I wanted to hug him. To let him fuck me until I couldn’t breathe, but I didn’t think my body could take that. Besides, Everett Kingsmen, Adler, whatever his last name was, he didn’t seem like the hugging type.
I couldn’t remember the last time I was hugged though. The last time I was held. Really held. No fucking, no expectations, just…just held.
I blinked slowly.
His hand fell from my chin, and he leaned back on his heels, trailing his hand gently down my right leg until the warmth of itaround my tender ankle caused me to hiss.
My eyes found his just as his lifted to mine. They had softened. Those chilling, icy eyes had softened.
I swallowed back the tears, working my jaw. I was fine. I was perfectly fine. He had to know that, right?
He searched my eyes for a moment before returning his attention back to my ankle and very gently lifting it up. “It’s different, you know,” he spoke softly. “The bruises I leave, and the ones forced upon you. It’s different.”
I knew that. Why was he saying that? I already knew it. I knew it, yet his words seemed to make the burning in the back of my throat grow which was stupid because I knew the difference, I did.
He placed his hand flat against the bottom of my foot and pushed my foot back, forcing my ankle to flex.
I swallowed against the gasp this time, staring at his hands as they forced my ankle to move.
No. I would not cry. I would not allow him, this…this…monster of a man, to see me cry after one attack. Not after what happened in the woods. I was fine. I was stronger than that.
When he decided that my ankle was fine, he lowered it to the ground and stood. “Arms up,” he instructed.
I did as he said, wincing at the pain of the movements. It was all starting to burn now. Everything. My ribs, my leg, my back. My entire body. I felt as if I had been put through a tornado, and I barely got hurt at all.
He easily lifted the dress up and over my head, tossing it to the floor. He leaned forward, running his fingers carefully along my ribs, pushing lightly on each one, the tears filling my eyes. “Not broken,” he told me.
I knew that. I had broken a rib once. When I was a kid. Falling from a tree I wasn’t supposed to climb anyway, I had deserved that break, I knew that, but I was reassured that he saw the samething.
No breaks.
Bruises healed quicker than anything else. It would hurt to walk, to breathe, to do anything really, for a while, but not too long. Just a couple of weeks. I’d be fine in time for the signing event.
He then sat right beside me, my breath catching when his leg pressed against mine. He leaned back and ran his fingers gently along my spine, sending goosebumps across my skin. Good ones, this time. Not ones off fear and panic, but ones of need.
Everett straightened, his arm pressing into mine, my nipples hardened due to the chill in the room. “You read the letter.”
“You’re acting soft,” I retorted quickly, staring at that door. I needed a fight. I couldn’t have sex, and I couldn’t handle the pity, I needed something else, and all I had was that overbearing anger that lived within me like an ember waiting for some gasoline.
I needed gasoline.
“Olivia—”
“You wouldn’t treat Evelyn like this,” I said tightly. “What? You gave me a letter and now you’re going to reveal that you’re actually a troubled poet with a tragic past who loves fucking croissants and stupid little one sip cups of espresso? Give me a break,” I muttered, clenching my hands above my knees. He told me no for a reason, and now I was reverting. My one second of bravado, brought on by splattering brains on my walls, and now? Now all I wanted was to punch him for being so goddamn soft.
I couldn’t be soft, so he wasn’t allowed to be soft either.
He was quiet, and in his silence, I felt my tears fill my eyes again. Burn and flood and close my throat. I swallowed, working my jaw, angling my head away from him so he wouldn’t see it. He couldn’t take it back, that much was clear, but what he could do was grow tired of my overreactive emotions and put a bulletin my head because I couldn’t control my emotions in his world. Because I was hyphy and dramatic and I didn’t smile enough.
I saw his hand out of the corner of my eye. It was lifted, coming near me, hesitating only to move closer and hesitate again.
I sniffed, glaring at it, forcing my head further away from him so I couldn’t see him at all. This was stupid. So I was attacked? So what? It happened to them every day. I could handle it. I would handle it. I was going to—
His fingers grazed over my jaw, and I inhaled sharply, in too much shock to keep him from turning my head back towards him.
I blinked and felt the tears stream down my face, his eyes warm, struggling, his mask gone, his lips tight.
My breathing picked up as he lifted his hand from my jaw and gently flicked the hair from my eyes, pushing it softly behind my ear, his eyes tracking his own hand as he did it. It was as if the motion were unfamiliar to him, which I suppose it was, but it also seemed as if he were wondering if he was even doing it right. As if he knew it was what I needed, but he was…nervous.
