Chapter 34 #2
I move in behind her carefully, trying not to wake her, planning to just curve myself around her sleeping form and hold her through the night.
But before I can even get my arms fully around her waist, she's moving.
Turning in my embrace with a sleepy little sound, spinning until she's facing me, pressing her entire body close against mine.
She nuzzles into my neck like she can't get close enough, like there's not enough contact between us, like she needs to crawl inside my skin and live there.
"Mmm." The sound vibrates directly against my throat, satisfied and sleepy and content in a way that makes my chest feel too tight.
She burrows deeper into the space between my jaw and collarbone, nose pressing right against my pulse point where my heartbeat pounds.
Her breath comes warm and steady against my skin, each exhale ghosting across the sensitive spot.
Her hands slide around my back, fingers splaying wide across my shoulder blades, mapping the muscles there like she's memorizing the feel of me.
"Thank you for being sweet," she whisper-slurs, words thick and slow with alcohol and exhaustion, barely coherent but still somehow hitting me right in the fucking chest.
"Always." I kiss the top of her head, breathing in the complicated scent of her—shampoo mixed with whiskey and lingering tomato sauce from dinner, all of it combining into something uniquely her right now.
A few minutes pass in comfortable silence. Her breathing evens out gradually, becoming deeper and more rhythmic, and I think she's finally gone completely—passed out the way drunk people do, sudden and total. But then she speaks again, voice even quieter than before.
"Daniel's mean."
The words land like a physical blow. Fuck that piece of shit.
The thought screams through my head instantly, violently, but I don't say it out loud.
Don't want to break whatever spell has her opening up right now, whatever alcohol-loosened state is making her tell me things she normally keeps locked down tight.
I just hold her tighter, arms tightening around her smaller frame, waiting to see if she'll say more.
More silence stretches between us. Longer this time. Her breath ghosts across my collarbone in slow, steady patterns—in and out, in and out, the rhythm becoming hypnotic. Definitely asleep now, I think. Whatever moment we just had is over—
"He killed my baby."
The words are so quiet I almost miss them, barely more than a whisper against my skin, so soft they might have been part of a dream.
My entire body goes rigid instantly, every muscle locking up.
My brain stutters, trying to process what I just heard, trying to make sense of words that don't make any fucking sense.
"How?" The question comes out rough, strangled, my throat suddenly tight.
She doesn't answer. Just breathes. In and out. In and out. The same steady rhythm that was lulling me toward sleep seconds ago now feeling like torture as I wait for her to explain what the fuck she just said.
"Peaches." I need answers. Need to understand what the fuck she just told me.
"Hmm?" The sound is barely conscious, more automatic response than actual awareness, like her body is answering while her brain is already checked out.
"How did he kill your baby?"
"Kicking me..." Her hand moves sluggishly to her stomach, rubbing the flat plane there in slow circles, fingers pressing into skin like she can still feel something that's no longer there. "Here."
My heart stops. Actually fucking stops in my chest. The world narrows down to this moment—her hand on her stomach, those words hanging in the air between us.
"Then raping me." The words come out drowsy, already fading, like she's halfway into unconsciousness and can't stop the truth from spilling out anymore, like the filter between her thoughts and her mouth has completely dissolved.
I hug her tighter, arms wrapping around her completely, pulling her as close as physically possible. I need to feel every inch of her pressed against me. Safe. Protected. Mine. No one touching her ever again without permission, without her wanting it.
"I've got you." My voice cracks on the words, emotion I can't name choking me. "You're safe with me."
"I want my baby," she mumbles, and then she's gone. Out completely. Soft snores start almost immediately, her body going slack and heavy against mine.
I hold her, completely stunned. Too shocked to move, to think, to do anything but feel the weight of what she just told me pressing down on my chest like concrete blocks stacked there, crushing the air from my lungs.
I knew he was a piece of shit. Suspected he'd hurt her physically—I've noticed bruises she tries to hide, the careful way she moves sometimes, how skittish she gets about certain things, how she flinches at sudden movements.
But this? I never fucking expected this. Never imagined it could be this bad.
He kicked her. Beat her badly enough to make her lose a baby she was carrying. His baby—the thought makes me want to vomit. And he raped her, forced himself on her.
The rage that fills me isn't the usual kind.
It's not the hot, explosive anger I usually feel when someone pisses me off or threatens someone I care about.
This is something else entirely. Something colder.
Something calculating. Something that wants to take its time, make it last, make him suffer for every second of pain he's caused her.
I don't know how long I lay there, holding her while she sleeps peacefully against me.
Minutes blur into hours. Her snores fill the silence of my room, soft and steady and somehow comforting despite everything I just learned.
My mind races through a thousand different ways to kill Daniel Reid.
Each one more brutal than the last. Each one more satisfying to imagine.
Eventually my bladder screams for attention and I carefully extract myself from her arms, sliding out of bed inch by inch without waking her.
She makes a small sound of protest, reaching for me even in sleep, but settles back down immediately when I tuck my pillow into her arms instead.
She curls around it the way she was curled around me, nuzzling into the fabric.
I stand in the bathroom and piss, brain still spinning, still processing.
When I go to wash my hands afterward, my eyes catch on her things neatly arranged in the corner of the counter.
Travel-sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner, body lotion, a toothbrush standing in a cup, makeup bag with a few items spilling out—
The birth control case sits right there. Blue plastic, impossible to miss.
I pick it up before I can talk myself out of it, before rational thought can kick in and stop me. Flip it open with my thumb. Sure enough—she's got three active pills left before she starts her placebo week on Sunday.
My hands move on instinct, acting before my brain fully catches up to what I'm doing.
Thumb popping pills out of their little slots one by one.
Sunday. Monday. Tuesday. I work quickly, efficiently, until the pills that start tomorrow are the placebos instead.
Until her body will think it's time to ovulate when it shouldn't be.
Hopefully she won't notice, won't realize the timing is off.
I'm giving her the baby she wants. My baby. Not his. A baby made from something good instead of violence.
I'm going to make sure he can't fucking hurt her again. Can't take anything else from her. Can't touch her or kick her or rape her or destroy her any more than he already has. Can't steal another child from her, another piece of her future.
She wants a baby? I'll give her one. She wants to be safe? I'll burn the entire fucking world down, kill any motherfucker who tries to hurt her, to make it happen.
The stolen pills rinse down the sink in a swirl of water, disappearing down the drain. Evidence gone. Decision made. No taking it back now.
I go back to bed and wrap her up again, pulling her tight against my chest, arms banding around her like I can physically shield her from every bad thing in the world.
She makes that satisfied sound again, nuzzling into me automatically even in sleep, completely unconscious.
Like her body knows it's safe here without her brain having to think about it, knows it belongs here, knows this is home.
I love the feel of her in my arms. In my bed. In my life. In my future.
And I'm never fucking letting her go.
Not to Daniel. Not to anyone. She's mine now, and I protect what's mine.