Rhys #3
And she was telling me I'd saved her.
I pulled her closer. Buried my face in her hair. Held her like she was the only thing keeping me anchored to earth.
Because she was.
My fists clenched against her back. Knuckles white. Muscles coiling so tight they burned.
I remembered the screams.
Every single one.
They'd bled through apartment walls for months before that night—muffled thuds, raised voices, the specific pitch of terror that made my skin crawl. I'd pound on the wall with my fist. Hard enough to bruise. Hard enough to make a point. The noise would stop for a few hours. Then start again.
I'd called it in anonymously. Three times.
Four. Lost count after a while. Wellness checks that went nowhere because her mother answered the door with a smile and assured the officers everything was fine.
Because her father knew how to play the game.
Because the system protected men like him better than it protected girls like her.
I'd seen her bruised once. Small thing. Maybe eight years old. Sitting on the front steps with a purple shadow blooming across her cheekbone and a split lip she kept touching with careful fingers.
I'd asked if she was okay. She'd looked up at me with those same eyes—too old for a child's face—and said she fell.
I'd known she was lying. And I'd walked away, anyway.
My breath shook against her hair. Rage climbing up my throat until I couldn't swallow around it.
I had saved her.
That night when the smoke alarm wouldn't stop and the screaming cut off too suddenly—when every instinct I possessed screamed that silence meant death—I'd kicked in the door.
Found her cowering in a corner while her father advanced with hands already raised.
Found broken glass and overturned furniture and a child who'd learned to make herself small.
I'd saved her. And it wasn't enough. Nothing I'd done would ever be enough.
I should have kicked down the door months earlier. Should have refused to leave until she was safe. Should have torn her father apart with my bare hands instead of restraining him for the police. Should have made sure she never had to see him again. Should have protected her better.
The fury burned through my chest—at myself, at him, at a world designed to fail the vulnerable. At every system that had looked the other way. At every neighbor who'd heard and done nothing. At my own cowardice for not acting sooner.
But underneath the rage—quieter, possessive, absolute—pride settled like stone.
I'd protected her then. And I would never stop protecting her now.
Never again would she face him alone. Never again would she pack a bag in ten minutes and run.
I'd burn the world down first.
She looked up at me with tear-wet eyes. Everything stopped. The rage. The guilt. The years of carefully maintained distance. All of it burned away under that gaze—devastated and trusting and utterly unguarded.
My hand came up before I could stop it. Thumb brushing her cheek. Catching the tears still sliding down skin too soft, too fragile, too precious for the world that kept trying to break her.
I'd never touched anyone like this. Gentle. Careful. Like she mattered more than breathing.
"Olivia." Her name left my mouth barely above a whisper. Not asking permission. Not checking if this was allowed. Just needing to say it—to hear those syllables out loud, to claim this moment as real instead of another thing I'd spend years trying to forget.
She leaned in.
Every defense I'd built shattered.
I kissed her. Slow. Deliberate. My mouth finding hers with a certainty that had nothing to do with restraint and everything to do with inevitability.
This was always going to happen. From the moment I'd recognized her in that café.
From the moment she'd looked at me like I wasn't a monster.
From the moment I'd realized keeping my distance was a lie I couldn't maintain.
My other hand came up, cupping her face.
Holding her steady. Keeping her anchored while I poured years of want and terror and desperate devotion into the space where our mouths met.
Deep. Consuming. Not rushed—we had time, we had this moment, and I refused to waste a second of it by taking when I could give instead.
Reverent. Like she was something sacred.
Like touching her required permission from God.
Like this mattered more than hockey, more than my career, more than every careful boundary I'd ever drawn to keep people out.
Fury tangled with devotion until I couldn't separate them. Rage at everyone who'd hurt her. Rage at myself for not protecting her sooner. Rage at the universe for making her suffer when she deserved nothing but safety.
And underneath it all—woven through every stroke of my tongue against hers, every soft sound she made, every trembling breath we shared—devotion so absolute it terrified me.
I wasn't taking from her. I was promising.
I will keep you safe.
I will destroy anyone who tries to hurt you.
You are mine to protect.
Always.