Chapter 9 Willow #2
It’s small and cramped, nothing special at all, but at least I know it’s safe. I strip out of Malice’s jacket, letting it fall to the floor while the water heats up in the shower.
Once it’s just above tepid, I step in and start washing up, wanting to cleanse my skin everywhere that Troy touched me. I close my eyes, trying to relax, trying to breathe, but I still feel weird. Wrong.
The door opens after another minute, and I peek around the shower curtain to see Ransom stepping inside, closing the bathroom door behind him.
“Just me,” he says with a smile, holding his hands up. “I just didn’t want you to be alone. Is it okay if I stay?”
I nod, and he smiles wider. He strips down, tugging his shirt over his head to reveal his cut torso and the tattoos snaking over his skin.
Then he reaches for his pants, watching me for any signal that he should stop.
I nod again, swallowing, and he shoves them down, baring his pierced cock and muscled thighs.
He kicks his shoes off along with his pants and then steps into the shower to join me, pulling the curtain back in to place and moving in behind me.
At first, he doesn’t touch me, just watching as the water runs down my skin. I gaze at him too, drinking in the sight of his handsome face, his eyebrow piercing, and the brown hair with highlights of copper strands that darken as the water soaks into them.
“Fuck,” he murmurs finally. “You have no idea how good it is to see you. Not even like this—I don’t mean just because you’re naked. I just… missed you, angel.”
“I missed you too,” I whisper back. “All of you.”
“We were all going a little insane without you,” he admits with a crooked grin.
It doesn’t reach his eyes, which turn a little haunted as he speaks.
“Malice was… well, you know, Malice. And Vic barely left his computer to take a shit and sleep. None of us could function beyond what we needed to do to get you back. Because we need you. You keep us together.”
I can picture it easily, the way Malice would have been on the edge of losing his shit, angry and intense, and Vic’s single-minded focus.
“But you were together before you even met me,” I point out, tilting my head to let the water from the shower hit me at a different angle.
Ransom shrugs. “We were, but it’s hard to imagine it now.
I don’t think any of us could ever go back to the way things were before we met you, even if we would’ve said things were good back then.
That’s just because we didn’t know how perfect they could be.
You’ve changed us a lot. And we wouldn’t have it any other way. ”
Warmth blooms in my chest. I smile a little, happy to hear that. I hate that they were so worried about me, but it feels good to know that while I was holding on to memories of them to keep me from losing myself to my fear and pain in Troy’s hold, they were holding on to me as well.
I want to tell him that. That I thought about them every day.
That I pictured their pep talks, their strength, their resilience, and that it kept me sane in a way that nothing else would have.
But the words won’t come. I don’t want to talk about the pain I endured in that house with Troy, and even thinking about it makes my head throb.
Ransom seems to sense that there’s some war going on inside me, or else it’s showing on my face pretty clearly, because he just smiles and moves closer.
“We’re together now,” he murmurs. “All of us. And everything will get better, I promise. One step at a time, you know?”
I nod because he’s right. “Okay.”
“Let me take care of you, okay? Let me help.”
I nod again, and Ransom reaches for the little bottle of shampoo on the shelf in the shower.
He lathers up his hands, filling the shower with the scent of generic shampoo, and then starts washing my hair gently.
The dyed brown locks are a mess of tangles and knots from it being damp when I fought with Troy, but Ransom’s fingers are soothing as he works the knots free and lathers my hair up.
He talks softly about nothing really, just filling the silence as he muses about what Malice might get for dinner, running down a list of the restaurants nearby, and how they’ve tried takeout from most of them.
He talks about how Vic supposedly hates onions, but how he definitely ate some on a cowboy burger while he was deep in concentration trying to track me down.
It feels domestic and soft and safe, and I try to let myself sink into it, focusing on the good things here and blocking out the bad. The roar of the shower, the feeling of Ransom’s sure fingers in my hair, the trickle of suds and water down my back as he tips my head back to rinse my hair clean.
He keeps water and shampoo from getting in my eyes, and then smiles when he straightens me back up.
Without making me ask him to keep going, he grabs the body wash and lathers up a wash cloth, then starts to clean me up.
He lifts my arms, carefully scrubbing at every inch of my skin, and when he moves over my torso, I gasp softly as the cloth brushes across my chest.
Ransom grins, stepping a bit closer to me in the confines of the old bathtub. He fits a hand behind my head and tilts my head up a bit, then drops his own head. His mouth is just an inch away from mine, leaving me to close the distance if I want to.
