He’s wrapped around me like a goddamn octopus. One arm slung across my ribs, the other probably curled around a Glock like it’s his emotional support animal. His breath is warm on my shoulder, all slow and steady and annoyingly perfect. The sheets are a mess, sunlight’s dripping through the windows in buttery gold, and the room smells like sex, sweat, and whatever perfume I wore last night that now lives permanently on his pillow.
I could lie here forever.
Or maybe, five more minutes.
My fingers trace the bruises across his chest, gentle over the one blooming on his temple. Probably from smashing someone’s face in with something blunt and festive. And somehow, the sight makes my stupid heart squeeze.
He’s beautiful. In that dark, dangerous way no one talks about in therapy. And it hits me, fast and hard and terrifying…I love him desperately.
God help me, I love him.
Like, capital-L, tattoo-it-on-my-ass, sell-my-soul-for-five-more-minutes kind of love. Not influencer love. Not champagne-and-beach-club love. Real, messy, ride-or-die love. The kind that says,let it burn, as long as you’re beside me.
He shifts under my palm, eyes cracking open, lashes fluttering like some hot, violent cartoon prince.
“You’re staring,” he rasps, voice wrecked with sleep.
“You’re breathing,” I whisper, because yeah, that’s all I really needed this morning. “So… that means I win.”
He laughs, rough and soft at the same time, and pulls me closer. I bury my face in his neck, drinking him in like some girl-shaped addict.
“No more close calls,” he says into my hair. “I’m not letting shit like that happen again.”
“Cool,” I mumble. “Start by banning guys with knives from parties.”
“Already did. New rule: no one gets within five feet of you without permission. Or a death wish.”
I pull back and squint at him. “Are you serious?”
He just stares at me. Which is mafia forabsolutely fucking serious.
Jesus Christ! He probably issued a decree while I was asleep.
I sit up, dragging the sheet with me even though he’s seen me naked in literally every position the human body can survive. I stare out the window. Everything feels suspended, like the world’s still waiting for us to decide something.
And I do.
I take a breath. And then I say it. Raw and real and totally insane.
“I’m not leaving.”
He goes still. That kind of still that makes the hair on your arms rise.
“I’m not afraid of your world anymore,” I say quietly. “I’m afraid of losing you in it. That’s the part that wrecks me.”
Nothing. No words. No blinking.
I keep going, because apparently this morning’s theme is kamikaze emotional honesty.
“I don’t want to be your cover story. I don’t want to be your strategy. I want to be your fucking life. The real part. The part that matters.”
He sits up like I just detonated a landmine in his chest. His muscles go taut. “Nikki?—”
“No,” I cut in. “I know what I’m saying. I choose this. I choose you. The blood, the secrets, the fucked-up everything. Because if I’m not beside you, I’m stuck watching from the sidelines. And you know I’m not a sidelines girl.”
He looks at me like I just handed him a loaded gun and dared him to use it.
“This doesn’t end in sunshine,” he says. “It ends in blood.”
