Page 37 of Road to Ruin
CHAPTER TWELVE
NIKITA
My head is killing me. It feels like it’s in a vice and someone is slowly tightening the clamps on either side of my temples. I don’t wake with a hazy uncertainty clouding my mind. I remember exactly what happened last night, every last terrible second of it, and I panic, immediately trying to move my arms and legs. My heart slams in my chest as my body jolts, nearly sending me tumbling out of my bed and onto the floor.
Relief follows next. A great, overwhelming wall of relief. I can move. I can move. I’m okay. I cover my face with both my hands and I try and catch my breath, but my pulse is racing out of control.
“I see you’re awake, then.”
I sit up, my stomach pitching violently as I scramble back in my bed, gathering my sheets around me. Tommy’s sitting in a chair at the side of my bed, his face expressionless, hands stacked on his stomach, feet crossed at the ankle. “You’re still here,” I say. Talk about stating the obvious.
He nods, pouting, looking slowly around the room. “Looks like it.”
“You were here last night when they brought me home.”
“I was. And don’t even consider getting shitty with me about that. If I hadn’t been, those two fuckers would have…well. They would have.”
I cover my face again. I don’t know how to handle this. I have no clue what I’m supposed to say or do right now. The fact of the matter is that I want to crawl across the bed and into his lap, and I want him to stroke my hair and pet me, telling me everything is going to be okay while I cry my eyes out.
My body won’t let me do that, though. It simply won’t allow it to happen. I’ve been conditioned against such displays of weakness, hard wired not to accommodate them. Even crying is almost impossible for me. Almost. I managed last night just fine.
“I can go now if you want,” he says quietly.
I inhale, filling my lungs until it feels like they’re going to burst. “No. No, I don’t want you to go. I’d prefer if you stayed.” My voice is so small, I’m surprised he even hears me.
“I can do that.”
“Thank you.” I hitch my knees up to my chin, pressing my forehead against my thighs, hugging myself. I fully intend on staying here like this for as long as I possibly can, but then I feel the bed dip and Tommy’s next to me, his arm around me, pulling me into him. He lies down on the bed, and I’m enveloped in his touch and the smell of him. It’s strange how his smell is so familiar to me already. It’s been two days. Three now, I suppose. It’s as though he’s already engrained in my memory. My body recognizes his. It’s frightening in a way. I haven’t felt this connected to a guy since Alex, and look how that turned out. I decided a long time ago that being independent, never letting a man into my life, was the best way for me to live. Sleep with them when I really felt the need, sure. Go on a date here and there. Keep things simple, though. Don’t commit. Don’t rely on anyone. Don’t feel too much. Don’t feel anything at all if it can be helped.
The problem is that I can feel myself wanting to bend those rules with Tommy. Crazy, I know. I don’t know him. He doesn’t know me. There’s a magnetism between us, though. Some kind of draw between us. I’m not saying I couldn’t walk away from him at this point. I could. It wouldn’t be easy, though. It wouldn’t make me happy. He constantly occupies my thoughts. I don’t see how that would change if I asked him to leave now and told him never to come back.
“Barrows bailed as soon as you left. What happened to Mitch?” I whisper. Tommy’s quiet for a long time. After a while, I don’t really need him to answer. I know Mitch won’t be turning up for work any time soon. For a second I think I’m okay with the not knowing, but something twists inside me and I simply blurt out the question. “Did you kill him?” I’ve asked this question to people before. Men locked away inside the Parish. Men awaiting trial. Never a man I’m clinging to for dear life. A man who’s gently kissing the top of my head.
“No,” he whispers. “I didn’t. But he is dead. Probably. It’s a long story.”
I’ve seen Tommy cut open a man’s face and not flinch. When he punched Barrows with those keys, he left him a mangled mess. Where Tommy Kendrick goes, violence and blood follows. I should be running for the hills, desperate to put some space between us. I should at least have developed a healthy fear of him over the past few days, but I haven’t. Both times I’ve seen him hurt someone, he’s done it protecting me. Does that make it okay? Does that make it right? Fuck, I don’t even know anymore. My sense of right and wrong has always been a little skewed. I know what the law states. I know what my training as a psychologist states. But in my heart, and in my head? Everything is so tangled and confused.
Tommy begins to stroke my hair. His hand feels huge on the back of my head. It’s in this moment I decide that I don’t want to give him up. I don’t know where any of this will lead. He might not be interested in pursuing a romantic connection with me anyway. He might ghost me tomorrow for all I know, but I’m willing to set aside the rules I’ve followed so strictly for so many years in order to find out.
I open my eyes, my decision made. Carefully I tip my head back, so that I’m looking up at him. Tommy remains staring at the ceiling, but his hand continues to brush softly over my hair. From this angle, I can see how long his eyelashes are, dark as soot. The broad pout of his mouth, masculine and full, makes me want to kiss him.
“Stop,” he says.
“Stop what?”
“Looking at me like that. I’ve been watching you all night. You have no idea how hard it was to stop myself from climbing into this bed with you.”
“You should have.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t slide into a girl’s bed when she’s fucking drugged and unconscious.” Unlike Mitch and Barrows would have. It goes unsaid, but it hangs there between us like poison. “If you keep on looking at me like that, though, I’m going to kiss you. And once I’ve kissed you, I won’t be able to stop. I’ll want more of you. I’ll want your pussy on my tongue. I’ll want my fingers inside you. I’ll want my dick inside you, and you aren’t fit and ready for that shit.”
“Says who?” I murmur.
“Says me. And you, given the way you keep flinching every time you move.”
“Some things are worth a little discomfort, Tommy Kendrick. Some things are worth a little pain.” God, I hope I’m right. Before I started working at the Parish and I used to provide therapy to regular, law-abiding citizens, I used to wonder all the time why some of the women would remain in toxic relationships, even though they were the first to admit that their partner was no good for them. It was like they found themselves on railway tracks, running in one direction, clearly able to see the train approaching at lightning speeds from the other direction, and yet they refused to jump from the tracks to avoid the head-on collision. Now I’m on the tracks. I can see the train coming in the distance, and I’m running straight for it regardless of the consequences.
Tommy’s hand snakes up the back of my shirt. His fingers skate over my lower back, and a shiver runs up my spine. I want his mouth on me. The promise of his kiss is a heady, dangerous thing. I’m not myself when his lips are pressed against my skin. I’m someone far removed from careful, defensive Nikita, the woman who protects her heart at all costs. My breath catches in my throat, and Tommy shifts.
