Page 81 of Guardian
For I don’t know how long, I sit there.Frozen.Staring.If I move, everything might fall apart.By everything, I mean me.My skin is tight, and I can feel the cracks everywhere, and if I move…
Maybe Liam’s right.Maybe I am too much of a child, because none of this makes sense to me.Or maybe Liam’s the child, the way he’s lying there on the bed with his eyes closed and his chest rising and falling as if he’s pretending to be asleep.
“Turns out my war hero’s a fucking coward.”At least when it comes to me.To hell with that.I deserve better.“Fine,” I whisper.“You want me to go?I’ll go.I’ll pack up my stuff and I’ll leave in the morning.”
Somehow I force myself to leave the room.My hands shake as I pull the door closed behind me.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Liam
When I wake up again,it’s late.Or early.Which in itself is nothing new.My life has been a series of sleep deprivation trainings, from special ops training to going wheels-up at odd hours.
What is new is the way I’m feeling.My head’s fuzzy from the painkillers the doctor gave me.I don’t usually take them, but I was a weak punk when it came to rejecting Ravi.Once I realized it wasn’t right for him to stay, I knew what I did was the only way to get him to go.
The empty chasm that opened inside me when I told him to leave, when he visibly held himself back from crying, is an ache inside me.A pulsing blackness that beats in time with the ache from the bullet graze above my knee.The wound will heal, but I’m not sure the inside of me will.
He was right to call me a coward.
I blame the meds for why it takes me a minute to realize I can’t move.There’s a sound by my head.When I push my hand backward to reach for the gun I keep strapped behind the headboard, I can’t.
Something tightens around my wrist.My fuzzy brain finally clocks the threat, and my eyes fly open wide.
“Oh, good.You’re awake.”
“Ravi?”
He doesn’t acknowledge me.He doesn’t need to.I know it’s him.I can smell his bodywash, and after this past weekend, the touch of his fingers on my skin is something I’ll never be able to erase.
“I didn’t think you usually slept so soundly,” he says.“I was worried.Didn’t really want to do this while you were sleeping.”He comes around to the foot of the bed, standing there between my spread feet.I can’t move those either.
Not that I’ve never been restrained.I spent some time with a Dom who firmly believed one had to submit before dominating.Still, I’d forgotten how crazy not being able to move makes me until this moment.
Even as I’m itching to fight my restraints, there’s a phantom hand on my chest urging me to be still.Telling me there’s danger present.
Ravi’s never been particularly menacing outside of my attraction to him, but standing here now when all I can see in the nearly dark room is his silhouette and the glow of his eyes?To me, Ravi’s always been sweet and bright.Like eating a popsicle in the sunshine.
I thought I knew all of him, but this is a different Ravi.This is someone new, someone I haven’t met before.This is Ravi as a predator.
And he scares the shit out of me.
“Ravi, what the hell is going on?”
Why the fuck am I tied up?
Unease creeps into my chest.Something terrible squirms around inside that aching chasm, and it knows what’s about to happen.My brain hasn’t quite caught up yet.
“You were wrong,” he finally says.
“Tell me what I was wrong about.”Because in spite of the ache, I’m still convinced that what I did for Ravi was the right thing.I know.Not for me, but for him.
“Remember when you tied me down and edged me until I had knots in muscles I hadn’t even heard of before?”
Do I remember him naked and spread out before me, writhing and begging with tears running down his face?If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never be able to think of it without getting hard.It’s the worst kind of comfort, right now.He’s carving me into pieces while singing me a lullaby.
“Yeah, kid.”My voice scratches and cracks.“It rings a bell.”
“You left me.Before you left me, though, you said something like, ‘You got what you wanted.’Remember?”
