His Pretty Little Burden: Chapter 12

SLEEP HOVERS IN THE DISTANCE, my mind alert with the image of his hand on my stomach. The way his fingers flexed against me. I can still feel them. God, I wish the moment with him in the kitchen wasn’t the closest I have come to feeling important to someone.

‘Love, baby, is feeling invincible.’ My mum told me as she ran out the door after her fourth husband. I was only seven. Left alone that night and so many before because love is a drug with a mighty grappling high and a brutal bludgeoning low—and she was an addict.

I know nothing of that kind of love, but for the first time in my life, I think her perpetual desire to seek it out makes sense. Invincible. Not a fleeting sexual desire. Not a childish game of cat and mouse. True commitment. For a moment in the kitchen, I felt as though belonging to someone—to that man—would be the sweetest of existences.

When the image of his wife, Aurora, flashes behind my eyes, I wince. Guilt battles my jealousy, while my silly crush takes score. With any luck, there’ll be no survivors.

I may be single and inexperienced with men, but if my gorgeous husband was cradling another woman’s baby and staring intensely into her eyes, seemingly considering whether to eat her or kiss her, I’d be ropeable. Self-hate slithers into me, because I’m either concocting this intensity in my mind or … no.

That is what is happening.

I envy his wife for the right to say she belongs to him. For her last name. Her elegance. Jealousy is like a bitter taste tingling my gums. Even her attitude towards our closeness was graceful. My mind wanders… Perhaps they’re in an open marriage? Or maybe I’m grasping at straws, or maybe she just knows a man like him would never be interested in a scrawny, uneducated girl like me.

Little deer.

I scowl; his nickname for me is woven with condescension. He sees me as a weak animal, as merely a meal and bones to pick his teeth with.

I swallow that thought before it manifests.

‘Who put this inside you, little deer?’

As the memory of his possessive and gravelly voice thrums between my ears, I roll to the side, cuddling the large pillow into my chest, willing this restlessness to ebb.

Covering my face with the pillow, I breathe it in, identifying the subtle fragrant notes of the fabric softener, recognising the scent from his shirt, too.

God, I’m a glutton for punishment.

Why are you here, Fawn?

For Benji.

I groan to myself. ‘Haven’t you learnt your lesson?’

‘You’re awake?’ Jasmine says softly from her spot on the roll-out in the corner of the room. ‘Are you hungry?’

I chuckle softly. ‘Do you ever think about anything besides food?’

‘Hey, you made a noise that sounded like you’re hungry, okay? Then you said, ‘Haven’t you learnt your lesson’ or something.’ She goes quiet, and I blink through the dense soundless void between us. Then she says, ‘You have nightmares, huh? Is that what the dreamcatcher is for? You know they don’t work, right?’

I sigh long and slow. ‘Yeah. It’s fucking useless, but I still need it.’

‘What do you dream about?’

Ringing between my ears, Clay’s words add emphasis to her question. ‘Was the boy who touched you high too?’

So, he must have presumed I was high. When I said I didn’t remember, I completed the image of the homeless teen mother with an addiction problem.

The perfect cliché.

I was high, but Benji has—had this smile, and he was wearing it when he offered me the smoke. He flashed it again when he held the straw to the cocaine for me… And then cuddled me against him… I forgot the rest. The smile was all that sticks, and then the rest is an abyss.

‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ I ask, redirecting our conversation from my nightmares and her eagerness to probe that particular subject, hoping she will go on a long tangent about the boy she likes.

‘Yeah. He’s six foot two. Short, military-cut, dark hair. Super-hot,’ she sings his details, and ends with a dreamy sigh. ‘What about you?’

That derailing went full circle quickly. I squint ahead at the dark ceiling, finding his memory easily, a perfect picture of him with that perfect Hollywood smile. How to explain such a thing. A non-existent relationship that still ended in a baby. ‘There’s this boy… I liked him… and I think he liked me, too. We had known each other for years, but he always had a girlfriend. A different one each month, but I was a constant in his life. And there was never any proof he liked me except … when we were out, he’d always offer things to me first before any of his girlfriends.

‘At the movies, it was the popcorn, a sip of his Mountain Dew. At dinner, he’d pass me the pizza box first, or he…’ I frown as I talk, sorting the information in my mind, reaching for the outcome I want even as the reasoning is pathetic. Sadness slips into me. My voice wobbles as I think about him and all the things we will never say or feel. ‘He always offered me everything first as though to say to his girlfriend that I am his first choice, only, it wasn’t appropriate.’

She hums in thought. ‘Or he was using you to make his girlfriend jealous because he knew you liked him. You know, the whole ‘treat em mean to keep em keen’ thing.’

I despise that explanation.

Flipping to the other side on a small groan, I stare at the ribboning blackout curtains, wishing for a peaceful sleep away from Benji and everything else. ‘No,’ I press, needing to fight her annoying insight. ‘He’d risk looks at me. He’d give me this… smile… but being together would be inappropriate because he is’—I swallow the word was, not needing more questions about that—’my foster brother.’

I hear her confused pause. ‘You’re not related, though. Is he the dad?’

I answer honestly, because fuck it, why not? ‘I think so.’

Yes. He has to be.

