The Annihilator (Dark Verse #5)(31)

At the sight of her, he muted the sound, but a couple kept kissing on the screen.
Fascinated, her eyes glued to the visual as she took a seat in the corner of the couch, she watched the man hold the woman’s face in his hands, gently teasing her lips with his as airplanes flew in the background.
Throat dry, she asked. “What are you watching?”
“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.

Chapter fourteenLyla


Dr. Manson was slowly becoming her favorite person. He had a weird sense of humor, one it took a while for her to understand, but he was kind and warm and genuine, and as she slowly talked to him, she felt herself opening more and more, even though she hadn't scratched the surface of her past with him. He knew she'd been raped and he knew she'd tried to kill herself, but beyond that, she didn't even know how to explain to an outsider. Yet, with what he knew, he was helping her.
It was dark outside, almost midnight, and she was watching TV in the quiet house—after searching ‘best movies to watch for the first time’—when the main door opened. Jolting up from her slumped, relaxed position on the couch, heart pounding, she pressed pause on the remote.
It had been a few days since she’d seen him, days since he’d told her there was something very important he had to do, and left her with the promise that he would return. She had expected to feel abandoned again, but for some reason, living in this house, getting into a routine, talking to Bessie and Dr. Manson, finding herself, she hadn’t felt discarded. She had felt cared for, because the house, the staff, the doctor, he had made it all possible for her. Even in his absence, he had ensured that she would be looked after.
And she had missed him.
She had missed his heated, crazy eyes and his little notes and his roses and his quiet, solid presence. She knew from the time she'd spent observing him that he liked watching drama and romantic movies because the emotions fascinated him, and thrillers because he liked knowing answers before anyone onscreen did. She knew that he had meetings in the afternoons that he attended on his laptop while she met with Dr. Manson, and she knew he liked working out every morning at the crack of dawn. She knew he liked listening to her voice, and he liked that she was exploring more and more of herself.
He entered, wearing a hooded sweatshirt and jeans and boots, his mismatched, mesmerizing eyes finding hers. His gaze roved over her, checking her physically to see everything was right, finding her in his t-shirt. For a moment, she saw something like satisfaction cross his eyes before his face went neutral again. It had taken her a few days of living with him to realize that wasn’t something he did on purpose to hide his expression—that was just natural for him. She had seen the way he put on masks when dealing with the staff, faking expressions she knew he didn’t feel, and she realized she preferred him the way he was with her—real and without pretense.