Chapter 16
When Theo wakes, his senses are foggy and his body is on a delay. He blinks groggily up at the peeling ceiling, confusion flushing over him for the briefest moment until a soft hand slips into his, where it hangs off the cot.
“I’m right here. You’re still at the police station. You’re okay.”
It’s Nora’s gentle voice that greets him, and all at once, that anxiety melts as quickly as his heart does at her tender tone. The same one she used before when he woke up on the floor after passing out. It was the first time he didn’t wake up alone after suffering this kind of ordeal.
He hadn’t passed out this time, though. Exhaustion got him instead, but maybe she just knew he might wake up confused because she’s on the floor right beside his cot, ready to soothe that transition, and she has no fucking idea how hard he has longed for the type of connection that makes everything feel better instead of worse.
He used to think it was nothing but a beautiful lie meant for everyone but him.
“Hey.” He gives her hand a squeeze before sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge. “Whatcha got there?”
“Protein bars from the drug store.” She holds up two options. “It tastes like dirt. Want one?”
“Hell yes. I’m starving. I wouldn’t turn down actual dirt right now.” He drops down to the floor beside her and snags his own bar, ripping into it with a ferocity that highlights his growling stomach.
“How are you feeling? You slept the whole day.”
He glances toward the window across the aisle, where only moonlight streams in.
“Damn. Doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.
Good, I feel good.” He pauses a moment, swallowing a bite, his embarrassment getting the better of him even though it shouldn’t.
“I want to apologize for yesterday. What you had to do for me is asking too much. I’m sorry you had to see that. ”
Apologizing for his condition is second nature. He apologized to his father every time a migraine would keep him from completing some work-related nonsense project.
He would apologize to his doctor for asking for more pain medication when he’d already met his yearly quota.
He would apologize to his fiancée when canceling plans, when hiding in the dark and clutching at his head was the only viable option.
Even before his brain got scrambled, some part of him was convinced that allowing anyone to help was taking advantage.
He is used to handling these things alone, and he’s gotten pretty damn good at it.
He takes his pills on time, avoids stress…
mostly, and tries to do everything the doctors tell him, even though it never fully helps.
When it’s gotten bad, he has writhed in pain alone and cried out for help that never came, but comparison is a funny thing because he can’t remember it being so bad that he nearly gave himself a lobotomy with the nearest sharp object.
Bad enough that Oliver had to peel him off the floor a few times, absolutely.
Bad enough that he thought it was the end of the line? Not until last night.
Nora saved his life. Even now, he feels guilty for allowing that kind of sacrifice when she has plenty to worry about that doesn’t involve him and his stupid brain.
“I’m sorry you had to live it.” She catches his stare in a gaze he can’t look away from. “It wasn’t a burden to help you.”
“You went out there alone with a bear on the loose and the dead roaming the streets. If I’d been lucid, I would have told you not to risk it.”
“Then I’m glad you weren’t lucid. Not that I would have listened anyway.”
He nods with amused agreement. “You definitely wouldn’t have.”
“You’d have done the same for me, right?” There’s a hint of hopeful insecurity in that question that betrays how close her fears settle in the cracks of his own.
“I would have. No question.”
“Then don’t worry about it anymore and eat your food before the mice steal it.”
“There are mice?”
She nods with a head tilt toward the boiler room. He scurried under that door earlier when the wrapper crinkled. “I left him a crumb.”
“I pass out for a while and you’ve got the wildlife wrapped around your finger.”
She shrugs with fake nonchalance. “We might compose some songs together later. You know, like a proper fairy princess. Stay tuned.”
His grin turns reverent as a fresh scent wafts over him. “Hey, you smell good. How?”
“How? So I smelled awful before, is what you’re saying? This whole time?”
“No. Nah. No, I didn’t mean—”
“Relax,” she laughs. “There’s a shower in the back by the lockers. It still works and I saved you some soap on a string.”
Few things sound better than washing the grime and gunk of the last day off himself. He places his hand on his heart in a dramatic fashion, his tone as wistful as the smitten expression on his face. “Pain relief, food, and now hot water and soap on a rope. Marry me.”
