Seventy-Eight
He curls his finger, and I clutch his shoulders, a little breath escaping me. It doesn’t feel as good as the V, but I’m trying my best to give him a chance. To give us a chance because I’m not the only one with trauma.
I know a little of what the women did to him, but like I haven’t told him everything, neither has he. I wonder if he’d still like me if he knew. Or if he’d leave.
My fingers tighten on the knife; he stills immediately. Draws back, pulling his finger out of me.
“What are you doing?”
I demand, my voice shaky. I need the distraction of a poor man’s V. He should leave me. I’m a fucking disease. A pedophile. Maybe I should turn the knife on myself.
“You tensed.”
“So?”
“That’s a withdrawal of consent,”
he says. “Just because you didn’t say no doesn’t mean you want it.”
My heart twists as I stare at him. With his one eye, he sees so much. But he still can’t see me. And I can’t do this to him. Can’t be the reason he hates himself after sleeping with me. Caring for me. He has his own trauma and grief to deal with, but he’s focusing just on me when I’m not even worth it.
So I blurt out what I did with Bear. What I only did to score. Not survive. Not to get closer to Antonio so I could kill him. No. I did it just to get high.
He stares at me, but I can’t look at him, hating myself and all the things I did. I know he’s going to leave me now. He’s going to shove me off him.
Instead, he grabs the knife from me, then pulls me into his arms.
“What are you doing?”
I rasp. “I’m a monster.”
“You’re not a monster.”
“What I did –”
“Was a weakness and a mistake. But those don’t define us, Micha. You have regret over it and guilt – a monster doesn’t have that. You killed him. You did what you had to to survive without actually hurting anyone. And you traded your life for a little girl. You walked into hel. You comforted the man –”
His voice cracks as he thinks of his brother. “You comforted Rudy even though he traded you for her, telling him he did the right thing. The only monster you are is mine.”
He hauls me to his lips, bruising my mouth with the feverishness of his desire. I open for him, needing the poor man’s V.
No.
Needing him.
Needing his acceptance of me. Of all my jagged pieces. Of all my worst edges.
I just need him.
I tug at his shirt, wanting to feel closer to him. Wanting him inside me. Wanting us to be together like we haven’t been since I was taken.
But he grabs my wrists, stopping me.
“Slow down,”
he says, breathing hard.
I want to tell him no. I need him inside me now. But I look into his eye and see his pain. His trauma. It’s not just me who needs help. In my own grief, I need to make sure he’s taken care of too.
“Bite me,” I say.
“What?”
It’s a rasp, a croak of disbelief.
I crane my neck to the side. “I want to feel you in me. So we’ll go slow, but I need you to bite me. Please.”
I thread my fingers around the back of his head, but I don’t pull him closer. I want him to choose. I want him to know he has the power to say no, unlike when he was on Antonio’s boat. “Unless you don’t want –”
He leans forward and presses his lips to my throat. My grip tightens in his hair. I breathe out a sigh as I tingle with anticipation. A vampire’s bite releases a surge of dopamine, but all I want is him. This connection. Not a poor man’s version of V. Because what’s happening between us could never be replicated by those potions.
But he doesn’t bite me.
Instead, he moves me off his lap. I smother my fleeting stab of disappointment. This is his choice. I will wait until he’s –
My eyes widen as he lays me on the ground. He tugs off my pants, then nestles his face between my thighs. He rubs his fangs across my thigh, and I jerk beneath him.
“Is this okay?” he asks.
I tense, Bear’s “good guy”
behavior filling my skull.
Varius looks up at me, and I look down at him, and I tell myself I am safe. Varius isn’t a good guy. He killed so many people to get me back. But I am safe with him. He will not hurt me. He will stop when I tell him to stop. When I just freeze in uncertainty.
Looking him in the eye, making sure I don’t break his gaze, I nod.
But fuck, he makes it hard to hold eye contact when all I want to do is throw my head back to the sky and moan. He moves my underwear to the side, knowing I don’t like to be naked these days, then spreads my pussy lips apart with his fingers.
“So beautiful,”
Varius murmurs, his eyes on my flushed cheeks. “So wonderfully mine.”
He flashes his fangs, and I arch up a little, desperate to feel his bite. He leans down and licks me, keeping his gaze on mine. I cry out. Close my eyes for just a moment before I manage to wrench them back open.
“Good girl,”
he murmurs a second before he bites me.
Clenching my fists, I struggle to keep myself propped up on my elbows. He feeds from my pussy as his tongue laps at me. Dopamine and desire rush through me. My body tingles with electricity. My stomach flutters. My lips part on heavy pants. I lift my hips up as my heart sings for him.
“Fuck. Varius,” I moan.
He pushes his fingers into me. Twisting and curling and moving them in and out, he works to get me off. I buck my hips in rhythm to him. And the whole time, he holds my gaze.
Holds my heart and soul within its depths.
