Chapter 15
15
T his meal is succulent and delicious, so much so that I’ve inhaled every last mouthful of the incredibly generous helping of roasted chicken, vegetables, and gravy I’ve been given. Almost as if my silent guard knew I would be ready to eat my own arm by the time I made it back to the house this evening.
As I sit here on my own on a kitchen stool, watching the sky turn to a velvety black outside, I can’t help but feel a flutter of curiosity as to whether he’ll reappear. I wonder if Grey will turn up.
Even though I don’t give a fuck, and would be glad if he stayed well away, now that I know the man with the golden mask, Hawke, lives here too, there’s just enough wondering in my brain whether I’m going to run into him in this kitchen one of these days.
Thinking of the three of them, keeps a replaying loop of the events of the past couple of days, going around and around like a skipped record.
Circling things in my mind’s eye until I almost laugh out loud .
Everything about this is laughable.
I’m at the mercy of someone, or a rather more terrifying prospect, a set of someones, who are going to dictate my future?
Despite a belly full of soul-nourishing food, there’s a sour tinge to it all. Because this might be a beautiful house, with all the trappings of wealth and glamor, but this is only temporary. It’s all fake. Whoever has decided to instruct these men to initiate me into their world, there’s no actual hope of it being someone I can grow to feel anything for, except disgust. I can’t let myself begin to daydream for even one second that it might turn out otherwise.
My life might have been shitty before, but I was in charge of where I went and what I did, and who I did it with… my below-the-red-line account aside. At least I had prospects of doing something, even if I was still struggling to figure out what that exactly was.
Everyone spends their twenties in a hot mess of figuring out what the fuck they’re doing with their life, right?
Rolling my neck and my shoulders, I’m fighting with every inch of my self-control not to lick this damn plate. It’d be my luck that one of them would walk in just as I have my tongue plastered to the surface.
So, I reluctantly pick it up along with my glass of water and walk around the kitchen island toward the sink, preparing to wash off those final drops of gravy sent from the heavens to coat my tastebuds.
I don’t even notice the stool sticking out.
I’m wiped out and not paying attention, and my foot catches on the protruding leg, knocking me off balance. It sends me sprawling in a heap, and as I go down, I’m mentally cursing myself because I fucking hate movies with the clumsy girl .
Everything shatters in front of my eyes, along with whatever door I’d been using to hold back those awful memories.
There’s blood. A shard of glass nicks the fleshy part of my hand, making a clean slice, but it’s oozing red, and right now, I’m thrust back into that awful place. On my hands and knees, I don’t see pristine tiles of a kitchen floor, all I see is grimy concrete bathed in a sickly green light.
I can even smell the fear permeating through that room where we were kept.
The mildew fills my nose. Those banging sounds are everywhere. Pounding on all sides. Vile noises that left me in no doubt there were unspeakable atrocities going on in every room in that place.
My mouth hangs open. I’m panting for breath. The more my hand bleeds, it causes my palm to slide across the floor, leaving a giant smeared crimson streak in front of me.
Hands grab me from behind, and I scream. I thrash. I do everything to get away from that awful man who told me he was my master now and that I was going to be nothing more than their whore to use and dispose of.
Tears run hot lines down my face. I can’t be back there. I thought it had all ended.
As I’m lifted, blood runs the length of my arm, soaking the sleeve right up to my elbow. It’s all I can focus on. That trickling feeling that completely replaces any notion of pain. There is no pain, only fear, thick and terrible and filling my throat like quicksand.
Water slaps my face. Not hard or forceful, but with a soft, warm wave.
My back connects with something hard, supporting me from behind.
The hand pissing blood is lifted, and I jerk it away with a hiss when warm water gushes over the cut. Except, I can’t steal my hand back because it won’t budge. Tears still blur my vision, and I fold in on myself, a whimpering, bleeding mess that I’m almost certain will end up with a matching wound through my neck any second .
It’s what happened to the man. Even though he deserved to die, I saw it. I saw the moment when his throat was cut open mere inches from my face. I felt the hot spurts of blood pump out of his artery and paint my skin.
More water pours over my hand. This time, the sting eases. Grim, cloying pain dissolves, now feeling more like a dull thud accompanied by heavy pressure. A pulse thumping in the palm of my hand, as if I’m holding my own heart inside my fist.
Something brushes the side of my face, and I flinch.
It comes again, but it’s not hurting me. It’s careful and slow and feels like a firm dragging motion wiping around my eyes. That same touch lifts my face, tilting my chin upward.
I try to dare a look at what scene lies before me. Locked in a battle with my own mind where all the signs point to the imminent danger I’m in. Yet my body feels warm, it feels enclosed, it feels safe enough to at least try.
Swimming into focus is a completely drenched man.
Dark eyes. Sopping wet hair plastered against his head. A beard coated in water droplets.
