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Protected.
Safe.
So it doesn’t feel right to rid myself of Demyen’s trace on my skin. I love the way he touches me, the way he kisses me. The way he whispers reminders of his love in my ear as his hands work all sorts of wonderful feelings throughout my body.
It was just that one moment. That one whisper.
One solid, horrifying second when he wasn’t Demyen anymore.
When it wasOlegon top of me.
I need to get a handle on this. I need to pull myself together. I need to take inventory of my fucked up mind and figure out a way to deal with my shit.
But first, I just need to curl up in Demyen and fall asleep covered in him.
I peek my head out of the bathroom, spirals of steam curling out at my feet. He’s not in the bedroom. I don’t know why I thought he’d still be here. I probably scared him and drove him away with my crazy.
Worse yet—I’m fairly certain he’s going to give up on me. If he hasn’t already. It’s not his fault that he resembles his father sometimes. I can no sooner ask him to stop being the man’s son than I can ask the stars to stop showing up in the sky.
But no one signed up for my brand of psycho. Demyen sure as shit never volunteered for all the drama and intrigue my whole life has thrown at him. First, his brother, then Raizo, and now, this?
I can’t blame him if he decides I’m not worth it.
I grab the shirt he wore earlier today and pull it on. The waft of his scent feels better to my senses than any shower or hot tub could give me right now. When I close my eyes, I can almost feel his warmth inside the fabric from where it pressed to his skin.
Tears drip from my eyes.
I fucked up.
I fucked everything up.
I’ll wait until we get back to the compound before I tell Willow anything. I can pretend, I think, until then. Her little heart hasbeen broken too many times, and after all the progress she made today…
Crawling into bed seems like the only thing I can do right. I don’t know if Demyen will come back; I don’t know which room is safe for me to go into without disrupting anyone else. If he does come back and needs me to leave, I will.
Until then, I hug his pillow to my chest and sob until I can’t make any more tears.
I don’t know how long I lie there, half-asleep and mostly just drained of all energy. I’ve cried it all away. I can’t sleep, either. I’m too afraid that if I let myself wander into dreams, they’ll quickly become nightmares all reminding me why I don’t deserve a life with Demyen.
Or with anyone.
When the bedroom door opens, then closes, I’m almost not sure I heard anything at all. But then the bed dips under someone’s weight…
And I’m pulled into Demyen’s arms the same time he crawls into bed next to me.
He doesn’t say anything. But he doesn’t throw me out, either.
Instead, he kisses my hair and rubs my back, tucking me under his chin and close to his chest. I curl up into a ball and he just helps me do it, making sure I’m connected to him by as many points as possible.
“I’m sorry,” he quietly says after a long moment of silence. “I’m so sorry, Clara. I never meant…”
I just bury my face in his chest. Breathe him in. Let time handle the rest.
“I never meant to hurt you. I only ever meant to hurt myself. I know, it’s fucked up and it doesn’t make any fucking sense, but I’m working on trying to understand why I…” He stops, then sighs. “Why I always try to destroy every good thing, every good person, in my life. You and Willow are paying the price and it’s not… it’s not fucking fair. It’s not what I wanted. At all.”
He rubs my back with both his hands and burrows his nose into my hair. Just like I’m comforting myself with him, he seems to be needing me to give him the same.
The fact that he’s not asking for it, or for anything from me, means a lot.
