Chapter 13
Chapter thirteen
Nicky
My dream falls away as Liam slides into bed with me. Somehow, even deeply asleep, I know it is him. I don’t freak out or reach for my gun. I simply shuffle over a little to make more room for him.
He presses himself close to me, nose to nose. I drape my arm around him, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world.
“Nightmare?” I mumble.
“Yeah.”
He wriggles even closer. The smell of sandalwood washes over me. He must have used my body wash, and I have no fucking idea why that feels so delightful. Did he want to smell like me? Do I give him that much comfort? If that’s the case, then it’s the proudest achievement of my entire life.
He moves again. Settling in. It is the small hours of the night, and sleep is pulling me back under.
Liam freezes. Realization hits me hard enough to blast all the sleepiness away.
“Shit. Fuck. Sorry!”
I start to recoil away from him, but his arm wraps around my back, holding me close. Pressing my erection against his stomach.
I open my mouth to spew out apologies and explanations, but Liam’s hoarse whisper cuts through the air.
“Do it.”
“Do what?” I babble.
“Fuck me.”
“What the hell Liam? No!” I try to pull away. But Liam has a death grip on me, and even with all the horror flooding my veins, I don’t want to be rough with him.
“I think it will work.” Liam’s voice is calm. Cold. Almost icy.
“What are you talking about?”
“It will make me feel safe.”
I stop trying to prise myself free. “Liam… I don’t understand.”
“You are all manly now.”
Is he still dreaming? Is that what is going on? “I haven’t filled out that much.”
He shakes his head and his hair tickles my nose. I wish I could see his face, but maybe it is better this way. Easier to whisper truths in the dark.
“It’s not just muscle,” he says softly. Pressed so close to me that his breath caresses over my shoulder. “It’s presence. The way you carry yourself. You are clearly confident. Capable.” His voice drops even lower. “Dangerous.”
My stomach twists. I don’t know what to say to that, so I say nothing at all.
“To me, you will always be Nicky. To the rest of the world, you are Nicolo.” He pauses and takes a deep breath. “If you claimed me, made me yours, I would feel safe.”
My lungs hiss in a sharp inhale. “Liam, you are…”
“Crazy? Tell me something I don’t know.”
My mind flounders as I try to catch some of my thoughts and form them into words.
“We tried sensible,” Liam says calmly into the dark of my bedroom. “The doctors didn’t help. Medication isn’t doing fuck-all. The sensible options have been useless.”
I want to blurt out something about time and early days. I need to say something calm and rational. But the words just won’t come. I’m holding Liam in my arms, and I simply don’t want to talk.
“Your friend Dante said I was pretty,” Liam says. “Then you told him to back off. You said I was under your protection, and I haven’t thought about Dante until just now. He didn’t haunt my dreams. You made me feel safe.”
I lick my lips. “What are you asking, Liam?”
“I’m asking you to fuck me and make me your bitch. Put me under your protection so I know no one else can hurt me.”
“This isn’t prison,” I protest.
“My broken mind doesn’t know that. It will never know that. Besides, I may be out of prison, but I’m with you, in your world. And you are in the mafia, and mafia rules aren’t so very different.”
My lungs stutter through another breath. Liam isn’t wrong, but he is asking the unthinkable.
“I’m not going to fuck you.”
“You said you would do anything.”
“I can’t do that to you!”
How could I? A hand on his shoulder terrifies him. He is traumatized. Struggling. He doesn’t know what he is asking for. Sex isn’t fun for him. Especially not the type that comes with labels like claiming and bitch.
“I want you to. I like you.”
Liam’s quiet words hit me harder than any punch ever has. They slam into me and knock all the air from my lungs.
He is saying everything I have ever wanted. Giving me the greatest gift. All wrapped up in horror and trauma and all the darkness of the void. Something that should be so pure and wonderful has been twisted into something grotesque and abhorrent.
He doesn’t want me because he loves me. It is not attraction, desire or plain old horniness. It’s desperation and fear. And it is breaking my heart.
“Shut up, Liam. Go to sleep.”
My words come out far gruffer than I intended. But Liam doesn’t flinch or wilt. He merely lets out a resigned sigh.
“See? You are even bossy like a daddy.”
“Liam!” I gasp.
I don’t know if I’m outraged or if I want to laugh. It is possibly both.