As my eyes blink to focus, I realize the position we’re in. I’m cradled against his chest as we’re both huddled on the floor of the shower together, me between his legs. My cut hand is rather awkwardly held up in the air, wrapped inside his own enormous fist, and he uses a thumb to press down on the part where that dull, repetitive thud emanates from.
With his other hand, he strokes my face as the warm shower washes away the blood to form a red-tinged river draining away from our tangled legs.
Both of us are fully clothed, but saturated.
I blink several times. Feeling like I’m floating somewhere, just outside my skin, but there’s a tiny rope tethering me to the here and now, all I have to do is reach out and grasp it.
He loosens the pressure on my palm, allowing it to drop enough so that it’s easier to examine. In letting him do so, all I can do is sit here, surrounded by Angel and the comfort of warm water, feeling like I don’t know what just happened.
“It felt so real,” I mumble. Trying to find a way to explain, even when I don’t exactly understand myself, because surely he must think I’m certifiable. God knows what kind of murder scene the kitchen looks like.
“I tripped, then there was blood, and it felt like I was right back there.” Tears start building and brimming over as I gasp for air in between words.
Angel lets my hand come down to a more natural angle, still keeping a firm pressure over the cut, and gently wipes away the hot tears with his other hand.
How long we sit there, I don’t know. The man I was so certain didn’t want to endure another second in my presence, spends endless minutes, maybe an hour, sitting on the floor of this tiled walk-in shower in soaking wet clothes, and all the while, he simply holds me.
Eventually, I start to feel a flush of embarrassment. It’s like I’ve regressed to being a needy little child, and there’s a mess I’ve made that I’d better go tidy up.
“Thank you. I think I’m ok now.” I pluck at the heavy, water-laden sweater. “I’m sorry you had to ruin your clothes, too. I’ll get dry and go fix up the kitchen.”
He cups my jaw, forcing me to look up at all his handsomeness, a sight that has only become accentuated a million times over with those water droplets dampening his skin.
A shake of his head.
No way.
He checks my palm again.
“The bleeding stopped. I think I might try standing up.”
Angel doesn’t exactly seem thrilled by the idea, but he unwraps himself first, then helps me get to my feet; being so fucking careful with me, I’m liable to start crying again at any second.
When I’m upright, my body sways a little, but he’s right there to grip my elbows and stand in front of me with solemn strength. I don’t deserve any of this after the way I spoke to him, the way I treated him, and I can’t begin to understand why he’s still here doing this with me.
He hooks the hem of my sweater with a forefinger and lifts it away from my hips. Not trying to undress me, but he inquires with surprisingly soft eyes when they remain fixed on mine.
Do you need help?
“No. I think I’m ok.” My cheeks already feel hot from emotion and sobbing, but there’s a renewed flush there, because I damn well wish this man was asking me in a different way whether I want to be undressed.
Except he’s not. This stern, silent guardian has proven he won’t do anything even when provoked to the very edge of his patience.
Giving me one last look over, he gestures for me to take the wet clothes off, then steps out of the shower. Through the fogged-up glass, I watch him stand close to the mirror and vanity, barely an outline against the steam that has built up in here, and that’s when I hear the slop of wet clothes against the tiles.
He tosses his own soaking garments to the floor; then, the door opens for a brief moment.
That all-familiar sagging sensation hits me. Every muscle feels like a lead weight as the emotion drains away, leaving exhaustion in its wake. I’m disappointed he left, but I also understand exactly why, because there’s no reason for him to remain here with me.
We’re nothing to one another.
He could have left me on that kitchen floor to slip around in a pool of my own blood and panic.
It’s a struggle to get out of the sweater, which feels as though it weighs a thousand pounds and has the grip of an octopus against my torso and arms. Once I’ve finally wrestled free and slung it away with a huff, I attack my leggings to do the same. They’re not much better, but at least I have gravity on my side to help shove them toward the floor and awkwardly shift my weight from foot to foot until I’m rid of those, too.
Just as I shut the shower off and take a look at my palm—which has fully stopped bleeding, it reveals a neat pink slice through paler than usual skin—I hear the door open once more.
Angel comes in with an armful of supplies, and doesn’t bat an eyelid at my nakedness. Considering how he took care of me, I suppose this is nothing new for him. The only difference being that now I’m conscious and very much aware that this beautiful mountain of muscle is standing in my bathroom.
He’s wearing something similar to how he was dressed before. Almost.
This time he’s only in dark sweats, without a top.
I swallow thickly, hovering behind the glass partition, as if this steamed-up transparent wall might conceal the fact that my tits and pussy are on full-frontal display.
I’ve just spent the past hour recovering from whatever the fuck kind of panic attack that was, and now I’m painfully aware of every stretch mark and silvery line coating my hips and ass. Every dimple on my thighs. Every imperfection seems highlighted, because this man’s skin is smooth and brown, and the whole side of his arm and shoulder is covered in a tattooed design that flows with his body.
Like a second skin.
