“Levi,” he whispers, voice wrecked. “I spent all day holding everyone else’s grief. Carrying it. Absorbing it.” He sags against me. “It took everything out of me today.”
I brush a hand up his back, feeling the tension there. “Hey,” I whisper, tilting his chin so he’ll meet my eyes. “Is it always like this?”
His grip frays with his voice. “Sometimes,” he murmurs, the words almost lost against my skin. “When I get too close orfeeltoomuch, it lingers. Like their sorrow gets stuck under my ribs and I can’t shake it off.”
He presses his mouth to my jaw, less a kiss than a breath looking for somewhere to land. His shadows flicker weakly at the edges, dulled and tired, as if they are carrying the same ache he is. “Can we just”—his hands rise, cradling my face delicately—“be here?”
There’s no hesitation in me.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper.
I push his coat from his shoulders, fingers sliding past lapels that feel more like armor than clothing. I take my time with the buttons of his shirt, slipping each one free. His chest rises and falls beneath my hands, and when I press my palms to his skin, I can feel the storm still echoing in his rib cage.
His shadows respond first.
They unfurl around him in slow, seeking tendrils. Like they’re exhausted, too. And they don’t quite trust the quiet yet. They curl around the back of Hayden’s neck, almost protective.
“You’re tired,” I murmur, running a hand over his chest in slow circles. “Come with me.”
He follows, half dressed and hollowed out, through the apartment to his bedroom. I guide him to the edge of the bed and press lightly on his shoulders. He sits without protest, legs wide, spine obedient, a man unable to relax unless ordered to. His shoes are still on, black leather, polished but scuffed from the day. I kneel before him to unlace them.
His brow furrows.
“You don’t have to…”
“Shh,” I say, fingers moving carefully. “Let me.”
He falls quiet, watching me with something unreadable in his expression as I take off one shoe, then the other, and set them gently aside. I peel off his socks next, pressing my thumbs into hisarches. The way he exhales you’d think I’ve exorcised something. Maybe I have. Nothing dramatic, just the kind of tired that turns to trust.
He’s still rooted at the end of the bed, a statue about to crumble, when I rise again.
“Follow me,” I say, extending my hand, and he takes it without question.
I switch on the bathroom light, turn the water to warm, and test it with my fingers until the temperature feels just right.
Hayden leans against the counter, watching me with heavy eyes.
I step in front of him and reach for the rest of the buttons on his shirt. My fingers move slowly, deliberately, brushing the line of his collarbone, the warm stretch of his stomach. I push the fabric from his shoulders, letting it slide down his arms.
“You okay?” I ask, concerned.
He just nods. But when I reach for the waistband of his pants, he exhales deeply.
I kneel, unfastening them gently, and remove them with careful hands. I can feel the tension radiating from him like heat.
He doesn’t make an attempt to remove his briefs.
So I do.
I hook my thumbs into the waistband, looking up to meet his gaze. He nods again and they fall to the floor.
Hayden Harlow, once ruler of the underworld, now trembling and vulnerable, naked in a way that has nothing to do with skin and everything to do with trust.
The other night he was stunning, formidable and golden and otherworldly.
Tonight, he’s something softer. A man who’s carried too much grief for too long and is finally letting someone else bear the weight.
I stand again, cup the back of his neck, and press our foreheads together. “Let me take care of you.”
