10. Daphne Handcage
ten
Daphne: Handcage
“Holy shit.” Thay’s hand swept over my shoulder to the phone hanging off the side table. “It’s nearly four.”
I arched into his chest, tightening my arms around his neck, trying to anchor him with my body alone. I hadn’t slept this deeply in months, and for the first time, my muscles didn’t brace for impact. I was warm, heavy, held… and in my favorite place in the world.
“Daph,” he spoke, smiling between my breasts as my thighs drew instinctively tighter around his hips.
“One more hour?” I mumbled, refusing to open my eyes, realizing I was always trying to hold on to him just a little longer.
“I have rounds at six.”
“Tell Nathem to do it,” I said, tracing lazy, absent circles at the nape of his neck with a sleepy smile.
“Nah,” he yawned, settling his weight more deliberately against me. “We’ve got him tailing a different target. And I need to check in on Rinley.”
Oh yes. I’d almost forgotten that asshole wanted me dead.
“Daph.” Thay peered up from my chest, the pressure of his body pinning me down in all the right ways. “Why is their luggage in my room?”
My heart skipped, and he felt it.
I shrank when he pushed himself up on all fours, boxing me in with a sidewall of muscle and tension that locked on both sides of my head.
“What the hell is going on, Daph?”
“Nothing,” I soothed, rubbing the valleys of his biceps, but he wasn’t buying it. “It is just work stuff.”
“Daphne?” he hovered, and I couldn’t help but lean into the way his chest brushed over my nipples, or how his breath tasted in my mouth.
“I found out this morning that I was selected to attend a two-month internship in Maine,” I mumbled, holding his gaze. The last thing I wanted was to send him spiraling into a hole I’d dug with one sentence.
“Two months.” His eyes went blank as they searched my face. “In Maine?”
Pain flared between my ribs when I watched the air in his mouth gather, compress, then claw its way down his throat.
“But I don’t have to go.”
The longest we’d ever spent physically apart, not counting the times he’d been in jail, was seven days of pure hell.
And not in the romantic sense. I am talking night sweats, heartbeats that felt like a linchpin, diarrhea, strange fevers, and the overwhelming feeling that some part of you was about to die.
However, nothing compared to the mental gymnastics required to remind yourself that you were a grown-ass adult, even while keeping the window open and having just walked a human life into the world after eleven hours of labor.
Wolfe was not being dramatic when he pointed out the time bomb that framed our codependency. But it wasn’t our fault that our hearts had formed into each other, creating a truth that neither of us could escape.
“Yes, you do,” he responded quickly, sitting up on his knees, keeping me trapped beneath him. “This is a big deal for you, and you’ve worked too damn hard just to walk away because of our fuckedupness.”
My lungs contracted, and I winced.
“Fuckedupness?”
“Oh, come on, Daph.” His dark eyes followed my face. “Don’t romanticize this shit. You know none of this is right. We shouldn’t need each other like this.”
Pain flared behind my ears, and suddenly I felt very naked.
I understood how messy we were, but I was tired of waiting for him to stop giving a damn.
There was no magic pill or amount of therapy that could ever undo our lives.
But whenever he started talking like this, it made me think he wanted a world without me.
One where I did not muddy up his insides or complicate the darkness. One where he was free… from me.
I sat up, tugging the sheets from under his legs to wrap them over my breasts.
“Don’t,” he ordered, grabbing my wrists. “I am not trying to be an asshole. I’m attempting to make you understand I am not a good enough reason for you to stay.”
My adult brain knew he was right, but the space between my ribs only fell deeper. Because love isn’t supposed to let you go.
“Do you ever wish you hadn’t climbed through my window?” I slid to the edge of the bed and stood, using my arms to cover myself as I scrambled for the blue dress. “And somehow avoided all our fuckedupness?”
“Daphne,” he growled, pulling me around to face him, but I pushed back, moving into the bathroom. “Daph!”
“Because you make it sound like your life would be a hell of a lot better without me in it.”
I slammed the door and hit the lock, squeezing myself into the backless sundress that was far too sheer for this time of year. Now that Wolfe’s clothes were out of the question, maybe I could snag a hoodie from Nathem, Jessie, or Blade on the way out.
