If I let him, he could break down my walls with one touch of his finger. He could destroy me in ways I’d never recover from.
“I don’t do it anymore,” I whispered. My head was pounding, and all my limbs felt like jelly. I lay back down, the last of what little strength I had left all gone. “I stopped doing that years ago. But…”
But I still liked pain. Still liked it when I got hurt. Still felt a fucked-up kind of pleasure that I wanted to prolong, to live in, but I’d stopped cutting myself years ago.
“But?”
I closed my eyes as his fingers rubbed back and forth over my head, his touch lulling me into a serene state.
“Nothing,” I whispered.
Dakota sighed. “Can you do me a favor, at least?”
I opened my eyes to find him watching me with a serious expression. “What?”
“Can you tell me when…” He took a shaky breath, and I wanted to wrap my arms around him. “…when you’re hurt or not feeling well so that I don’t have to find you like I did? Please?”
His eyes held mine so completely that everything else faded into the background.
“All I’m asking is that you tell me when you’re not feeling well. Please.”
It was the earnestness that got to me. He’d demolished any barriers I’d erected between us with that solemn sincerity, even if it was for the briefest moment.
It had been so long since anyone cared about me, cared about how I was doing. Whenever that simple question ofare you okay?was asked—but never to me—I had to shove down that painful desire for someone to askmeif I was okay.
I bit down on my bottom lip and nodded. “Okay. Yeah.”
Surprise flickered across his features, and then his eyes lit up, and the slow, satisfied smile that stretched across his face was beautiful.
He was mesmerizing when he smiled like that.
“Okay,” he repeated, those dark eyes holding mine.
“Okay.” I couldn’t look away, and I didn’t really want to. There was some kind of anticipatory energy hanging between us, invisible heat crackling along my skin.
Amusement glinted in his eyes, and he winked at me. “Okay, darling.”
My stomach flipped and my face started to burn. I hated how much I blushed around him, how flustered he constantly made me.
Hated it.
“Don’t,” I muttered, sliding my gaze down to his hand as I rubbed over his palm, feeling the cracks of his life lines.
He shifted closer to me.
I looked down at Dakota’s long fingers, then glanced at him. His eyes were on mine as he kept running his fingers through my hair.
“Don’t what?” he asked softly.
I wanted to shake him off me and cling to him all at once.
I wanted to run out of this room and hide somewhere far away from the rest of the world.
“Don’t…” I swallowed thickly.
Don’t be so nice to me.
Don’t make me feel these things.
