14. Harley #2
I cough weakly and sag back against his chest once my stomach finally empties itself enough to stop revolting. Exhaustion leaves my limbs shaky and heavy while Val keeps holding me without pressure, rocking barely enough for me to notice.
“He shifted one of them,” I whisper eventually. “Mounted me like...” My voice fails completely. “I could feel him.” Shame crashes through me immediately afterward. “But he didn’t actually do it.”
“I know,” Val murmurs.
His hands never wander lower than my waist and the restraint suddenly irritates me. So, I grab one of his hands abruptly and drag it downward over my limp cock through my jeans.
“I’m still a man,” I snap. “I still—”
But nothing happens. There’s no arousal, no response to his touch. Just humiliation flooding hot and awful through my chest.
I shove weakly at Val’s arm, mortified beyond words, but he only tightens his hold slightly and makes soft soothing sounds against my hair, comforting and gentling me.
“I don’t want to be fucked up,” I whisper brokenly. “I just want to feel normal again.”
Val’s arms tighten around me just enough to keep me from pulling completely away, and the quiet understanding in that touch somehow makes everything worse and better at the same time.
I’m shaking from the force of being sick, from humiliation, from finally saying aloud things I’ve spent weeks trying not to think about too clearly, and still he keeps touching and soothing me like I’m something worth holding.
“I understand,” Val murmurs against my temple, his voice low and rough with something that sounds dangerously close to grief.
“And I know you didn’t mean it as a jibe against me earlier.
About being damaged. When I tell you I understand, I do mean it, too.
Dobson took something from me I will never get back—my sight in my left eye, a whole, pain-free leg, maybe even my wolf—he scarred me, and I can’t hide it.
I live in a society where the strong heal and there are almost no scars, so I am a freak, certainly.
To some. I don’t want to be one to you, Harley, and you’ll never be weak, or less than a man, to me. ”
I swallow hard and close my eyes briefly while his palms move in slow circles over my chest and stomach, grounding me back into my body piece by piece. “What happened to you was worse.”
“No.” The answer comes instantly, with startling force. “Different, Harley. Not worse.”
I almost argue because losing an eye and nearly dying and whatever happened to his wolf all sound objectively horrific to me, but something in his tone stops me. Val isn’t trying to win some contest over suffering. He just genuinely means it.
“That bastard took things from both of us,” Val continues quietly. “My leg. My sight. Maybe my wolf permanently.” His hand flexes once against my stomach. “Your safety. Your sense of yourself. Those things matter equally.”
The words hit deep enough that my throat burns again.
I lean back against him more fully before I can stop myself, exhausted by fighting everything tonight.
Val immediately adjusts around me carefully, shifting so I’m supported more comfortably against his chest despite what it must be costing his leg.
The bathroom floor isn’t exactly luxurious, but somehow sitting here wrapped in his arms feels safer than my own apartment has in weeks.
“You’re not a freak,” I mutter after a moment.
Val huffs softly against my hair. “That’s debatable.”
“I mean it.” I tilt my head enough to glare weakly at him. “And if you call yourself damaged again, I’m gonna bite you.”
That finally earns a real laugh out of him, low and surprised and warm enough to ease some of the awful tightness in my chest. The sound makes me stupidly happy.
God. I am in trouble.
Val keeps stroking slowly over my ribs while silence settles around us, but it’s a different kind of silence now. Softer. Less brittle. The bathroom light hums faintly overhead, and somewhere in the apartment a refrigerator kicks on with a low mechanical noise.
My body keeps sinking toward Val despite my brain still trying to panic occasionally over the fact that he’s a shifter. Every time the thought surfaces fully, though, another thought crushes it immediately afterward. That Val would never hurt me.
The certainty of that should terrify me considering how little time I’ve known him.
Instead it feels inevitable. Val sighs, his moist breath tickling my neck.
“And, this might change your mind and make you hate us all over again. I’m not sure, but you said you couldn’t help but touch me the first time, then you had to come after me at the club, and again when I tried to send you away?”
“Yeah,” I mumble. “Weird as hell. I mean, the attraction I felt—feel—towards you is like none I’ve ever experienced before.
I can’t even fight it, not even when I was trying to hate shifters.
It’s the reason I don’t, why I had to rethink my views and face the fact that I’m being a bigoted asshole.
I just—man, you’re gonna think I’m a stalker or something, but I swear I’ve never been like this with another guy. ”
I turn, and Val helps me, not trying to hold me now, as if he knows what I need. I kneel between his legs and frame his cheeks with my hands.
“It’s like the thought of being without you terrifies me. I don’t know if I’ve developed some new mental issues due to what happened, or what. But I panic thinking of you leaving me. Now, I know that sounds crazy as hell, and you probably want to run out—oomph!”
The rest of my words are swallowed by Val as he crashes his mouth over mine. The kiss steals every coherent thought I have for a moment, and when he finally pulls back, I blink open eyes I don’t remember closing and find him chewing on his bottom lip.
“What? Why are you looking like something bad is gonna come out of your mouth?”