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“You’re an ex-cop and an elf. You were stabbed and shot at—”
“That dickbag shot atyou, not me,” I interrupted.
The flat expression he turned on me made me wish I’d kept my mouth shut.
“Lovely,” he muttered. “Fine. But you were shoved into the middle of a riot and stabbed, a gun was fired in your carwith you in it, and you’ve experienced years of vandalism, harassment, and constant aggression. And that’s just whatI’veseen. Why, exactly, do you think that doesn’t qualify you to have experienced trauma?”
“I’ve seen trauma, Taavi, and my life isn’t it,” I insisted. Poverty was trauma. Murder and assault were trauma. Combat was trauma, whether on the battlefield or in gang territory. I hadn’t lived through that kind of shit.
Taavi sighed again. “Val, I’ve seen plenty of people with trauma. A lot of them end up in Hands and Paws and a lot of them ended up in construction, too, because they couldn’t focus enough to finish college or keep an office job. Not all of them have been to war, although some have. Trauma can come out of war, yes, but it can also come from being attacked or constantly harassed.” His mismatched eyes were sharp as he studied my probably-blotchy face. “And you were an elf in the police, so I’m guessing you’ve been the target of that for most of that time.”
“I mean, yeah, sure, but…” I trailed off, not really knowing what point I was trying to make any more that I hadn’t already said.
“Val,” he murmured, taking my chin in his hand. “Why is it that everyone except you has your permission to hurt?”
Well,fuck.
Not only did I not have an answer for him, but for all my objections to his suggestion, I also knew that if our places had been switched, I might have said something similar.
So I didn’t answer him, letting my head fall back to his chest, my cheek on his collarbone. Lips pressed gently against my forehead, and I tried to close my eyes against a couple of tears that pushed their irritating way out. I rubbed at my face with an aggravated hand.
Taavi caught it with his, then brought my fingers to his lips.
Exhaustion began to creep back in, and the nausea had receded, although now there was enough bitter shame mixed in that I was fairly certain I wasn’t going to get much sleep even if the nightmares didn’t come back. Past experience said it was about a fifty-fifty shot.
“Back to bed?” Taavi asked softly after a few more minutes.
“Okay.”
I let him help me up, take my hand, and lead me back to bed. And then I more than gladly let him pull me into his arms, my cheek once again resting against the dark whorls of his tattoo, the slow percussion of his heart soothing under my ear. I wrapped his waist with my arm, trying to let the slight spiciness of his scent soothe me as I breathed in air warm from his skin.
It was better than cold sheets and empty blackness, that’s for damn sure.
I still couldn’t sleep, though, despite the bone-deep fatigue that made my limbs feel heavy even as my mind raced through all the possibilities, and more than a few impossibilities, as I lay in the dark, Taavi’s heart beneath my ear and the rise and fall of his chest under my hand. The warmth of his body, the steady rhythm of pulse and breath. Alive. Safe.
Fingers gently stroked my scalp, occasionally toying with a few loose strands of my hair.
“I’m not going anywhere, Val,” he murmured.
“Me, neither,” I whispered back, my lips brushing his skin as I pulled myself tighter against him.
Although it wasn’t long before Taavi’s breathing evened out and deepened, I remained awake, listening to his heartbeat and trying to stave off the impending sense of dread that had been haunting me since this fucking case had started.
No, scratch that shit. Since I’d found him in the goddamn dumpster. Even back then, I had felt responsible for him. Protective.
And that feeling was about a hundred times stronger now that I’d had the chance to get to know him—to know how sweet, generous, and gentle he was, how selfless, how impossibly kind.
Not for the first time by any means, but undoubtedly also not the last, I thought about just how much I didn’t deserve him—how much he didn’t deserve to have to put up with an asshole like me.
I told myself to just take what I could while it lasted. To enjoy the time I had with him. To be a fucking mature adult about the fact that he’d inevitably get sick of my bullshit.
But I really didn’t want to.
I wanted to hold onto him for as long as I possibly could. Longer than that.
And that’s when I realized just how deeply I’d already fallen in love with him.
Because I was lying in the dark after one fuck of a nightmare, and I knew without a doubt that I was far more terrified of losing Taavi than I had ever been of anything else in my life.