Liam sighs again. All the tension has drained from his muscles. He is no longer shivering. He is in my arms, and he feels calm. At ease. I make him feel safe.
“Fine,” he says as he snuggles even closer.
His lungs slow, and within a few heartbeats he is asleep. Wrapped around me. While I don’t think I will ever sleep again.
I’m just going to have to lie here holding him all night long. And that is something I don’t mind doing at all.
Iwake up alone, which shouldn’t surprise me but somehow does. My arm is still curved around the empty space where Liam was pressed against me all night, and the sheets smell like sandalwood and something uniquely him, a scent I’ve been unconsciously memorizing for weeks.
The apartment is quiet, but there’s the soft clink of crockery from the kitchen that tells me he’s awake. Making tea, probably, in that careful way he does everything now, like he’s afraid of making too much noise or taking up too much space.
I lie there for a moment, staring at the ceiling and trying to convince myself that last night was just nightmare-induced confusion.
That Liam didn’t really mean what he said, that in the clear light of morning we can both pretend it never happened and go back to our careful dance of healing and protection and unspoken feelings.
But even as I think it, I know I’m lying to myself. There was nothing confused about the way he spoke. Nothing delirious about his reasoning, twisted as it was. He meant every word, and the fact that his logic makes a horrible kind of sense just makes it worse.
I drag myself out of bed and pull on some pajamas, trying to prepare for a conversation I have no idea how to navigate.
How do you tell someone you love that their solution to trauma would only create more trauma?
How do you explain that what they’re asking for would destroy the very thing they’re trying to protect?
I find him in the kitchen, standing by the window with a mug of tea cradled in both hands. He’s wearing my old fake university hoodie, the one that hangs off his thin frame like he’s drowning in fabric.
He is wearing my clothes even though I went back to Primark while he was in hospital and found everything he had chosen. Does he not want them anymore because of the panic attack and hospitalization they caused? Or is it because he prefers to wear my things? I’m too afraid to ask.
Partly because I don’t want to know, partly because it is not the time for difficult questions. His hair is still messy from sleep. In the morning light, he looks impossibly young and breakable.
“Morning,” I say softly, not wanting to startle him.
He turns and offers me a small smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Morning. Made you coffee.”
There’s a mug waiting for me on the counter, steam still rising from the dark liquid. He’s remembered exactly how I like it now. Strong enough to wake the dead, with just a splash of milk. Such a small thing, but it hits me in the chest with the force of how much I love him.
“Thanks,” I manage, taking the mug and letting the warmth seep through my fingers.
We stand in comfortable silence for a moment, both of us looking out at the gray London morning. I’m starting to think maybe he really doesn’t remember last night, that maybe I can let sleeping dogs lie and pretend none of it happened.
Then he takes a breath and says quietly, “Have you thought about what I said last night?”
I nearly choke on my coffee. Hot liquid burns my throat as I cough, eyes watering. So much for pretending it never happened.
“Liam,” I start, but he cuts me off.
“I wasn’t delirious, if that’s what you’re thinking. I know exactly what I asked for.”
He’s still looking out the window, not meeting my eyes, but his voice is steady. Certain. And that certainty is what terrifies me most.
“You were having a nightmare,” I say weakly. “You weren’t thinking clearly.”
“I’m always having nightmares.” His fingers tighten around his mug. “That doesn’t make me stupid.”
The quiet hurt in his voice makes my chest ache. “I didn’t say you were stupid.”
“Then why won’t you consider it?”
“Because…” I stop, trying to find words that won’t sound like rejection. “Because you’re asking me to hurt you. To use your trauma against you. To become part of the thing that broke you.”
He finally looks at me then, and his blue eyes are so sad it takes my breath away.
“What if I’m already too broken to fix? What if this is the best I’m ever going to be?”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” He sets his mug down with shaking hands. “It’s been weeks, Nicky. Weeks of trying to be normal, trying to heal, trying to be the person you remember. And I’m still falling apart at the sound of a security alarm. I still can’t sleep. I still see threatening men in every shadow.”
“That’s normal. Trauma takes time…”
“How much time?” The words burst out of him, raw and desperate. “How many months? Years? I’ve already lost so much time, Nicky. Nearly a quarter of my life is gone and I’m never going to get it back.”
He stops and takes a deep shuddering breath. “How long are you supposed to wait for me to become someone you can actually love?”
The question hits me like a physical blow. “Liam, I already love you. I love you exactly as you are.”