And I do.
I missed him. Missed this. Missed being taken care of and looked out for.
He makes a low noise into our kiss, his mouth moving against mine, and I clutch at his shoulders, needing something to hold on to as my head starts to spin.
The kiss heats up, his hands roaming over me, slipping over my curves and the scars on my torso, slick with water and the remnants of body wash.
I wait for the familiar heat to pool in my belly, for the fire that usually comes with kissing any of these three brothers… but it’s not there. Instead, there’s a rising tide of bile, and rushing feeling of panic.
Something in me rebels against this, and that hazy veil that I couldn’t shake before is back, making it hard to think or feel. I start shaking, and I pull back a little, feeling like I might throw up.
Ransom notices immediately. His shoulders stiffen, and he pulls away completely, looking down at me with a worried expression.
“Are you okay?” he asks, a droplet of water clinging to the piercing in his eyebrow as his brows furrow.
I swallow hard, trying to breathe through the roiling in my stomach. “Yeah. I—I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m sorry.”
I frown, glaring down at the shower floor, because what is wrong with me?
This is what I wanted. Ransom, Malice, and Vic.
I wanted them even when I shouldn’t have, when they pissed me off or scared me more than anything, so why is it that now I suddenly can’t do this?
Now, when all I wanted was to be back with them? Now, when I’m finally safe?
“Hey.” Ransom’s voice is soft. He reaches out like he’s going to touch me, but then seems to think better of it. “It’s okay. Let’s get you dried off and dressed, alright?”
I nod, but I still feel… wrong. Off balance and out of sorts, like I’m living in a body that isn’t mine.
And angry that the feelings I want to be experiencing have been replaced by awful ones instead.
Instead of feeling hungry for his touch, I feel almost claustrophobic, making me want to crawl out of my own skin.
Since I’m as clean as I’m going to get for now, I let him help me out of the shower.
He grabs a towel and hands it to me, and I grit my teeth as I take it and dry myself off.
I know he’d rather do it for me, another way to take care of me and be close to me—but he clearly doesn’t want to upset me again, and I hate that.
“You’ve been through a lot, angel,” he murmurs, as if he can read my thoughts. “More than we even know, probably. You don’t have to be alright on your first night back. Or even the second. It’s gonna be okay.”
He says it like he means it, and I know he must. None of the brothers would ever hold my pain or trauma against me, not when they’re so familiar with trauma themselves. But I still feel crushed.
“What if… what if I never get better?” I mutter, the words spilling out of me before I can stop them. “What if I’m just… broken now?”
“You’re not,” he says firmly. “Listen to me, pretty girl. You’ve been through something horrible.
Something no person should ever have to experience.
And you made it through that, which is a testament to how fucking strong you are.
How powerful and unbreakable. But no one could blame you for needing time to heal from that.
And just because you’re strong, that doesn’t mean you have to be completely alright.
Not right now, and not ever. It’s okay to not be okay. ”
I nod mutely, putting on the dry clothes he offers me.
He grabbed me a pair of boxers, some oversized sweats, and a t-shirt, and they all smell like him. Just like with Malice’s jacket, it’s a comforting reminder that I’ve got my men back. That they’re all here with me.
When we step back into the main room, Malice, true to his word, is back from his food run. He and Vic both turn to look at me, and I can see the concern in their eyes.
“I grabbed some sandwiches,” Malice says. “Can you eat?”
“I’m just really tired,” I tell him, wrapping my arms around myself even though I’m no longer chilled. “I’ll have something in the morning.”
He looks like he wants to argue, but instead, he just nods.
I go to the bed farthest from the door and curl up on it, putting my back to the guys. I can hear Ransom murmuring to them in a low voice, probably telling them what happened in the bathroom.
Tears leak from my eyes, spilling down my cheeks and soaking into the scratchy material of the pillowcase. No matter what Ransom says, I feel like there’s something wrong with me. Like even though I survived my time with Troy, he took something from me that I might never get back.
My gut churns with worry and disquiet.
I wish I could fall asleep sandwiched between all of my men like I did the night before I was taken. I hate that even though they saved me and we’re back together again, they somehow still feel too far away.
Maybe Ransom is wrong. Maybe I really am broken.
My thoughts keep tumbling over and over, but after a while, I finally fall asleep, my body and mind too exhausted to cling to consciousness any longer.