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“A romantic movie.”
The answer, coming from him of all people, felt so ridiculous a bubble of laughter left her throat, the sound strangled halfway as she recognized it.
Her hand went to her neck, her eyes flying to him, only for her body to freeze as she saw the intensity of his gaze on her.
“I... laughed,” she murmured, still stunned.
“Do it again.”
“What?”
“I want to hear it again.”
It was ridiculous. “I can’t do it again.”
Before she could blink, she was flat on her back on the couch and he was looming over her, one of his hands pinning her wrists above her head, the other on her ribs. Heart pounding, she gasped. “What are you doing?”
“Making you laugh again.” With that, he began to prod the side of her ribs in quick motions that made her squeal and struggle to get away from him, sensations buzzing on her skin.
He was tickling her. The feared Shadow Man was tickling her.
The thought itself was so ridiculous, added to the motion of his fingers, that she began to laugh. “Stop, stop, stop, please!” She begged in between bouts of laughter, trying to move away from his hand but unable to in his hold, tears running down her cheeks with the intensity of her release, a high like never before buzzing in her head.
After long moments, he stopped, his hand stilling, both his hands coming to the side of her head, caging her in between as she caught her breath. His hypnotic eyes swirled with something hot, his face inches from hers as she stared up at him, her eyes flickering to his lips.
She remembered once thinking about her kiss, thinking about how intimate she wanted it to be. Her heart was still wounded.
The reminder sobered her.
“You hurt me,” she whispered between them, her eyes welling up.
He leaned his weight on one arm, moving her short hair back from her wet cheeks with the other.
“I know.”
An exhale left her at the acknowledgement from him, at knowing she was valid in feeling how she felt and he accepted that. He simply traced her tears with his thumb for a long moment while she took him in, his eyes on her eyes, his weight on her body, and felt something opening tentatively inside her.
“They broke me.”
The words left her, and his thumb came to her quivering lower lip, steadying it, his intense eyes on hers.
“And they will pay.”
The words, the exact words, he’d said to her before setting the man who’d drugged her on fire. The promise of vengeance and retribution she knew he would carry through, because he always had. Though he had left her for the last few months, he had been there through the years, and factions within her warred remembering both. It felt so long ago and it felt like yesterday.
Taking his dark promise to heart, she wrapped her arms around his solid weight on her, and pressed her face into his neck, breathing him in. It had been so long since she'd been held, so long since she'd held anyone, her body, her mind, her soul aching with the hunger of simply touching another and feeling safe. She was still not fully put together but slightly more than she had been in the morning. Maybe she would never be whole. But maybe, one day she wouldn't be as broken either. And that alone gave her some hope.
One thing at a time.
