Page 53 of A Sweet Destruction

Do it, I dared him. Some part of him seemed to listen, the left side of his lip quirking up ever so slightly.

I huffed and puffed dramatically under I was fully under the covers, tucked next to Ford while he radiated heat like a furnace. He leaned over to turn off the light, drowning us in darkness.

After a few moments, his voice rumbled through the quiet of the room. “Esme?”

“Yes?” I answered, turning to face him. He was already looking at me.

“Don’t take any more suppressant.”

It was either my exhaustion or my growing insanity that made me answer, “Okay.”

Ford’s long breath of relief tickled my nose and by my next blink, I was asleep.

Chapter 13

Ford

If what happened over the course of the night was even half of what Esme had experienced for years, I was shocked she hadn’t strangled me with her bare hands.

I’d been too cocky, all too pleased with myself and the cool demeanor I was able to hold on to.

A miracle, that.

Maybe it was because I’d had practice, in a twisted way. My life had been about restraint, adapting to a new normal and shoving away how I truly felt about it.

Esme’s sleep habits had been one of those things.

Five years, especially in this war, was a long time, but I remembered Esme’s old routine of falling asleep reading like it was yesterday. I slept on my back, chin tucked slightly down, and so all I had to do was blink my eyes open in the morning, and she was there.

The first thing I registered, before the beat of my own heart.

It was only now that I had the information to identify that habit for what it really was, rather than an endearing trait that I’d grown to…well, it had become such a constant that on the days she woke up well before me and I didn’t see her there, panic clenched around my heart.

The loss of that presence was one of the many things that had felt wrong following my torture. I’d never pressed. I was a dumbass for that.

It only took one night—hell, even one hour—to understand why she suffered a sore back and tight neck. Those were minor ailments compared to the all out assault the Bond was able to inflict when you didn’t give it what it wanted.

Though Esme was mere inches away, apparently the Bond was not a fan of blankets.

I’d only had a few seconds of satisfaction, a warm light of accomplishment burning in my chest, when Esme fell asleep.

Trusting me against her better judgment. A few seconds, and then the screaming started.

I don’t like this. She’s right there, but I can’t feel her. What is this thing separating us? I don’t like this. Remove it. HEY! I SAID REMOVE IT!

Still a little green and expecting logic to work, I tried to reason with the Bond. I’d never known that path to work with most humans, and it certainly did not work on primal entities.

Esme likes her own blanket, I tried.

That worked about as well as trying to put out a fire by sneezing on it. The Bond freaked out, launching into a colorfully worded tirade about how I didn’t know anything and you kept me asleep and move closer.

The Bond made a compelling argument, both regarding its long slumber and the desire to move closer to Esme. To see up close how her body relaxed into sleep, the exact angle of her gently bent limbs.

I’d spent a sleepless night learning, as if I’d have to replicate the position the next morning in a painting. She slept somewhere in between her back and her left side, rocking back and forth between the two, her hips always slightly further to the left and her shoulders twisted towards the mattress.

If she had something to rest her leg on, she wouldn’t be moving as much, the Bond said, somewhere around three in the morning.

It was right, unfortunately. I could see it so clearly. Something to prop her top leg up, release the strain on her hips. A pillow would work fine. My own leg seemed like the better option.