wanted to.”
A muscle in his jaw ticks, and his hand tightens at my back, then loosens, as if he’s fighting two instincts at once: push me off, or drag me closer. His eyes flick down to his own chest, taking in the damp spots where my mouth has been, then back up to my face.
“Fuck,” he whispers. There’s nothing filthy in it this time—simply raw, startled emotion.
I brace myself for him to make a joke, or defuse the moment; to joke about worship, or altars, or how much of a dirty little saint I am. Instead, he reaches up with his other hand and cups the side of my neck, thumb resting against the pulse he can probably feel pounding there.
“That’s dangerous,” he says softly.
“Kissing you?” I ask, trying for light and failing.
“Loving me like that,” he corrects, no hesitation.
My heart stutters. I guess we’re past pretending now.
“Too late,” I say, because I’m tired of lying by omission, at least to myself. “Damage is done.”
He huffs out a noise that might be a laugh, might be a choked-off sob. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “It is.”
“Why do you have so many scars?” I ask, before I can stop myself. “Did someone… did other people try to hurt you, or was this just… your life?”
Dominic doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he leans in, resting his forehead lightly against mine. I can feel the warmth of him, the faint scrape of stubble on his jaw, the steady rhythm of his breathing.
“There’s a difference?” he finally asks, and it fucking breaks my heart.
His thumb strokes my throat, slow and steady, as the other hand slides higher on my back, between my shoulder blades, supporting me as if he’s afraid I’ll topple. The weight of his gaze is almost overwhelming.
“You get it now, don’t you?”
“Get what?” I ask, even though I know.
“Why I’m so fucked up,” he says bluntly. “Why I am the way I am. Why there’s blood on my hands, even when I scrub.”
I look down at the scar under my hand, then back up at him. “Yeah,” I say quietly. “I get it more than I did before. Doesn’t make me like any of it. Doesn’t make it okay. But… I get it.”
He searches my face again, waiting for the disgust to kick in, or for me to recoil. I stay right where I am: hands on his chest, knees bracketing his hips, heart pounding too loud.
“How did you fall in love with a sinner?” he asks, a rough echo of the question that’s been screaming in my own head.
“Bad aim,” I say, because humor is easier than honesty—and he knows me well enough to hear the truth under it, anyway. “Or, maybe God thought it’d be funny.”
He snorts, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Your God’s got a fucked sense of humor,” he says.
“Tell me about it,” I say, and then, because the ache in my chest is too big to hold in anymore and the words are already half out, I add, “I don’t think He’s the one at the wheel anymore, though.”
Dom’s brows pull together. “Then who is?” he asks.
I lean down, pressing my forehead to his, his lips only a breath away. “You,” I whisper. “My stupid, broken, beautiful Beast. You took over somewhere between threatening to kill me, and making me breakfast.”
His eyes close, lashes brushing my cheek. “That’s a bad fucking idea,” he murmurs, words ghosting against my mouth.
“I know,” I say, voice steady, even as everything in me trembles. “I’m having a lot of those lately.”
He huffs out a tiny laugh that’s mostly pain. “Little Sin,” he says, a warning, a plea, and a prayer, all in one.
I kiss the scar under his heart again, then lift my head and kiss his mouth, feeling every broken, soft piece of him press back into mine—knowing exactly how dangerous it is, and choosing it anyway.
When we finally break apart, his forehead stays pressed to mine. His breathing is uneven, and I can feel the way his chest rises and falls under my palm; too fast for someone who was half-asleep a minute ago.
He doesn’t look away—there’s no smirk, no filthy joke, and no deflection. Just Dominic, raw and wrecked and staring at me like I’ve opened his ribs with my bare hands.
His fingers flex against my back, pulling me closer, until there’s no space left between us. When he speaks, his voice is ragged.
“I love you, Brendon.”
It lands in my chest so hard my breath leaves all at once.
He closes his eyes for a second, as if saying it both costs him and frees him at the same time, then presses one more slow kiss to my mouth, lingering there just long enough to make my heart ache.
“Fuck,” he murmurs against my lips. “I really fucking do.”
I kiss him again instead of answering, because there’s no version of me that survives hearing that and does anything else.