“Better? Daph, I would be dead without you.”
Thay filled the doorway the moment I cracked it open, refusing to allow me to pass.
“And I would crawl through your window in every lifetime, Daphne,” his voice crackled. “Because you are the only fucking good thing this world ever gave me. But I will not pretend we’re not broken as fuck, or that we don’t have to learn how to live with this shit. I won’t be the reason.”
“The reason for what?”
“The reason you die, or worse, fade away, because you sat down in some goddamn hole, I can’t crawl out of.”
“Thay!”
“Don’t say you wouldn’t,” he said, stepping forward until our hearts connected. “Because you would. You’d burn the world for me, but I don’t want you to.”
“Then what the hell do you want?”
“I want you to live in it.” His eyes burned bright. “I want you to have good things.”
A tear slipped free before I could catch it, and it fell to the floor in a useless drop.
“Goddammit, Daph, I want you to sleep with the window closed,” his ribs broke, “and know you don’t need me. Because you don’t.”
He straightened, swiping his forearm across his face, and I lunged, throwing my arms around his shoulders in a strangled hug.
“Not need, Thay. Want," my voice shook. “I want you.”
His chest hurt, and he caught my wrist, pushing me back from his body.
“Don’t,” he snapped, coming closer. “There is absolutely nothing about me you should want, except to run the hell away.”
“No!” I shouted, pulling my hand free.
“What the hell do you mean, no?”
“I mean, you are full of shit. There are plenty of reasons I want you.”
“Daph,” he warned, knowing what was coming next.
“You are loyal, dark, and funny. Resourceful. And you make things happen even when the universe is crumbling around you.”
“Stop,” he turned his face away, but there was nowhere he could hide from me.
“You are fearless and humble, and so goddamn talented.”
“I said fucking stop.”
“And you are smart and beautiful, and my favorite part of living. So, fuck you.” I glared, the sea breaking inside my chest in a sudden burst of salt and sadness.
In a huff, I pushed past him, storming for the door, but he slammed it shut.
“You are such a pain in the ass,” he sighed against my ear, his voice cut with smoke as he spun me to face him. I whimpered when his body pressed into mine, the hardness of his cock teasing at my center. His hand slid into my hair, pulling my head back just enough for his mouth to reach my pulse.
It was the closest we had ever come to a kiss.
“When do you leave?” he shook, dropping his hands to my hips and grinding forward just enough to make me feel him.
“Tomorrow morning,” I died, and his eyes dragged along my throat to find a burst of emotions breaking loose there.
“You’ve got this, Daph,” he whispered into my mouth, so close that I tasted the words.
“Maybe you could come with me?” I let my lids fall, surrendering to the witless illusion that if I could not see the world, it couldn’t see me.
“You know that I can’t.”
I breathed.
“Come on.” He pushed off the door, but I stayed put, needing one more second in the space where he still held me. “I’ll take you home.”
When I was ready, I nodded, slipping on my shoes and tucking my phone into the side pocket of my dress. I took one last sweep of Thay’s room, even though I had already burned it into my memory and turned.
“Can I have this?” I asked, thumbing the charcoal sketch of an antlered creature taped above his bed. Thay believed everything was better through the lens of folklore.
“Of course.” He smiled, folding it in half and pressing it into my hand.
“Want my shoelace or something?” I laughed, shoving back the urge to crumble to the floor and sob. “I wouldn’t want you to forget me.”
Thay placed his palm over my heart and closed his eyes, listening to the rush and pull of my blood.
“Just this,” he breathed… “I’ll record the song when I get a minute and send it over, in case you need it.”
He meant Iris. The nineties incantation that always brought my soul back to my body whenever it went into full panic attack mode.
“But you won’t. Now come on,” he promised, lacing his fingers into mine and tugging me toward the door.
I tried to listen, but the world sounded different with the echo of wheels rolling behind me. The night swallowed us whole, and by the time I slid into the passenger seat, I wasn’t sure if I’d followed him or just… ended up there.