She throws her wrapper at his face. “Get away from me until you smell better.”
He doesn’t miss the way she glances at him as he gets up, though, because he glances at her a few times as he makes his way toward the shower, both trading their attention between each other in nervous flutters.
Things are different. He can feel it straight down in the marrow of his sore bones.
He only hopes he can be brave enough to harness the shift between them.
* * *
There’s a buzzing electricity that zings through his veins and straight down to his cock where he scrubs it with that soap on a rope. Getting naked with Nora doesn’t seem like an impossible fantasy anymore, if he’s reading things correctly, and he thinks he might be.
Theo isn’t sure how to feel about that. Excitement because he wants nothing more than to be with her in every way he’s allowed.
Uncertainty because it’s been so long, he isn’t sure he can please her before he embarrasses himself.
And an unhealthy amount of fear because that never truly goes away when it comes to allowing anyone close enough to leave a scar.
He is afraid of getting hurt despite trusting her, and he does trust her.
With his life, just as he said. That isn’t exactly the same as trusting someone with his heart, though, and he is trying so hard not to let his past dictate his future.
Trying not to let fear ruin what they could have together.
She saved his life. She stayed with him while he cried.
She held his hand and dried his tears, all while facing one of her biggest fears to help him.
If he can’t be vulnerable with Nora after all that, then there’s really no hope for him anymore.
So he accepts that going all in is the only option now.
Being presumptuous about where that might lead feels strange, but on the off chance she feels the same and they decide to do something about it, he doesn’t want it to end after two pumps.
It’s an unexpected thought considering sex has never been something that he allowed himself to get emotionally invested in.
His last partner was aggressive enough to take the lead in every situation, and a part of him was glad for that because it meant he didn’t have to worry about doing something wrong.
She took what she wanted, when she wanted it.
On a physical level, he could enjoy it enough to come at the very least, but remaining emotionally disconnected had always felt safer.
He is trained to brace for the trick, the scam, the part where the person he’s sharing such an intimate thing with confesses they were only there for his last name, or the money they’d earn from selling the story of their encounter.
That kind of shit hurts a lot less when his heart isn’t involved to begin with.
It’s entirely unexpected to realize that his heart is already reaching for Nora.
He feels safe with her, despite never truly knowing what that could be like before, and that has him entertaining insane concepts like allowing her into all the deepest parts of his mangled soul, craving the type of intimacy that he’s avoided his whole life.
So he wraps a hand around his clean shaft and begins to stroke, slowly at first, imagining her smaller palm in place of his own. Her beautiful smile flickers bright before she moves in to kiss him, and then the squeeze of her as she lowers down on top of the swollen tip.
He braces one hand on the shower stall, working himself faster as if she were sliding up and down but it’s not the illusion of her wrapped around him that unwinds all his frayed edges, it’s her sweet whisper of three little words breathed into the shell of his ear that has him spilling thick ropes of semen over his hand and down the drain until his knees shake and a groan escapes him.
Water washes away the evidence as he catches his breath, though he feels certain she’ll be able to see exactly what he’s done the moment she lays eyes on him.
Still, there’s no losing here, he reasons.
If they sleep together soon, then his hair trigger won’t reduce the encounter to a thirty-second effort.
And if they don’t, then he won’t be hardening at every intrusive thought that flutters through his mind when he looks at her.
Taking the edge off was needed. Now he can go about the rest of the day without getting trapped in his head, at least that’s what he hopes, but when he finds her pulling on her boots, long strands of hair fanning out across her thigh like a fucking shampoo commercial, his dick twitches in spite of his efforts.
He could go again right now and not miss a beat.
“Where are you going?” He nearly shivers when she gets up with a brilliant grin and kicks his shoes in his direction.
“Put your gear on. I wanna show you something.”
“Are we sure it’s safe to go out?”
“We’re not going out onto the street.” She points to the ceiling. “We’re going up.”
* * *
“Close your eyes.”