Chapter 16 #2
We made it to the alcove that held the bed, shedding clothes with desperate urgency, hands everywhere at once, mouths colliding like we were trying to erase something we couldn't name. I pressed her into me, crushing her against my chest, tasting her everywhere, feeling her shiver under my lips.
Her hands fisted in my hair, nails dragging down my back, thighs squeezing me like she was trying to hold me in place.
I buried myself in her with a reckless need, letting the friction, the slick heat, the hard press of skin against skin take over my thoughts.
Nothing existed except her body beneath my hands and the gasps she made, raw and unguarded, pulling me under.
I wanted to prove I could give her this, even if I couldn't give her everything else.
I drove into her, frantic and hungry, every thrust fast and unrelenting.
Her nails scored my shoulders, her back arched, voice ragged as she called my name.
I followed her, moving harder, faster, desperate for her to crave me as I craved her.
When I came, it was with a roar swallowed against her skin, the release messy, consuming, almost violent in its intensity.
She clung to me, shuddering, her hips still rocking, lips pressed to my collarbone.
I held her tight, trembling, letting the post-climax haze fill the alcove and pretending it was enough to quiet the panic churning inside me.
Afterward, lying in the dark with her curled against my chest, skin slick with sweat and hair plastered to her face, the distance between us hit me harder than ever. Her fingers traced idle patterns along my arm, and I felt the weight of everything I was refusing to confront.
"Daemon." Her voice was quiet, almost tender. "We need to talk about whatever's going on with you."
"I'm fine."
"You keep saying that. But you're not." She propped herself on one elbow, looking down at me in the dim glow cast by Sofia's ugly pink light. "You've been different since Thursday. Like you're here but not really."
"I'm tired is all. Don't go reading anything into it."
"Don't!" Her response was sharp. Certain. "Don't lie to me. Not about this."
I stared at the ceiling, jaw tight. Sofia's doilies, innocent and perfect, made me want to punch something.
"I'm trying to figure some things out."
"Without me?" she whispered.
"It's not..." The rest of my sentence failed, the words tangling in my throat. "I just... need time."
She stayed quiet, her hand still on my chest, her fingers tightening, hesitating. Then she rolled away, pulling the sheet over herself.
"Okay. Take your time," she said, voice deliberately neutral. "But Daemon? Don't take so long that you forget I'm here."
I lay awake long after her breathing evened out, sweat cooling, skin sticky and aching, hating myself. Tyler and Malakai were right. I was drowning, and instead of reaching for her hand, I'd dragged her under with me.
Admitting I loved her felt like admitting I'd already failed, and so I said nothing. Did nothing but hold her in the dark while she slept, my body pressed to hers, and wondered how long it would take before she realized I'd been a mistake.
The ceramic cats stared down from the shelf above the bed, grinning, judgmental. Even they could see I was screwing this up.
The following Sunday was a bad day to remember what day it was.
Three years ago, near as damn it, I'd been sitting in my cell in county when a guard I didn't know knocked on the cell door. My mother had passed in the night. Peaceful, he said. Like he knew. Like that word meant anything in a room that locked on the outside.
I'd never been able to confirm whether it was true, the peaceful bit. Whether she'd known it was coming. Whether the last thing she'd thought about was me, and if it was, whether she'd been disappointed.
I'd spent three years telling myself I'd made my peace with it. That showing up, being reliable, and being the man she'd wanted me to be was a form of apology. One she'd somehow be able to receive.
Monday morning at the job site, I dropped a measurement for the third time in an hour. Tyler caught it. Said nothing. That was almost worse than if he'd said something.
By Tuesday, I was as good as useless. I knew it. The crew knew it. Ethan was doing the thing he did when he was deciding whether to say something, where he'd watch without watching and let the silence do the work.
The thing I couldn't explain, even to myself, was that it wasn't just the anniversary. The anniversary was the shape that fear took this week.
But the fear had been building since Thursday night, when Nadia had said the words into the dark of my apartment, asked for nothing back, and gotten the same four words I always handed her.
I'm in love with you.
I'd lain there listening to her breathing afterward and felt something cold settle in my chest. Not because I didn't want what she was offering. Because I did.
I wanted it badly enough that the thought of failing her felt like something I could already feel happening, like I was already watching it from the other side.
My mom had believed in me. Past the arrest, past the charges, past the part where I'd had to leave her hospital room because visiting hours ended and I'd told her I'd be back Thursday.
I hadn't been back on Thursday. I'd been in processing, and by the time I was settled enough for the world to exist again, she was gone.
She'd believed in me, and I'd failed her by being exactly who I was.
Nadia believed in me. She'd said it without saying it, in a hundred small ways, every time she let me stand beside her. Every time she'd shown me the security footage or reached for my hand in a parking lot when she didn't have to.
The question was what I was going to do when I let her down too.
Because I would. I was reliable like that. I had a perfect record of failing the people who counted on me when it mattered most. And Nadia was counting on me.
On Wednesday, she called to ask me to help set up for a meeting.
"Yeah. Sure," I said.
She heard something in it. She always did. "Are you okay?"
"Fine. Just busy. Text me the address."
I hung up before she could press further.
It was easier that way.
That was a lie I'd been telling myself all week.