Chapter 20 #2
“I don’t care if you have nightmares. I don’t care if you fight in your sleep.
I can handle anything you throw at me.” A roll of one shoulder.
He realized he was stark naked in front of her.
His hand reached out and turned off her lamp.
They’d left that light on earlier. He turned it off now and plunged them into darkness not because he minded if she saw his naked body or not, but because she needed to sleep.
“I have my own nightmares.” He’d also started to have his own dreams.
Married to Lily. Her smiling at me. Her eyes lit up.
He turned for the door. Took two steps.
“I’d…like for you to stay with me.” Halting. Nervous.
His eyes shut.
“If I cause a problem, you can always leave.” A quick rush of words from Lily. “You don’t have to stay all night, and if you don’t want to be here, I completely understand.”
He was already back at the bed. “Scoot over, sweets.”
She scooted.
Atlas climbed into the bed with her. He edged closer to her, and, surprising him, she curled her body against his. Soft. Warm.
Home.
His eyes closed. He listened to her breathing. That soft, steady breathing. The most important sound in his world.
“It was…more than just fine for you, wasn’t it?” Lily’s whispered question.
His head turned toward her. “I fucked you twice, back to back.”
“So, you liked it?”
“Like isn’t the right word. If I didn’t think you were going to be too sore, I’d be fucking you again. My main goal in life now is to fuck you as much and as often as I possibly can.”
Silence. “I thought we were catching a killer.”
“Yes. We will. We are. But…he’ll be gone soon.”
“Will…I be gone soon, too? Our relationship over?”
Don’t hold too tightly… “I want to fuck you as much and as often as I possibly can,” he repeated.
The silence grew around them. She snuggled closer. Her soft breaths lulled him. He thought she was going to sleep, but…
“I never felt this way, not with anyone before. It’s like I don’t have to hide.”
You don’t. Not with me.
“I could let go with you. I could feel.”
What do you feel, Lily?
“Thank you, Atlas.” She pressed a kiss to his shoulder. Then she snuggled even closer. She put one soft arm over him, over the scars that he carried from an attack long ago. She didn’t flinch or pull back. She settled closer.
She was soft and warm and precious against him. A gift he’d never expected.
He’d learned a lesson long ago from that beautiful butterfly. You had to be patient to get what you wanted. You had to wait. You had to be still. You had to let the beauty not ever sense the threat.
If you were patient enough, if you played the scene just right…what you wanted would come to you. You just couldn’t let your prey see the threat.
She nestled against him.
I will not damage your wings.
He stared at the butterfly. Golden wings. Sprinkles of darkness. So still. He turned in the bed, the better to see it, to reach it, and his fingers swept out. Clean fingers now. The soft light from the lamp shone on the butterfly as he reached for it.
His bedroom door creaked open.
“Atlas? I—what are you doing?”
The door banged into the wall. His mother rushed toward him. He tried to snatch back his hand, but she caught it.
“Oh, God, oh, God. You kept it as a trophy, didn’t you? Just like him. Just like him…”
Footsteps pounded. Not soft, rushed steps like hers had been. Harder. Deeper.
His mother sucked in a breath. “Don’t do it,” she whispered. Begged. “Don’t you dare do it, do you hear me, Atlas?”
But he hadn’t been doing anything.
Lie. I was…I wanted to bring the butterfly back. Because I didn’t mean to hurt it. I would never mean to hurt something so pretty—
“Don’t you ever hurt something unless it hurts you first. Do you understand me? Not. Ever.”
But those heavy, deep, hard footsteps were in his room, and his mother stopped talking. She grabbed the butterfly and swept it into his garbage can.
Too late, though. Because he’d heard her.
Dark, rumbling laughter. “That’s some bullshit advice. Always strike first. Always attack first. That’s how you show the world just how strong you are.”
And his head turned once more, but this time, it was so that he could look toward the faded bedroom door and see—
Atlas sucked in a breath as he woke up.
His eyes flew open, and he stared into the darkness. He was far too conscious of the fast pounding of his heart.
And of the soft hand that pressed over his heart.
Lily.
She didn’t stir. He pulled in another breath. Exhaled. Slow. Deep. Again and again.
He didn’t keep trophies. He didn’t attack first.
“It’s all right,” Lily’s soft voice. And he realized that she had woken up. “Nightmares can’t hurt us.”
They couldn’t. Reality could.
His hand slid over her naked back. Stroked her soft, silken skin. “Sorry I woke you.”
“Don’t be.” She kissed his neck. “I can always go to sleep again.”
She’d been afraid for him to sleep with her. Afraid she’d disturb him. Instead, she was the one who gave him comfort in the dark.
He swallowed, twice.
And when she fell asleep again, he kept staring into the darkness.