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No, no,no.
“Never,” he whispers. He wraps me tightly in his arms.
No matter how much I struggle, he doesn’t let me go. He holds me. And eventually, when I realize that I can’t win against him, that he won’t leave, I finally let go. My legs give out and my body gives in, falling against him, and his follows mine unhesitatingly down to the floor.
He doesn’t abandon me. He doesn’t hurt me, he doesn’t chastise me. He just…holds me.
I’m clutched against his chest when he slides his back down the bathroom wall. He lowers me so that I’m sitting in his lap, pressed against his heart.
He strokes my hair. He whispers heated reassurances in my ear. He rubs comforting circles on my back. He gently caresses my cheek with his large, warm palm and it’s when he leans down and licks a tear into his mouth that I realize they’re there.
“You don’t need to hide parts of yourself from me. I want it all, every single piece. And Nera,” he whispers against my ear, “I’m not going anywhere without you.”
The next tear falls, catching me off guard and surprising me. Another follows, then a third, until my face is drenched. For the first time in years, I allow myself to cry. The tears rain down my cheeks and bring with them near crippling emotional relief.
Tristan holds me through it all, never once wavering.
???
Chapter 33
Tristan
The doors of the elevator open and I walk into the penthouse with Nera still clutched in my arms.
She hasn’t said a word since the bathroom. I don’t know how long we sat there with her cradled against me as she cried softly. At least an hour, with every new tear down her face fueling fresh retaliatory fury inside me.
I’d wanted to take her pain and make it my own. The best I could do was lick her tears as they fell, tasting her misery just like I’ve tasted her joy in the past.
When I watched her rise from our booth and head almost blindly towards the bathroom, I knew. Knew that she needed me.
So, I followed her.
I snuck in behind her and listened as she hurt herself.
Rage unlike anything I’d ever known had warped my fists. Rage at her parents, rage at the world for inflicting such pain on her. Rage at myself for not seeing it earlier, for not taking care of her.
After what happened downstairs, what I finally confirmed, I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to be separated from her again. The protectiveness I feel pales in comparison to what it was before, when I’d already been concerned about my blind infatuation with her.
It’s downright an obsession now, and as I set her down and release her, I have to physically restrain myself from reaching for her when she takes a step away from me.
Nera turns towards me and her eyes are so fucking wide and sad that my heart squeezes painfully. She has me worshipping at her altar with just a look in my direction and she doesn’t even know it.
Shame and resignation burn brightly in them, but she meets my gaze. Streaks of tears mark her face like a canvas and fall off the curve of her jaw. Even in her suffering, she’s beautiful.
“You said I wasn’t breakable,” she says with a humorless laugh. “Now you get to see just how broken I really am.”
“You’re not broken.”
“Look at me,” she begs, her voice breaking on that desperate plea. She holds her hands up in defeat before dropping them limply back against her sides.
“I am,” I say, my tone raw. “All I do is look at you.”
I grab her hand and pull her behind me into the bedroom. There, I stand her in front of the floor-length mirror. I flick on the lights and rip open the clasp at her neck that holds her dress together.
A small cry leaves her lips as she catches the front of her dress and holds it clutched over her front.
“What are you doing?”
