Chapter 16 #2
Shit. This is bad. I know she doesn’t want any kind of long-term relationship with me; she made that clear.
But here I am in bed with her, hurting for her, and I am fucked.
I fell in love with her a year ago and despite not seeing her during that year, I’m still in love with her.
In fact, I’m even more in love with her because I’m seeing a different side of her.
The glamorous pop singer I had a crush on exists, but she’s also a soft, vulnerable, empathetic woman with quirks and a little drama and a sense of humor that remains despite her pain.
But I can’t love her. I know her career isn’t over. She’s going to leave again. I never wanted long term because life is short, right? Nikki changed that, though. Now I want it so fucking bad. I think I want it more than anything I ever have.
But I have to live in this moment. Enjoy what I have. And accept it when it’s gone.
When she calms, she draws away and reaches for the Kleenex I brought. She presses them to her eyes and blows her nose. “I’m sorry you went through that,” she chokes out. “That was really, really awful.”
“It was a hard time in my life. The hardest. But I made it. And it made me determined to live life to the fullest. Cliché, I know. But life is short, right? Do your best, live your best, love your best, because there might not be a tomorrow.”
She gives a couple of jerky nods. “This is… a lot.”
“I know.” I set my hand on her back again. “Lots of feelings. But it’s okay. We just have to have ways to express them.” I pause. “Talk to me.”
She doesn’t speak for a few minutes, then says, “Couldn’t we just bang again?”
I know she’s joking. “You’re safe with me, Nikki.” I stroke her arm. “You know you are.”
She pulls in a long breath. And starts talking.
She tells me about the chaos after the roof collapsed.
The people screaming. Those who weren’t trapped were running.
Jumping over seats, pushing other people out of the way.
She tells me how stunned she was, how she didn’t even know what was going on.
“I couldn’t make sense of it. My first instinct was to run to where people were buried.
I heard them screaming and crying for help.
But someone grabbed me, I don’t even know who it was, and wouldn’t let me go.
They dragged me offstage. I was fighting them because I didn’t know who it was, I thought I was being kidnapped or something.
There was more chaos. Nobody knew what to do, but security was trying to take control, shouting at people.
” She pauses for breath, then tells me how her team hustled her through corridors and a tunnel, and outside to a car.
“And I kept yelling at them that we couldn’t leave, people were hurt.
” Her voice breaks. “I didn’t want to leave. ”
I don’t say anything. This time is for me to listen. And she keeps talking.
“I feel like I’ve been sleepwalking,” she says.
“I don’t even remember some of the things that happened after that.
I was in a daze. I just knew I had to keep it together.
People were killed. Injured. Missing. I was safe.
I told myself I should feel lucky. I couldn’t feel bad about what happened to me, when others were so much worse off.
And then I f-felt so guilty. For being alive. For being unhurt.”
“There are more wounds than just physical.” I make my first comment.
She dips her head slowly, then lifts it up. “Yes. That’s true.”
I tighten my arms around her and pull her closer, pressing her head to my chest. Anguish lodges in my throat, and my breath burns in my chest. “It’s normal to feel guilty,” I scrape out. “Totally normal to think that. And the reason you think that is because you have so much empathy.”
She shifts against me. “I don’t get it.”
“You survived. You want others to have survived.”
She considers that. “I guess that’s true. I just don’t know how to get past that. I can’t imagine going back to how things were before.”
“Things will never go back to how things were before.”
Her head moves against my hand in a tiny nod.
“But you can have a good, happy life, even if it’s different. Even if you’re different.”
I had a crush on her for months before I met her.
Now I’m getting to know the real Nikki. My imagined, idealized version of her doesn’t live up to reality—she has flaws and she’s wounded and stubborn.
Even the version of her I got to know in Vegas is different from who she is now.
And yet… I’m still painfully, desperately attracted to her.
To her courage and authenticity and quirky charm.
I still feel like there’s some kind of limitless connection between us, that’s inexplicable but palpable.
“I am different. I know it. I’ve been so shitty to you.” A sob catches in her throat. “Everything annoys me. I hate myself.”
Every muscle in my body tenses, my arms tightening again. “Please. Don’t do that.” I shift, rolling her gently to her back, moving over her to look down into her face. “Don’t hate yourself. Don’t hate anyone. Life is too short for hate.”
She looks back at me for a stretched-out moment. Then gives another tiny nod.
“Give yourself some grace, like you would anyone else who’s going through something like this.”
I want her to know she’s loveable. I want to tell her I love her. But I can’t. So I show her.
I kiss her soft mouth, her lips pouty from crying.
I touch her everywhere, cupping her breasts, thumbing her nipples, caressing her arms, trying to show her with every touch how loveable she is.
How beautiful she is. I kiss my way down her throat, her chest, and she tastes sweet.
Heavenly. I kiss each nipple, then glide my tongue over her abs, around her navel.
So much skin, silky, warm. Shifting my body, I open my mouth on her lower belly and I part her thighs with my hands.
Her scent fills my head, making me drunk.
My whole world slides and narrows to her skin and her scent and her taste, all the heat and wonder of her.
“Perfect,” I breathe. “Beautiful. I want to put my mouth on you.”
She moans.
I kiss her on the softest flesh, then lick her there, so gently.
Over and over, tonguing her clit, making her gasp and quiver and tangle her hands in my hair.
I give myself over to pleasing her, telling her without words that she is good and lovely and deserving of everything beautiful in the world.
And she comes on my tongue, on my mouth, calling my name, pulsing with pleasure. And I’m in love.