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And he did it again today with Darragh.
He’s hurt me, he’s confined me, he’s stripped me of so much.
But he’s also protected me more than anyone else in my life. When I was left for dead, abandoned in the darkness, he was there.
He’s always there.
Picking up the jagged pieces of me even if he’s the one who broke them.
Before I even know what I’m doing, I’ve dropped the cloth, both my hands rising and cupping his jaw. Elio gives a shuddery exhale, tipping his head slightly to the side, nuzzling into my touch. But he doesn’t close his eyes. He keeps them fixed on me, like he’s afraid I’ll disappear.
Tentatively, my mouth shaped by the unspoken sound of his name, I press my lips to his.
For a long moment, Elio is utterly still. He doesn’t even part his lips to let his tongue touch mine like I expect him to. My mouth moves along the tense seam, softly searching. My fingers thread through the soaked, heavy locks of his hair, black as squid ink beneath the water.
I don’t know if I’m apologizing for his pain or thanking him for protecting me or telling him something else, something that I’m probably not even ready to confront yet. Something that feels an awful lot like admitting that I’m his.
No. No. I’m not. I can’t.
That’s not what I’m trying to tell him with this kiss. But I…
I keep kissing him anyway.
When my tongue prods gently at the closed-off wall of his mouth, Elio’s locked muscles suddenly jerk into violent motion. He grasps me hard by the shoulder and shoves me back. It’s a small movement, very carefully calculated so that I don’t lose my balance and fall backwards, but I can feel the brutal force in it all the same. Elio takes in a strangled-sounding breath, like he was drowning and somebody only just dragged him up for air.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, pulse quickening with embarrassment and guilt. “I was… I just.”
“Fuck, Deirdre. Fuck.” He presses his hand to his side, just beneath his ribs where the bruising is worst, then fixes me with a wolf-hungry stare. “While I’m recovering from this whole internal bleeding situation,” he pants raggedly, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t just casually stop my fucking heart like that.”
“I’m sorry,” I say again, this time a whisper, choked and thick. “Did I hurt you?”
“Yes,” he grits out, “but not in the way you might think. Not physically. And that’s the fucking problem.” He breathes out harshly and snatches up the cloth, finishing the job I started, scrubbing beneath his arms, between his legs, down to his feet, though he grimaces when he has to bend.
“You,” he says, dropping the cloth into a bedraggled heap between us, “are a singularly scorching point of pain for me, Songbird. But it’s not like this,” he holds up his wet, scarred hand, “or like this,” he points to the bruising on his side. “It’s here.” He plasters his hand against his chest, lets it harden into a fist, then thumps it once, then twice, like a heartbeat.
“If it hurts so much then just let me go,” I gasp, a sob building in my throat that I refuse to release.
“Can’t,” Elio says with a grim smile. “You’re the wound and the treatment all at the same time. I can’t fucking stop myself. Can’t let you go because I always fucking need more. I’m like that guy with the wax who got too close to the sun. What the hell was his name?”
“You mean Icarus?”
“Yeah. That one. You’re gonna melt my fucking wings off, Songbird.” His gaze turns solemn, but there’s still that ever-present, clawing hunger in it. “Maybe that’s why I’m so hellbent on clipping yours.”
I stare down at the luxurious, expensive tile, water sluicing over it like spilled blood. My thoughts are such a mess that I don’t even try to sort through them and come up with a response. Instead, half-blind with shower water and tears, I grab the cloth and squeeze it. I don’t know if it’s a peace offering or payment or a way to protect myself, but whatever it is, I hold it up between us and say, “Do you want me to keep going?”
“I want… Merda.” In a jab-quick movement, he closes his huge hand over mine, squishing the cloth harder between my fingers. “You have no idea how many times I’ve imagined you in this shower with me. Soaked. Naked. Up against that fucking wall.”
Warmth extends tickling tendrils inside me as the image flares in my mind. The place between my legs feels swollen and very wet, and I don’t think it’s just because my clothes and panty liner are drenched from the shower.
Elio releases my hand just as suddenly as he first grabbed it.
“Go dry off,” he says, looking away from me for the first time since we got in here. “Put on something warm and comfy.”
“I’m not just going to leave you sitting here alone!” I stammer, annoyed that he’d even suggest it. “You’re hurt!”
“Deirdre.” The sound of my name is like a physical bite. A fanged warning, a nip that breaks the skin. “If you stay in here any longer I am going to forget every single fucking thing Morelli told me about resting and healing and keeping my blood in the broken parts of my body instead of sending it all to my fucking cock. Go dry off,” he orders me again. “For the love of fucking God, save all that pretty disobedience for a moment when I’m more inclined to be able to deal with you properly.”
