“I see your point.”
“I do think Mom tried to prepare me, though,” he muses sleepily. “All the training. Rigorous history lessons. It was for this, I think.”
I blow out a breath. “That must have tortured her. Do you think she told your dad?”
“No.” The left corner of Niklaus’s mouth curls up. “He has such a big mouth.”
I chuckle.
“She definitely has been bearing these secrets all alone.”
I wonder if my mother knew. Would she be able to keep all of this from me? I take in a quick breath to ask him, but Niklaus burrows into my leg sweetly. My fingers forget themselves, tracing over the spikes of facial hair along his jaw, smoothing the longer hair on his head, and stroking his cheekbone.
Niklaus stiffens at the intimate gesture. His cheek hot against my inner thigh.
I pause my hand nervously.
“Keep going,” he whispers huskily. “I love your hands on me.”
Something warm and light wakes under my ribs.
“No, you don’t.” My cheeks burn.
“Oh, yes I do.”
My heart takes the bait.
“That’s not how our conversation went before the shower,” I retort.
His arms clutch me tighter at the memory.
“I know.”
I feel nauseated at the sudden images that are shoved to the front of my mind. Niklaus finding me in the packed room of screaming inmates. Niklaus barring his body around me. Niklaus taking the punishment for the both of us.
His screams impale my mind once again, leaving me breathless with tears blurring my vision. The smell of chemicals and burning skin.
I look down at the blisters on my arm as a tear rolls down my cheek.
“Why did you do it?” I ask thickly.
“Hmm?”
“Why did you shield my body with yours?”
I feel his eyes open as those long, dark lashes tickle my leg.
“You know why,” he murmurs.
I’m flooded with feelings of confusion and that radiating crush that died in my heart so many years ago. It’s foreign, but still recognizable. Still warm to the touch.
“No. You made it clear how you feel about me.”
Anger, fear, dismissal, longing, yearning…Not good enough. Not good enough. Not good enough.
“You set the stage first, Spitfire.”
“No—”