“Can you pull over for a second?” I asked, reaching for the stereo to turn it down.
Thay believed in simple truths. One of them being that blaring music at volume 900 cured awkwardness, anger, and unwanted sex noises. After the seventh Slayer song, I realized I would be on a plane tomorrow for the first time, and there was something I had to do.
“We’re almost there,” he threw me a grin, blinking left to park on the shoulder. “What is it?”
I unlatched my belt and turned; the leather seat sticking to the backs of my thighs.
“Daphne?”
“You know how planes sometimes fall from the sky?” I blinked once, raking my hands through my hair in an awkward tug.
“It is statistically unlikely that is going to happen, Daph.”
“Sure. Statistics! Right. That is what they always say before,” I shuddered, terrified, “kersplat.”
Thay rolled his head back and laughed, filling the car with all my favorite parts of him.
“You will be fine!”
I drew a deep breath, lifting my knees to crawl over the stick shift and onto his lap.
“What the fuck?” He made a face as I worked to straddle him properly. “Daphne,” he said, like a moody professor about to send me to detention.
I blushed, placing my hands on his chest.
“Hi,” I smiled, choking on the last letters as they swelled in my mouth.
Thay’s eyes widened before a smile reached them.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“So, remember that time five girls sucked you off at a party?” I broke the ice, squirming over the tent in his pants in glorious satisfaction.
He could pretend he did not desire me, but a part of him always would.
Besides, I couldn’t leave with everything we had said in his bedroom sticking to me like the end of a Proyas movie.
“Well, if that’s what you want, you’re going to need to get much lower.”
I bit my lip, wondering what he would taste like. It was strange to embody someone so completely without knowing certain things about them. It almost felt like blasphemy.
“Look, I can’t go kersplat never knowing…” I guided my hands up his cheek and into his hair, shifting into him. “What this feels like.”
A breath swirled between us before expanding between our mouths in a slow pop. I inched my face closer, wetting my lips to make sure I caught his taste, because I wanted to feel everything.
Every groove that made up his smile.
Every bloodied scar…
The traces of tobacco that clung to his lips.
All of him.
Thay’s heart beat first, then pounded, then broke, and I pulled him tighter.
My eyes closed and then…
“Daphne!” A palm went across my face and pushed me back. The universe. My pride. The entire world crashed into my lungs. “STOP!”
I stilled, catching bits of his expression through the slits in his fingers, and God help me if he let go, because I was pretty sure I would die.
“Thay?” We just sat there with his hand over my face. “What the actual fuck?
“Yes, Daphne,” he leaned in to peer at me through the cage he had created. “What in the actual fuck!”
I swatted him, and he retracted, laughter puffing in his cheeks.
“I could die tomorrow, and you don’t want to kiss me?” Embarrassment took over my body, and I shifted backward, hitting the horn and turning on the wipers.
“Dammit.” I shifted, attempting to fix it, but the brights went on, then off, and then back on again. I wasn’t even sure what the next button did.
“Stop touching shit,” he growled, leaning over me to correct the mess I’d made.
“Do you know how much bravery I had to muster to do that? Seven Slayer songs worth!” I shoved him in the chest.
“Say that seven times fast,” he grinned, but I only pushed him again. “What do you want, Daphne, a cookie?”
I scrunched my nose.
“You will not die tomorrow!”
“How do you know?” I arched a brow. “Because it feels like I will.”
“Daph.” He swept my hair to the side and smiled.
“Don’t do that?” I glared before swatting him away. “You just slept six hours with your dick against me.”
He smirked, and I hated how hot he was in the half-light.
“That is because being naked with you is my favorite.”
“But you won’t kiss me?”
“Nope.” He bit his bottom lip, the cage of his chest locking into place.
“Never?” I asked, and Thay bristled, rolling his neck away from me.
“Not like this,” he corrected, picking me up by the hips and plopping me back into the passenger seat. “I tell you what, I’ll kiss you when you get home, but only if you make it the full two months and don’t die. Deal?”
I glared, shoving my seatbelt into its slot with a definitive scowl. Thay watched in amusement, and before he could laugh in my face, I reached forward and turned the music all the way up.