3. Dempsey
3
Dempsey
I bolt up from my bed on the fold-out couch, feeling disoriented. It’s dark outside. I listen, trying to figure out what woke me up. I don’t hear Owen, but…
“No, Viktor.” Katy.
I grab my gun and hastily, but with all the silence I can manage, creep into her room.
She’s alone and dreaming. Or, more specifically, she’s having a nightmare. I retreat from the doorway to put my gun away and return to the room. She’s thrashing around. I try to let her work out her nightmares on her own, but this seems like she’s struggling.
I crouch next to her and put a hand on her lower back.
“Get away from me.” I know the panic isn’t for me. She’s reliving the night of the attack. These nightmares are always the worst, and I can’t help feeling guilty knowing I caused this one.
“Katy.” She’s shaking under my hand. “Pepper, wake up.” Her eyes squeeze shut harder, and her breathing increases. “Katy, sweetheart, you’re dreaming.” She’s crying. I hate when the nightmares pull her in this deep. It’s almost impossible to pull her out, and I never know if it’s worse to wake her or let it play out to completion. I don’t see a difference either way.
“Shhhh. Wake up for me. Open your eyes.” Standing, I scoop her into my arms and sit back on the bed, cradling her.
It wrecks me to be this close to her. She’s suffering in her sleep because I didn’t protect her. My guard was down and Shane got the jump on me.
I don’t deserve to comfort her, but it’s torture to let her suffer like this alone when I can do something as simple as hold her while she relives this experience.
Most nights, she stays asleep, and once she calms down, I slip back out. As I swipe the tears from under her eyes, I don’t think it will be one of those nights.
“Come on, Pepper. Wake up for me. You’re safe. I’m fine, and Owen is sleeping,” I whisper, not wanting to startle her. I need to find a way into her subconscious.
“Owen.” She sits up and gasps, and I grab the baby monitor off her nightstand and hand it to her. She stares at the screen, looking over the tiny boy asleep in his crib. Her hand moves and rubs her stomach.
Slowly, her eyes glide up my body, stopping at my scar. The bullet was a through and through and didn’t hit any major organs, but I almost bled out. The blood made my heart stop, and if Spencer and her men hadn’t shown up when they did, there would have been no chance of me surviving.
Katy’s eyes continue to roam up my body. The living room was still hot from the casserole I made earlier, so I removed my shirt. I didn’t think to put it on before I came in. I was focused on her.
Only at night. It’s the only time I allow myself to be soft and vulnerable with her. I hate myself, but in the shadows of the night, I can be thankful that I was the one to get shot and not her. Grateful Katy understood me and grabbed the gun from the glove compartment after head-butting him and probably breaking his nose. And fucking ecstatic that the few times we gave her gun lessons, she paid attention and knew how to turn the safety off and got a good enough shot that Shane ran off.
I allow her to peruse my body. I can tell she isn’t fully awake, and there’s a chance she won’t remember this come morning.
When her eyes meet mine, she inhales a sharp breath.
“Viktor.” Katy throws herself into me, and I don’t hesitate to wrap my arms around her. I fucking love when she says my name. Everyone calls me Dempsey or Vik. But not Katy. She calls me Viktor because she wants to. “Viktor.” She says my name with such reverence that, for a moment, I allow myself to believe we could have this together. Me holding her, giving her comfort.
I run my hand over her back, hoping it’s offering her the comfort she needs.
“Are you back, Pepper? That was a bad one.”
She nods into my chest, and I hear her inhale my scent.
Suddenly, something sets her off, and she jumps out of my lap to the farthest corner of the bed.
“Viktor.” She glances around the room, trying to get her bearings. “You’re shirtless.”
I readjust so I’m sitting against the headboard and rub my chest. Katy’s fully awake now, which means I’ve overstayed my welcome. It’s time to retreat to my sofa bed.
“Yeah. Sorry, I got hot. If you’re okay now, I’ll leave you to get back to sleep.” I reluctantly lean forward to stand and get startled by the warmth on my thigh—Katy’s petite hand.
“No. Please stay.” She pulls her hand back, probably regretting that she even touched me. “Sorry, just…” Katy is struggling to put into words what she wants to say. I hate when she lacks confidence. It could still be the nightmare floating around in her head or the situation of finding me in her bed, holding her. “…please stay a little while longer. You’re right. That was a bad one.”
Fuck. I knew it was. I wish there was something I could do to take all the terrible memories of that night away from her. No matter how badly I know I should get up and leave, I can’t deny her.
“Sure. Come here.” I open my arm, and she crawls into my side. I instantly feel better with her in my arms. The guilt I carry around on a daily basis always disappears during these fleeting moments.
Katy burrows into my chest, and her hand rests on my stomach. Slowly, her fingers inch over until they covers my scar. She inhales a ragged breath, and I pull her closer.
“I’m okay, Pepper. I’m here.”
“I know. But the dream was so real, and parts of it actually were.”
We sit in silence for a while, her hand warming my scar while I caress her back. I’m going to soak up every second of this interaction because I know, come morning, she’ll go back to being just my job.
Katy’s breathing slows, and a soft snore whispers through the room.
Sixty more seconds. That’s all I’m giving myself before I go back to my pull-out couch. My self-imposed dungeon.
I was happy sleeping on the regular couch. I just needed to be close enough to Katy to prevent any other potential situations. The guys understood, as everyone was on edge for a while, so they upgraded me to a sofa bed.
When Spencer’s guys were discussing giving up their apartments since they all live together now, her father, Eddie, offered Katy the pool house and said he would take over one of their leases. My sofa bed was the first piece of furniture brought into the house for us. There’s an unspoken agreement that I’m watching over Katy now. Someone continues depositing money into my account, but I’d still be here even if they didn’t pay me.
I hate that it’s been almost two years without contact from Shane. He sent a picture of Katy coming home from the hospital with Owen, but nothing specifically from him since. Occasionally, a package will arrive without a name and with baby items in the box. Tucker’s P.I. has looked into them, but all roads have been dead ends.
My sixty seconds are long gone, but I’m having trouble extricating myself from this beauty’s grip. With a final sigh and a kiss to the top of her head, I roll her onto her other side and slip out of the bed.