“Sleep.” He ignores my order to leave, and pulls his laptop off the nightstand, which he must have grabbed while I was in the shower, opening it like he’s about to start work in his pajamas at four in the morning.
In the guest room. While I sleep.
“Um…”
He spears me with a quelling stare, like he doesn’t want to hear my protests, but I can’t do this. He can’t just… just watch me sleep. I can’t get used to that kind of thing. He can’t just–just imply that he’s protecting me or some shit like that.
I can’t trust him to do that! Can I?
I start to sit up, instinctive panic clawing through me, but he leans forward and firmly presses me right back down. “I have work to do. Go to sleep, Tommy. I’ll stay.”
I shouldn’t. Shouldn’t sleep, shouldn’t trust him. Young-gi is probably the most dangerous man I’ve been locked in a room with in a long time. Maybe even my entire life. He’s deadly, he’s unpredictable. He doesn’t care that I beat the shit out of someone today, all he cares about is that he gets to put medicine on my bruises afterward. He’s a criminal, and he puts me in time-out like I’m a child and then tucks me in and it should make me feel like a fool but it doesn’t.
The turmoil should keep me awake. My own goddamn sense of self-preservation should keep me awake. But it doesn’t. If anyone asks, I’ll just say I was tired. But I think… I might feel… safe.
I forgot how being safe felt. So, this is what it’s like. Yeah, I think I remember now. I think I used to feel this way, so long ago that it’s locked behind that blank wall where all my earliest childhood memories hide away. I didn’t expect to ever feel this way again.
Chapter 16
Young-gi
Tommy’s eyes slide shut, even though I can tell he’s fighting it tooth and nail. His breath keeps hitching, his shoulders twitching like he’s trying to get up, but he can’t. Soon enough, he’s out like a light.
Once he’s asleep, I stop pretending to look at my laptop. I wasn’t going to get any work done, anyway. Sure, it’s now four in the morning and I often get up and work around this time, or exercise, but I can’t focus on anything except Tommy right now. His emotions, his need, his chaos.
The bags under his eyes are heavy, standing out even against his dark skin. He mentioned during his emotional rant in the study that he couldn’t sleep at Kira’s, and it’s clear that he meant it. But as his breathing slows and deepens, the stress lines bracketing his mouth start to fade, and I relax into my chair.
What a mess.The incident at the nightclub will be annoying to deal with–witnesses, police reports, camera footage–lots of small fires to put out. And the fact that Oscar, the little shit who started it, wants to press charges is frustrating because I’ll have to take time out of my schedule to shut him up; but that’s not the mess I’m talking about. I’m talking about Tommy.
He’s a mess, and that’s just a fact. Jagged where he should be soft, hollow where he pretends to have substance; defensive and needy, greedy and ungrateful. Saying one thing and meaning another, the kind of emotional enigma that I might never solve. His coping skills seem to be limited to escapism and sarcasm, and his strategy for conflict is to either run away from whatever is chasing him or kill it–be it an enemy or his own feelings.
Yes, he’s a mess, there’s no denying it.
I want to keep him forever.
He pulls me in like a force of nature, like a tide, and I don’t mind. A tide seems like an apt description, because that scene in my study just now? When I straightened him out and put him in the corner while he had a little fit and tried to start a fight… I felt like I was drowning. Drowning? Is that the right comparison?
I think so. Like I’ve been swept away in something irresistible, something that will change me, something I didn’t see coming. A tidal wave.
Ah, now that I consider it, I think drowning is considered a negative image, like I’m complaining, but for me it’s quite the opposite. I’ve never felt more alive. Never felt more real. Like I’m breathing something other than air now, but it’s better than air ever was. I’ve never felt more… just more. Overwhelmed, overjoyed? Was that joy? It was electric, and I want to relive it over and over. That’s joy, isn’t it?
Or something like it.
The dim lighting in the room can’t stop me from staring, painting him with my gaze, just like he drew me in pen several days ago. I still have that drawing. If that’s how he sees me, maybe this whole obsession I’m growing isn’t one sided after all. All the details on the page faded the further they got from me, getting hazy, like I was the only important part of the image.
He sighs in his sleep and I lean forward, wishing I could drink him down like a shot, feel him everywhere. What is this feeling?
Desire?
Perhaps. I’ve never felt this strongly before, certainly not for a man. My cock isn’t hard; or at least, it’s not completely hard. A little interested, sure, but nothing that can’t be explained away by adrenaline. And it was alotof adrenaline: controlling Tommy, my Tommy, who is explosive and dangerous, fragile and sharp, and watching him submit to me was a rush I’ve never known.
But this lingering need to be near him, to consume him… this feels like something important, too. Something fast and full and exciting.
He shifts in his sleep, rolling onto his back. I’m as greedy and needy for the sight of him as he just was for my attention, for my stern control. I slide off the chair and get closer, crouching right beside him, only to pause as his breathing gets shallow. He flinches, winces, his fingers twitch.
He groans, a small noise, so soft I almost don’t hear the ‘no’ hidden inside of it.
A nightmare.
