Page 155 of Safe Word

She didn’t respond, just wriggled again, and this time her leg brushed up against me, uncomfortably close to where my body was throbbing.

I sucked in a sharp breath, willing my brain to override my baser instincts. Not the time! Jesus Christ, not the fucking time!

I tried to rationalise my way out – she was asleep. None of this was deliberate. I couldn’t shove her off without waking her… or making her think she was under threat again. No. I was stuck. Pinned under a beautiful, half-broken woman I couldn’t touch without risking shattering something fragile.

Her soft sighs filled the room, the sound oddly soothing despite the predicament. She was finally calm, her body limp and trusting.

She needed this. Needed me to feel safe.

That recognition cut through the guilt, the shame, the blood under my nails. She saw me as safe, not dangerous.

I resigned myself to my fate, shifting as little as possible, trying to find a position that didn’t feel like fucking torture.

My arm tightened around her shoulders protectively, and I exhaled slowly, trying to match the rhythm of her breathing. She might have me pinned down like an idiot, but I wasn’t letting her go. Not today.

After a long fucking while, my body finally gave to sleep.

One thought lingered as the dark took me: this made the cut – right up there with the most fucked-up, heart-wrecking, impossible positions I’d ever been in with a woman.

And still…

I wouldn’t move.

Not a fucking chance.

TWENTY-EIGHT

I woke to streaks of gold shimmering on pristine white walls, and the smell of cinnamon. The room was neat – like everything else about Cain. The bed was soft, the sheets cool, but my body ached in a way that ran deeper than bruises. And yet, for the first time in ages, I didn’t wake feeling completely alone.

My phone broke the quiet, buzzing incessantly on the nightstand.

I rolled onto my side, groaning as I reached for it, the motion sharpening every lingering ache on my body.

The screen lit up with a string of notifications: twenty-eight messages and thirteen missed calls. My cousin, Aunt Francesca, my mother and one of my brothers – Leo – had been messaging relentlessly. The calls were Matteo’s, Mum’s and Uncle Alessio’s.

I typed: I’m okay. At a friend’s place. Call later.

But the word snagged in my brain. Was Cain a friend? A friend wouldn’t have looked at me like that. Wouldn’t have gone to war for me.

His eyes flashed behind my lids as I closed them.

I rubbed my face with both hands, as if trying to rub the memories back into the shadows where they belonged, but they came rushing to the surface anyway. The scene in my flat. Cain’s unrestrained fury as he’d torn through Travis like a bear dismantling a wolf. It had looked almost supernatural – the sheer force of his movements, their effortless violence. It had been overwhelming. He’d seemed unstoppable. Unstoppable and – God help me – irresistible, now that I think back on it.

A warmth spread through my chest.

No one had ever done this for me.

That familiar sense of shame climbed up my spine.

I’d never told anyone how bad things had been with Travis.

Maybe what Cain saw had dredged up something old he still hadn’t quite resolved. A boy who couldn’t stop his dad. A man still haunted by that helplessness.

That squeezed at my heart, guilt settling heavily in my chest. I’d promised him I would be there for him, that I would be his knight in shining armour, and yet I’d dragged him into the worst possible echo of his past. I’d made him relive the pain he had spent years trying to bury.

I shut my eyes tightly again, refusing to let my mind wander into the forbidden – into the dark, selfish corners where I couldn’t stop myself from imagining what might’ve happened if Cain hadn’t come. If I’d been all alone. If Travis had—

No. I couldn’t think about that. Not now. Not ever.