“Liem.”
I freeze, holding tightly onto the half-closed door. “What?” I turn toward him.
“Call me, Liem.”
My heart’s in my throat.
Liem.
His name is beautiful, and I get the privilege of knowing it.
I flash him with a smile. “Goodnight… Liem.”
Before closing my door, we watch each other with something stronger than ever. Hell, he told me his real name, told me to call him by hisrealname. No more club nickname. That must count for something.
After pacing around the bedroom for God knows how long, I decide to slink into the bathroom and scrub away the blood from Liem’s clothes. I figure he’d want them to be cleaned and stripped of any horrible memory of last night. I try not to think about what happened and only worry about getting this blood out of his jeans. It takes a hot minute, and my bathtub looks like a bloodbath, but I’ve managed to get them back to normal. I was gentler with his club cut, being sure to place it nicely over the tub.
I look down and realize I’m covered in red stains from the cleaning. Dried blood smeared on my hands and arms.
Guess I’m getting a shower.
TWENTY-ONE
Danika
I can’t sleep. Not like a normal night where I’d toss and turn or wake up from the horrid feeling of the same traumatizing memory, but I can’t sleep in the sense of… there’s a man in my living room. A man who isn’t my roommate’s boyfriend but an exceptionally large one with tattoos. A member of an MC and he killed someone tonight. The air is too thick, too polluted with tension.
He’s still here in my apartment and how do I know? Because I haven’t heard him leave. You can hear a coin drop on this creaky ass floor.
Screw it.
With an aggressive toss of my bed sheets, I peer out through the crack in my door and stealthily open it. He’s right where I left him, on my sofa, on his back, his hands folded over his stomach, but I can’t tell if he’s asleep. What if he’s not breathing? Wait, why would henotbe breathing? I roll my eyes at the stupid intrusive thought then trudge forward. I make the lightest, quietest footsteps ever as my bare feet touch the cold hardwood. There are creaks and squeaks as I approach the couch and hopefully, he doesn’t notice me looking ridiculous for sneaking up on him like this.
Liem.
It feels odd to call him by that name, when all this time I’ve only known him as Hush. But I like Liem. It suits him. Hush doesn’t do him enough justice. Doesn’t give him enough meaning. There’s so much more to him then just his quiet persona.
His long body makes the sofa look doll sized as he’s stretched out, eyes closed. Shallow, small breaths are rhythmically visible from his chest rising and falling. My shoulders drop, loosening from their earlier tension and I take this moment to weirdly stare because I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so at peace. His long, jet-black lashes graze the tops of his sharp cheek bones. His full lips relaxed, the pinks of them standing out on his pale skin. But then that peace vanishes. A quiet moan escapes him as his eyes start fluttering and his body trembles.
He's having a nightmare.
Do I wake him? Let it pass maybe. I go to inch closer, but I catch my foot on the corner of the coffee table.
Ouch.
Forgetting the pain, the action sends me falling right on top of Liem, chest to chest and he jerks awake. As he should.
His hand flies up, wrapping around my throat and the Liem I know isn’t here, the Hush I thought I knew, is someone else entirely. The grip he has on me tightens and I let out a choking sound unable to breathe.
Reality sets in and he blinks. Realizing he’s not in his nightmares but inside my apartment with me, he releases me, jerking his hand away. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Are you hurt?” The gruffness and panic of his voice sends a chill rippling through me, and his eyes are full of terrified concern. He reaches out stroking the spot that is already sore from his grip.
I cough, my throat now sore. “I’m sorry. You were having a nightmare, and I freakin’ tripped and…” I tilt my head down in shame, registering I’m still on top of him. Underwear out because my baggie T-shirt is now crinkled up past my ass cheeks.
We stare at each other, his chest heaving in and out. We are so close, bringing back the memory of being snowed in at his place, but this feels different, the air seems different. It’s like weshare the same breath. I don’t know how to explain it, but what I know for sure is, he’s remarkable. Handsome. Stunning. My hands rest on his bare chiseled chest, slightly clammy from the nightmare he had just endured.
His eyes dip the slightest to my mouth, down my body. His feather like touch on my neck creeps downward, his thumb grazing my skin until he stops right above the top of my breast. The tension penetrates my lungs making it extremely hard to breathe.
But with the utmost disappointment, he flicks his gaze away like I’m a nasty human being lying on top of him. And just as I’m about to throw myself off, there’s hushed voices on the other side of the door, a key fiddling with the lock and then it swings opens and my heart dips into my stomach.
