4. Chapter 4 #2
“I saw the footage.” His voice is low against my ear. “We have cameras throughout the house. I watched you last night. I saw what you did when you woke up from that nightmare.”
“You watched me?”
“I watch everything.” His tone is far from apologetic. “You had your fingers in your mouth for eleven minutes. So don’t fucking lie to me. Tell me what you need.”
The shame is so thick I can barely breathe.
“It’s fucked up.” I try to pull away, but his grip tightens, keeping me pinned. “I know it’s fucked up. I’ve tried to stop. I can’t. When I get overwhelmed, I need something in my mouth. Something to focus on. It’s the only thing that helps me through the panic.”
I wait for the disgust. I’m like a baby in need of a binky.
“Look at me.”
I force my eyes to his. His expression is hard, but his eyes are burning.
“You survived years of shit that would’ve broken anyone else.” His hand slides to my jaw, gripping hard enough to keep my face tilted up. “Your body found a way to cope. That’s not weakness, baby girl.”
“It’s pathetic. I’m a grown woman who sucks on her own fingers like—”
“Stop.” His thumb presses against my lips, silencing me. “You don’t talk about yourself like that. Not around me. Not anymore.”
The command makes my thighs press together.
“Is it always fingers that help you?”
I feel my cheeks burn and I look away from him. “I tried a pacifier once, but it wasn’t big enough. I have a dildo in my room that I use sometimes. The size and weight of it helps.”
I don’t let myself look back at him. It sounds sick and fucked up, and I don’t know how to explain it. And he already knows more than I had planned to tell him.
He presses his lips to my temple. “You don’t have anything to be embarrassed about, baby girl.”
Tears stream down my cheeks again, and I finally meet his eyes. “I know it’s weird.”
He doesn’t flinch. There is no hint of him looking at me like I’m broken. He just shakes his head.
“No. And don’t ever hold back from giving yourself what you need.”
I cling to him, burying my face in his neck and taking in his scent. I’ve never had anyone hold me this way, and I’m already becoming addicted to it.
“Reese?”
“Mmmm?” I mumble against his neck.
“Are you able to tell me about these nightmares you’re having? I’m an ass for not going to you last night. If I had known—”
“Don’t.” I pull back enough to see his face. His jaw is tight, like he’s already bracing for what I’m about to say.
“You’re not an ass. At least not for that.” I wipe my cheeks with the back of my hand. “You didn’t know.”
“I knew something was wrong. I should have come to you.”
“And what could you have done? You can’t fix what’s in my head, Tate.”
“Maybe not.” His thumb traces along my jaw. “But I can be there when you wake up. Tell me what you see when you close your eyes, baby girl.”
I don’t want to. I’ve spent years trying not to think about these things during the day, shoving them into a box and sitting on the lid. But he’s looking at me like he actually wants to know. Like he can handle it.
“It’s always the same room.” My voice comes out hollow. “My father has this study on the third floor. It has a lock on the outside of the door.”
Tate’s body goes rigid beneath me.
“That’s where it happened. Most of the time when I was younger, anyway.” I stare at a point past his shoulder because I can’t look at him while I say this. “In the dreams, I’m back there. I can smell the cigars and the scotch. I can feel the leather of the couch against my skin.”
“Reese.” He says my name like my words are slicing through him.
“There are hands everywhere. Too many hands. And I can never see their faces clearly, but I can hear them. Laughing. Talking about me like I’m not there.” I swallow hard. “Sometimes my father is in the doorway. Watching. Making sure I behave.”
Tate’s chest is rising and falling harder now. I can feel his heart pounding against my palm.
“Michael is the clearest one. He’s always there at the end.” I force myself to keep going even though every word feels like swallowing glass. “He likes to hurt me. Then he tells me no one else would want me after everything I’ve done.”
“That’s a fucking lie.”
“Maybe.” But my voice wavers. “During the day, I try to push the bad thoughts away. But in the dreams, I believe him. I believe all of it. And I can’t move, can’t scream, can’t fight back. I just have to lie there and endure it all until I wake up.”
Tate is silent for a long moment. When I finally look at his face, I almost flinch. His expression is carved from stone, but his eyes are blazing with barely contained violence.
“How often does it happen?”
“Most nights. Sometimes more than once.” I let out a shaky breath. “I can’t remember the last time I slept through the night without waking up choking on a scream.”
“And sucking on something helps you come back.”
It’s not a question, but I nod anyway. “It gives me something to focus on. Something real. Otherwise I just stay trapped in it, even after I wake up.”
