Page 74 of Dreadful

She’s sprawled across the middle of my bed, dead asleep, one leg kicked free of the blankets and my black T-shirt bunched high enough on her thigh to make me forget at least half the shit I was thinking about five seconds ago.

Her hair is everywhere. Across my pillow, tangled around her cheek, one dark blonde strand caught between her lips with every soft breath she takes.

I lean my shoulder against the door frame and stare.

Fuck, I like her in my bed.

There’s something deeply satisfying about seeing Bellamy Hale wrapped up in something that belongs to me, sleeping in the space I’ve slept alone in for years like she’s always had a place here.

I covet the sight of her more than anything I’ve ever owned. The bike I rebuilt from scrap metal in the garage doesn’t come close—nothing does.

The only thing that could make it better is if this were actually my bed. My room. My fucking house.

Somewhere that belongs to me.

At this point, I’d let her take all my fucking brothers too if it meant she’d have a permanent spot in my house.

The thought catches somewhere in my chest, and my head starts spinning again, filling with too much and not enough all at once.

Fuck that.

I’ve had enough revelations for one night.

I need my brain to shut the fuck up, and my salvation is sleeping five feet away.

I push away from the doorframe, and something dark catches at the edge of my vision. My palm.

Fuck. My hands are covered in blood.

Layers of it. Old stuff, dried brown and cracked in the creases of my knuckles, and fresh splatters still shiny over the top of all that. It’s running down my forearms in thin warm lines, sliding over the faded ink there before my skin drinks it up like it’s thirsty for it.

I blink, and the blood disappears. Already soaked into my skin. Gone where everything else I’ve ever done has gone—somewhere under the surface where I can’t scrub it out. A bone-deep infection that will never go away.

I look back at Bellamy, asleep in my bed with her cheek mashed into my pillow.

She’s seen these hands do things. She knows what they’re capable of. And she still turns toward me every time I reach for her.

That’s not something a man forgets. It’s definitely not something a man wastes.

I toe off my shoes and strip down to my boxer briefs, biting back a curse when pulling my shirt over my head sends a hot streak of pain around my ribs.

Tomorrow, I’m going to feel like absolute shit. But tonight, I don’t fucking care.

I ease onto the mattress one slow inch at a time, trying not to jolt her, but Bellamy stirs anyway before I’ve even settled onto my back.

“Rafe?” she mumbles, rolling toward me in one blind half-asleep motion, burrowing into my side and throwing her leg over mine like she owns the whole bed. Like she owns me.

“Baby.”

She makes a sleepy sound against my shoulder, her breath warm through the fabric of my shirt. “Everything okay outside?”

“We’re good.”

I hook an arm around her waist and drag her closer until every inch of her is pressed against me, then slide my hand up under the back of her shirt until my palm rests flat against the warm bare skin at the small of her back.

Fuck.

I close my eyes and breathe her in.