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It sent a delicious happy little shiver through me. He probably felt it, but for once he didn’t pull away from me.
“Did you sleep okay?” he asked me, and I didn’t know if I was dreaming or not, but I swore I felt him press his lips to the top of my head.
That couldn’t have been real, right? Dreams like that didn’t come true.
“I slept…” I hesitated because I didn’t actually remember how I’d slept last night. There was nothing there. “Okay?”
If I didn’t remember it, then there couldn’t have been any nightmares, right?
My body tightened up, and my skin started to sweat. I never wanted Rain to see me like that. And Finn, where was he? Had I scared him off? Did he get a load of my damage last night and couldn’t hack it?
“Where’s Finn, Rain?” I whispered frantically.
His arms squeezed just a little bit tighter, almost like a warning. “He stayed in here with us overnight, but by the time I woke up this morning, he was already gone. You had a nightmare, a bad one. We both got into bed with you, and it was the only thing that calmed you down. You fought Finn at first, but eventually you calmed down and slept peacefully. It was his idea to get into bed with you.”
My entire body just… shut down as the horror of what they witnessed washed over me. I’d done it. One night with me, and I’d already scared Finn away with my crazy shit.
I couldn’t even enjoy being in Rain’s arms anymore. I wanted to curl up in a ball and justdie.
Rain had seen me like that, and Finn had run away from me the first chance he got.
I was so fucked up that people actually ran away from me.
Rain was right not to want me, and not just for the reasons he’d claimed, but because of who I actually was as a person.
I might have been beautiful, gorgeous even, but I was a goddamn nightmare underneath all of that pretty packaging.
“I need you to leave my bedroom now, Rain. Please.” My voice was hollow and fucked up sounding, even to my own ears. “Just get out, I need to be alone right now.”
I tried to pull away from him, but his arms tightened almost to the point of pain. This was awful. I finally had what I always wanted, but now it felt dirty and tainted because I had made it so.
“I’ll let this go for now because I can see you panicking. You need to retreat so you can make yourself feel safe again, and I get that, I’m also going to respect it. There are some lines even I’m unwilling to cross. But, fair warning, I’m not going to just let this go. I think you ought to reconsider going to therapy. I know you don’t want to hear it, but after last night, I can’t help but think it would be good for you. You’re in pain, and it’s not going away or getting any better.”
Great, now I was just all kinds of weak to him.
I wondered if he tried to force Ariel into going to therapy. Probably not. He never saw her as anything but strong because that was just what she was. She might have had moments of weakness, but underneath them there was nothing but an endless well of strength that I both admired and was slightly jealous of at times.
“I’m not going to therapy,” I grumbled as I elbowed my way out of his arms. “Besides, there isn’t one out there that I’d ever be able to be honest with, and you know it. I mean, hot damn, Rain. I still don’t even know if my goddamn family was murdered by real witch hunters or by the Council pretending to be witch hunters. How the hell would I even begin to startthatconversation with a normal person?”
Raw bitterness leaked from my every word as I scrambled out of bed and finally looked at him. He rolled out of bed on the other side, and we faced each other.
His clothes were adorably rumpled from sleep, and his messy, shoulder-length, dirty blond hair was tousled. He just kept letting his hair grow longer and longer, and I had to admit it was a damn good look on him. My fingers twitched with the need to run through his hair. And yes, I saidneed,because that was exactly what it was. Forcing my fingers to remain still was damn near painful.
I really, really needed him to get out of my space, because it was filling my head with all kinds of nonsense that I thought I finally might have wised up enough to be done with.
His constant rejection had nothing on the level of embarrassment and shame I felt over something I damn well knew wasn’t my fault. But the mind could be a tricky, funny place sometimes. It made fucked up decisions and played games with me.
Rain attempted to stare me into submission, but it didn’t take long for his face to soften, and then he did something heneverdid with me, he gave in.
“Alright, precious. I’ll give you your space for now. Take a shower. You smell like booze, and it’s not a good perfume for you. I’ll make you some coffee and toast. I’d offer to make you some breakfast, but I don’t want to disappoint you so early in the day. I’ve got to pick up Baxter from the Alexander house, but the shop is closed today, meaning we’ve both got the day off. I was hoping I could take you both out to lunch and we could do something normal together as a family. I’ve been working so much lately that I haven’t had enough time to properly spend with the two of you. I know we work together, but it’s not the same.”
He was right, and I had just been complaining about not spending enough time with him, but now after what he’d witnessed last night, I wasn’t so sure that spending more time with him was the wisest decision for me to make. I did miss Baxter though. He was one of my favorite people, and after spending so much time with him when we stayed with Raven’s coven, I missed his constant spew of never-ending questions and hardcore sarcasm.
We really were a misfit family. They were the only family I had left.
But… wait a goddamn second here.
Had he called me precious or was I hearing things? He’d never donethatbefore. He’d called me sweetheart a time or two in the beginning, but that had died when I asked to join the coven he didn’t have.