He’s quiet again, processing. I wait for him to say something empty and meaningless. That it’ll get better. That I’m safe now. That the nightmares will stop.
Instead, he says, “I’m going to kill Michael Collier. I want you to know that. I want him to know exactly why he’s dying, and I want it to take a long fucking time.”
A sound escapes me that’s half laugh, half sob. “That shouldn’t make me feel better.”
“But it does.”
“Yeah.” I press my forehead to his chest. “It really does.”
His hand moves to the back of my head, holding me against him. “Tonight, you’re sleeping in my room. When the nightmares come, I’ll be right there.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I know I don’t have to.” His voice is firm. “I want to. So that’s what’s happening, unless you tell me no.”
I should argue. I should maintain some kind of distance between us. But I’m so tired of being alone in the dark with the monsters in my head.
“Okay,” I whisper.
His arms tighten around me, and I let myself sink into him.
The rest of the day feels almost normal.
He makes us sandwiches for lunch. We don’t talk about what I told him, but I catch him watching me when he thinks I’m not looking. And I catch myself watching him right back.
Tate said that we’d work on plans tomorrow, that I’d been through enough for one day. He texts on his phone every now and then. We don’t connect mine to the satellite for risk that they’ll track me.
By evening, I’m exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with sleep. The emotional wreckage of the morning has left me hollow, scraped out from the inside. I can barely keep my eyes open when Tate mentions dinner. I’m not hungry.
“You need to sleep.” He picks me up from the couch where I was laying and carries me down the hall to a different bedroom than I was in before.
His bedroom is bigger than the guest room, dominated by a king-size bed with dark sheets. He hands me one of his t-shirts to sleep in, and I change in the bathroom, trying not to think about the fact that I’m about to crawl into bed with Tate Sinclair.
When I come out, he’s already in bed, shirtless, the sheets pooled at his waist. The tattoos I glimpsed earlier cover his chest and arms, dark ink sprawling across muscle. He looks dangerous even lying down. And even sexier than I knew he would.
“Get in.” He pulls back the covers on the other side.
I climb in and lie stiff as a board, staring at the ceiling. The bed is huge, but I’m hyperaware of every inch of space between us.
“Is this okay?” His voice is dry. “I know how to keep my hands to myself, even if I don’t want to.”
“I know that.”
“Then try to relax. I don’t want you to be scared with me.”
I force myself to take a breath. He’s right. I’m being ridiculous. He’s seen me at my worst today—sobbing, shaking, admitting things I’ve never told anyone. Sharing a bed is nothing compared to that.
I roll onto my side, facing away from him, and close my eyes.
Sleep comes faster than I expected.
The nightmare is worse than usual.
I’m back in my father’s house in the room with the locked door. There are hands everywhere, too many hands, and I can’t see their faces, but I can hear them laughing. My father’s voice floats through the darkness. Be grateful. This is what you’re for.
I try to scream, but nothing comes out. I try to fight, but my arms won’t move. And then Michael is there, his breath hot against my ear, telling me all the things he’s going to do to me, and I can’t stop him, I can never stop him—
I wake up choking on a sob.
My heart is slamming so hard I can feel it in my throat. The room is dark and unfamiliar, and I don’t know where I am. I feel the warmth beside me, the body, and I almost scream before I remember.
I’m shaking violently, my whole body trembling like I’ve been dunked in ice water. The panic is a living thing inside my chest, clawing at my ribs, and I can’t breathe, I can’t think—
My fingers are in my mouth before I realize what I’m doing.
I suck hard, desperate, trying to ground myself. Two fingers pressed against my tongue, filling that space, giving me something to focus on. But it’s not enough. The panic is too big, the nightmare too fresh, and my fingers aren’t enough to push it back.
“Reese.”
His voice cuts through the darkness.
I yank my hand away from my mouth, shame flooding hot through my chest. He saw. Of course he saw. I know he said he doesn’t care, but I still don’t want him to see.
But I can’t fucking breathe.
“I’m . . . fine.” But I can barely speak the words through loud wheezes.
“You’re not fine.” The bed shifts as he moves closer.
His hand finds my face in the darkness, cupping my jaw. I’m still shaking, still fighting to breathe, sobbing which is only making it worse, and his touch is the only solid thing in the world.
“Breathe, baby girl.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “I’ll . . . be . . . okay.”
The words come out as wheezing and sobs. I’m not sure I believe it myself, but I have to keep trying to get enough air.
“Look at me.”