Not only because of what he so easily did to Ethan, not even the fact that he has no remorse over it, but because he’s become thesourceof something.
I don’t like to rely on men for anything. Emotionally, physically, financially, spiritually. And it’s not because I’m some damaged little girl with daddy issues or anything; mydad and I get along great. He and my mom split when I was four and they both had very different ideals for the way a young woman should carry herself. It just so happens that I found my mom to be more well-versed in the world of womanhood, so I followed her word as law, and she taught me not to let a man be the source of anything. Not to let myself rely on them for anything.
“You alright over there?”
My attention snaps to the man in front of me, my eyes tracing over the sharp angle of his jaw, down the curve of his muscular chest, the tattoo of my lips etched into his skin and the little barbells adorning each nipple, following their trail all the way back up to his eyes.
“I wanna try something with you,” he tells me, bringing himself to a sitting position. “Sit up.”
I comply, pulling myself up to mirror his posture. “Are you gonna do a magic trick for me?”
“I’m gonna show you something,” he replies, a smirk tugging at his lips. “But you can’t tell anyone that I did, alright? ‘Cause I’ve got a reputation to uphold, you know.” He positions our hands in a seemingly-specific way; his forearms resting over his knees and my palms near his elbows. “You can use your safe word here, too.”
My throat tightens a little, and I gulp down a lump of rising anxiety trying to crawl out of my throat. “Do I need it? Doyouhave one?”
“Pickleback,” he answers with a chuckle. “’Cause I just fuckin’ hate those things.” He takes a deep, steadying breath. “Eyes on mine, Sugar. Breathe.”
Maybe it’s the calm command in his voice, maybe it’s some deep-down need to feel even closer to him or to get a peek into what makes him tick; I don’t know. But I stare into those pale blue eyes, letting them swallow me whole.
I could be imagining it, but I swear that I can see his pupils restrict and contract as they drink me in, and I imagine that my own are doing the same. It’s as if there’s a silentconversation happening between two melded souls that we’re not invited to witness, but we can feel the impact of nonetheless.
We sit, lost in time, locked onto one another for several long minutes; until our breathing matches one another almost exactly and we both stop blinking. It’s like we’re under some kind of fucking spell.
A warm blanket of safety wraps itself around me, soothing muscles that I hadn’t realized were tense, slowing my heart rate and cracking open a hard wall inside of me.
My chest burns, low and deep near my stomach, and it feels like something is caving in somewhere inside of me. My breaths start to become heavier and harder to manage, and I feel a burn at the backs of my eyes, following a path that leads it straight down to the lump forming in my throat.
“I want out,” I finally whisper to him as a tear frees itself from my eye, rolling its way down my cheek and landing on my thigh.
“You calling red?”
I shake my head. “Out of Envy. I can’t take it anymore.”
“There it is.”
“I can’t pretend to be happy in those rooms,” I continue, letting my tears fall freely now. I would wipe them away, but I’m afraid that if I move my hands from his, I’ll break the spell and the wall that I’ve put up around myself will fall back into place with a violent crash. “It’s killing me. I hate the way those peopletouchme and kiss me anduseme. The things I’ve had to say yes to when all I wanted to do was yell‘red’and run. But there’s no safe word in those rooms. They don’t care, Eric, no one cares.” The blue eyes staring back at mine are filled with nothing but a kindness that I didn’t know them capable of, in spite of his jaw tightening below them. “Some of them hurt me, and I’m afraid of what will happen to me if I try to leave. I’m scared that I let a man hurt me...And I’m scared of what you did tonight.”
Warm arms envelop me as I’m scooped up, pulled closely against Eric’s firm body, and he cradles me like I’m a child. He’s had his arms around me before, but always possessively. Always in a way that meant that all of me belonged to him.
This is comfort.
He’sholdingme.
And I let him.
I let my body melt into the warmth of him as everything that I’ve tucked away pours from my eyes. His cheek presses against my forehead, and I wrap an arm around his neck, breathing him in, listening to the steady and sure beat of his heart.
“How the fuck did you do that?” I ask him when I finally calm, wiping away the remnants of tears left at my eyes, my body suddenly heavy with exhaustion.
“Believe it or not, I’ve been to therapy,” he laughs. “Bill and Martina – my parents – took me to five or six different people before landing on this guy, and they told him, ‘kid’s obviously got issues but he won’t talk to anyone, no one can get him to talk.’ So the guy said, ‘alright, then we’re not gonna talk,’” he explains. “He pulled out a couple of these tricks and voíla, the silent kid started talking.” He chuckles, but the humor doesn’t quite extend to his face.
“So you’re a feelings-squasher, too.”
He nods his head, keeping those soft eyes pinned on me. “If you want out of there, you’re out, Sugar. You’re not working thereeveragain. You can come work for me, you can go to school, you can do whatever you want; but you’re done there.”
“Nash—”
“Won’t do shit to you,” he cuts me off, pushing my hair back, tucking it behind my ear. “Trust me on that.”