Giving up on the charade of sleep, I crawl from the bed. ‘I’m going for a walk. Do… Do you want to come?’ I offer. Please say no. I like her, but I want to see if Clay is awake again but only so I can stare at his blue eyes and manly hands that can snap necks, and not think about Benji using me to ‘keep his girlfriend’s keen.’ Or the way his body looked impaled on the leg of the coffee table—

‘Nah. I’m going to sext my boyfriend while you’re gone. We used to do it every night, but it feels awkward typing, ‘I’m dreaming of your manhood,’ when someone else is tossing and turning in their sleep.’

Okey dokey.

Too much information.

I leave the room, waving at Henchman Jeeves as I meander off, without saying a word, down the hallway. Not caring about feigning my pretence to see the moon, I search the house to see if he is awake. I follow the lights again until I am in a new area of the house, looking down a dimly lit hallway.

At the end of it, a door opens. As he walks through it, his chest sweaty and bare, on instinct, I almost turn to dart off in the other direction.

This was a bad idea.

Crush and jealousy for the win.

Goddamn it.

Amidst my own scolding session, I do a strange stop, turn, shuffle, and then turn back to face him, looking sheepish and awkward. No cool person has ever done that dance in the face of their completely inappropriate crush.

His dark brows pinch in. ‘Do I need to instruct Bolton to keep you in your room at night?’

Bolton? Oh right—HJ.

I square my shoulders, feeling naïve strength for a moment because, under that unaffected façade, I think he’s hiding something. He gives a shit. It doesn’t have to be much. A tiny crumb of consideration is like gold to me. ‘You don’t sleep either, though.’

‘Excuse me?’ He walks towards me, slow, measured strides that are meaningful; his every action has purpose and power. And when he stops close, I can feel the heat from his powerful bare torso.

I arch my neck, keeping his blue gaze locked to mine. Somehow, I find my confidence, whispering to him, ‘He doesn’t eat. Hardly sleeps. If you were my property, I’d bend you over my knee.’

Oh. My. God.

I’m dead.

A soft smile ticks a corner of his mouth. ‘You amuse me. Do you use humour to deflect?’

‘Sometimes…’ I admit as he strolls past, heading away, but my heart doesn’t want our interaction to end so quickly. ‘Why don’t you sleep?’ Spinning to chase him with my gaze, I watch him stop midstride as my question sails across the dark space between us.

He turns to face me, his features hard to see in the dense low light. ‘No one has asked me that before.’

That makes me sad, and I wonder how that can be. Doesn’t his wife ask why he isn’t in bed? ‘Well… I am.’

A small stream of light glows around his silhouette as he states plainly, ‘I have nightmares.’

I chuckle once, but when his indifferent gaze doesn’t shift, I realise he’s not joking. Shocked at his candid response, I pause. How can a man like him admit to having something as vulnerable as a nightmare? How can he be so honest and still somehow manage to make this normal human condition sexy? Tortured. Real. ‘What could you possibly be afraid of?’

That perfectly charming and practised smile settles on his face. ‘Failure, Fawn.’

I nod, understanding that fear but still not able to grasp how the most impressive man I have ever met can be afraid of such a thing. He has never experienced true failure. ‘I have nightmares, too,’ I say, reaching up to twirl my hair around my finger. ‘And I’m afraid of failure… too.’ I laugh contemptuously, opening my arms to display the little mound between my shirt and sleep shorts. ‘You’d think I’d be used to it, huh?’

He clasps his hands in front of him, and even in the dark, I can identify stern brows weaving above a serious expression. ‘What have you failed?’

‘Um. Just, like, everything.’

Darkness whirls around him, as he is seemingly displeased with my ambiguous response. A ball forms in my stomach under his gaze. ‘Let me rephrase the question, Fawn. What have you tried and then failed?’

My mouth gets dry because I don’t really understand the question, and he’s smarter than me. When he talks, it always feels like he is several steps ahead of the conversation. ‘I’ve never really had a chance to try anything,’ I admit. ‘I just… ya know… survived.’

‘And yet, you’re not dead,’ he says, his voice a rumbling purr. Stepping close, he moves until he is with me in the dimly bathed space in the hallway. My eyes adjust to enjoy all the masculine details of his face. Lifting his hand, he strokes my jaw, sending blissful warmth coursing along my skin.

His wife…

Red flags everywhere.

Look at them!

Then he slides his hand lower and circles the small column of my throat, and I ignore the flags even as they wrap around my neck. I swallow against his palm.

My eyes grow wide.

His gaze studies me, rolling down my face as he says, ‘So, you haven’t failed, sweet girl.’ He smiles, softly. ‘You are resilient despite all odds. And you’ll survive what’s to come.’

Tears burn the backs of my eyes.

His words twist inside my chest like a corkscrew in my heart, making me hot and happy and uncomfortable and needy. Neediness hurts. It is the worst feeling in the world. It is at the core of my every action.

Squeezing my throat in a wonderful, dominant way, he dips his head, and I lean up, reaching to be closer to him, sucking in a breath, feeling his intention to kiss me like a wave I need to catch.

Then he straightens. His hand slips from my throat. And I drop back to my heels, his intent dissolving immediately.

‘Go back to your room, little deer.’