He sets things down on the vanity, then turns to me, holding a towel spread wide between outstretched arms. My cheeks heat further as I step into the fluffy invitation, cocooning myself inside quickly.
Angel turns away, letting me dry off in peace, while I let my gaze linger on him in the mirror’s reflection. He doesn’t once look up, even though he could. It would take nothing more than a tilt of his eyes to watch me the way I’m watching him, but he remains focused on the counter in front of him, and I let my attention fall to what he’s doing.
There’s a small medical kit, with gauze and an adhesive bandage there that he’s cutting down to size. It all appears dwarfed by his huge hands, like he’s about to patch up a doll.
Sensing that I’ve finished drying myself, he turns, offering a t-shirt in exchange. I quickly swap the two items, clutching the soft cotton to my chest. He doesn’t let me simply drop the towel, but carefully takes it from me and goes to hang it on a hook.
Has he just given me one of his shirts to wear? It’s worn through to a perfect softness, is enormously proportioned, and swims on my curves.
Warmth pools low in my stomach; it smells faintly like him, too. Perhaps it’s the loss of blood, but I’m at risk of swooning at the inherent sweetness of that small gesture.
No. I quickly shake that off. He’s in practical mode, dealing with my bullshit right now. Obviously, it was the first thing he could grab while finding the medical supplies and some dry clothes for himself.
God, but how I wish it meant something different.
“I can do it.” With a lot more croak in my voice than I meant to have, I point toward the bandage.
Angel gives me a look that needs no interpretation.
He takes my palm, giving it one last close look and softly poking at the edges of the cut to check for anything that might be left stuck inside, I guess.
“No, I think it sliced cleanly, fortunately.”
He tips a little antiseptic on a cotton swab, then wiggles the bottle at me, the contents sloshing.
“Yeah. It’ll sting, I’m sure.”
I have to bite my lower lip when he takes my hand inside his own because the sight of our hands together like this, mine nestled inside his warm palm, unlocks something inside me. It feels strangely familiar yet also foreign, but ultimately safe, and I don’t know what to do with any of those colliding sensations all swirling inside my chest.
He hovers the cotton swab, and allows his eyes to connect with mine for a last check-in, and I give him a tiny nod in return.
It doesn’t sting as much as I thought it might, but the process still makes me wince and let out a slight noise of discomfort. As he lets the antiseptic soak in, I feel his thumb swiping over my palm, and the calloused press of his fingers against the back of my hand.
“Thank you,” I say. Watching on as he methodically dresses the wound and affixes the bandage.
Of course, it’s impossibly quiet in here. Over the steady thud of my pulse, I hear a trickle of water splash against the tiles as the shower head releases a final few droplets.
Can he hear my heart beating more than a little erratically? This man lives his life surrounded by a silence that is so unusual. Does that mean he’s much more attuned to every tiny fragment of noise than the rest of us?
He’s done before I know it. Pressing down a last slide of his thumbs to secure the adhesive, then he’s moving away again.
All I know is I don’t want to be left alone right now.
“Will you stay?”
He goes still, mid-way through putting everything back inside the medical kit. That’s the moment when he finally decides to meet my eyes in the mirror. I feel like a raw nerve ending asking this of him, and I know for certain it’ll cut deeper than whatever state my hand is in if he rejects me, but clearly unprocessed trauma has upended me into a territory I have no sense of how to navigate.
Those deep, dark brown eyes hold my own, and he doesn’t give me anything .
“I know you have nightmares, too.” My mouth goes dry. “I heard you last night.”
I heard so much more than I was ever supposed to. I snooped and pried on a private moment between these two men who might not be together in any defined sense of the word, but who clearly know each other’s deepest secrets and know each other’s bodies in the most intimate of ways.
“Would you stay with me tonight? Please?”
He sets everything down and grasps the edge of the counter while looking at me with strain in his features. As he does so, the muscles of his back ripple, and even though I try hard not to outright stare, I see the long line of muscle running along the curve of his spine, descending below the waistband of his sweats.
I see his Adam’s apple work, and the side of his jaw pulse.
Just as I’m certain he’ll deny me, turn me away, tell me in that deafeningly silent manner that he wouldn’t deem me worthy of such a request… he nods.
“Just give me a minute, and I’ll clean up the kitchen first.” I hardly get the words out before he shakes his head and steers me by the arm. There’s no arguing against this. Angel propels me into the bedroom, flicking off the bathroom light as we exit.
“No, seriously. It’s a complete disaster out there.”
My protest is ignored. He flips the bed covers back and points.
Get into bed.
With a huff, I do so, but this man obviously isn’t taking any risks with me attempting to sneak away and tidy up after myself. He slides in the same side right after me, forcing me to shimmy across to the side furthest away from the door.
I’ve hardly gotten myself settled before he reaches over and clicks off the lamp, encasing us in darkness. Leaving me lying there with a frantic pulse and a complete certainty that I might not sleep at all tonight.