This happens when I try to open myself. Serves me fucking right. I stand up and go to the bar to pour myself another glass.
“She doesn’t know, does she?” she whispers.
The liquid sloshes in the glass, just like nerves rattling my insides. “What do you think you know?”
“That you’re on the antisocial spectrum.”
I grip the edge of the desk, unraveling by the second.
I jerk my chin at her, trying to appear more in control than I am. “Afraid?”
She tilts her head, tapping her index finger on the armchair. “No.”
“No?” I grumble. “Who is on that spectrum, Viviana?”
She gulps. “Killers.”
“Exactly.”
She should run. She could enjoy a few moments of freedom before I’d bring her back. But she surprises me once more when she walks to me and hugs me, kissing my chest as if to heal the organ beneath.
“I’d never…” I can’t even finish the sentence. I am too fucking raw, stripped bare.
“I know. I know, Tristan.”
“How?” I struggle with my humanity, but she doesn’t question it.
She smiles so brightly that it pulverizes my demons. “Your deep-rooted protection. You kiss me with searing passion, you hold me like you can’t stay away, you watch over me as if it’s your duty. I could never be afraid of you when all you’ve made me feel is safe. Safe and alive.”
I nod, incapable of forming words. I drag her flush to my chest and kiss her long and hard, determined to embed my DNA into her cells.
She kisses me back with the same ardor as if accepting me just as I am—deeply flawed, irredeemable but for her, I want to be better, so she never thinks she misjudged me.
Intertwining our fingers, she pulls me toward the staircase, and I follow her inside the bedroom.
It feels like she tends to me as she slowly undresses me. This moment has nothing sexual, just a desire to connect, a wish to soothe.
I am a lucky bastard for having found her, but it runs deeper, letting her in for good. Which, in her case, is not good at all.
Stripped to my boxer briefs and bare to my soul, we climb into bed, under the sheets.
She rests her cheek on my chest and draws patterns on my side.
I focus on her soft touch caressing every fiber of my being and her lithe body pressed into me, humming a lullaby.
“You’re a witch,” I rasp, my groggy voice filled with sleep.
She continues to stroke me, saying in that melodious voice of hers, “I’m here. I am right here, baby,” she murmurs.
I close my eyes, wearing the biggest grin on my face. She called me baby.
“I trust you,” I say, the underlying message clear. If I wake up to her gone, all the progress she thinks she made with me will be moot.
Those nightswhen I sleep longer than three hours are so rare; I always wake up disoriented, with messy hair and a disheveled appearance.
Taking a quick scan, I realize I am at the beach house. Alone in my bed.
I groan and roll out of bed in search of her. I am about to call her name, my gut instinct telling me she didn’t leave, but I find her in the kitchen preparing pancakes.