“I love you,”
I say as I look at him through hooded eyes.
He growls back, his lips still locked on me as he feeds, but I hear the words nonetheless.
“I see you, and I still love you.”
Despite being down there for ages, he doesn’t manage to make me orgasm, and now my chest is growing tight again. Because I haven’t managed to do it either – not since we got back from the super yacht. All the normal tricks I used to use to chase an O don’t work any more. It’s like my body has fully betrayed me, and I feel so godsdamn broken.
“Hey,”
he says softly as he crawls up my body to kiss me on the lips. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t...”
I flutter a hand at my pussy. “It’s not working.”
“You didn’t enjoy it?”
“No, I did. I just can’t… finish.”
I push out the word in utter embarrassment and self-loathing, but there’s no fear of rejection from him anymore. He saw the worst part of me, and he scooped me up in his arms.
He kisses me this time. “Sex is about coming –”
“I know,”
I say, feeling like utter shit. Like I’m not even a woman any more. “And it’s not –”
“Let me finish. Sex is about coming, but making love is about so much more than that. I’m not doing this just to get to the end, Micha. It’s the journey I want. The relearning of your body.”
His hand feathers down my side and squeezes my hip. “You went through something traumatic, and the body remembers. Now I just have to listen to it.” He pauses as he kisses me again. “Just like I have to relearn mine.”
My eyes widen. “Can you still get hard?”
“Yes, but it’s harder to maintain.”
My heart aches for him. Aches for us. But all he does is smile. “But we have a lifetime together to figure it out, and I will be with you every step of the way.”
“I love you,”
I murmur as I lean up to kiss him as all my love for him rolls down my cheeks, my eyes unable to contain the sheer burst of joy inside me.
“I love you too.”
“You’re better than the V,”
I blurt out, worried he’s still worried about being used. But I mean it. I might not have crested the edge and dived into oblivion, but he’s given me something the V never could.
He’s given me peace.
He’s given me the strength to continue on.
Cupping my face in his hands, he kisses me slowly.
Exploratory.
Taking his time to enjoy the journey.
And I don’t feel so broken anymore.
Because he makes me feel whole.
It takes months more before I can fall asleep with him. I was ready to try it that day he fed from me, but he’s been too scared of hurting me. For the past two weeks, though, I got to wake up wrapped in his arms.
I stare into the dark of the room, waiting for the warm stretch of dawn, my thoughts running around my skull, only to keep coming back to one topic. Eventually, I turn around to look at him. He’s already awake and staring at me.
I wet my lips, then whisper, “Tell me about our son.”
His eye widens, but then he smiles. “He’s a fighter. A bit underweight still, but neither Mother or Louise is worried about it. He laughs with his full chest.”
Then Varius frowns, pretending to be upset. “He cries with it too. And he makes the stinkiest diapers.”
I look at him humorously.
“And I swear he holds in all his pee just to piss on you whenever you try to change him.”
I laugh, and he smiles back.
“He’s going to be a great sharpshooter,” he says.
“How can you possibly tell?”
“He’s got great aim,”
he says with pride, and I snort, then shake my head.
My smile falls a bit as I think about the questions I really want to ask. Working my throat, I look away. He doesn’t push me. Just waits patiently. Then I breathe out and grab hold of my courage. “Have you named him?”
I ask softly.
He grabs my hand beneath the covers and gives it a little squeeze. “I call him Nubian because I needed to call him something,”
he rambles, “but if you don’t –”
“What does it mean?”
I can feel the bittersweet emotions down our re-established bond. I know it means something special.
Something as painful as it is happy.
He stares at me, his eye so full of grief. Then he blinks and clears his throat. “It’s a type of goat,”
he says, and my face twists with both a laugh and a cry of pain.
“You named our kid after a goat?”
I ask as my chest hurts so godsdamn much over all we’ve lost.
“You can pick –”
“I love it,”
I whisper. Dayne would’ve loved it too. “It fits the animal theme.” Bambi. Rafiki.
He pulls me into a hug, and I cling to him, needing the comfort of his arms. I don’t want to move on from her. To make a family that doesn’t have her in it.
But just because she’s gone doesn’t mean she’s out of our lives. I will always carry her with me. As will Varius. In our tattoos and in our hearts. And in the love I give to Nubian. A little fragment of her soul because I know she would’ve loved him too.
I press my face against Varius’ chest, and I breathe in deep, trying to ground myself in his presence. My throat fills with the urge to ask for V. My body itches with the need to drive to one of our warehouses and convince them to give me a bottle.
But I clench my teeth, and I let myself feel the pain.
The utter agony ripping my soul to pieces.
The V can’t stop this. Nothing can stop it.
But time might be able to heal it if I can keep pushing through the days.
“I’m here,”
Varius murmurs against my hair. I tighten my arms around him as I shudder against his chest.
He holds me until I’m ready to let go.
Drawing in a shaky breath, I pull back and say, “I want to see our son.”