33. Norm

33

NORM

M y heart hurts.

That’s the only way I can describe how I feel right now, how the guys and I have felt for the last two months, and I’m starting to worry that there isn’t anything that will make that feeling go away.

Which is a lie.

I know exactly what will help that stupid thing inside my chest start beating it’s regular rhythm again, and she’s laying in the bed across from me staring out the window without actually seeing anything.

It’s been two months of hell for Leonor.

Sixty three goddamn days of doctors and medications, detectives and security.

Almost eight and a half weeks of bathing her, begging her to eat then all but forcing her to, making sure she gets up to move at some point, as well as just watching her fucking breathe.

The four of us are total disasters, each with our own brand of trauma response, and the only thing that hasn’t let our entire life go to shit is the fact that we have each other.

Even if Leo is only here as a shell of herself right now.

Losing Pierre would have been one thing on its own.

Natural death would have devastated all of us, would have been especially hard on Justine and Leonor, but it’s a part of life we all have to experience at some point. We know that but I don’t think anyone could have been remotely prepared to handle something like what actually happened to him.

The way he was murdered… it makes me sick every time I think I about it and as soon as the nausea stops, I get so angry I can’t even think straight. Never in my worst nightmares could I conjure up something like that, nor could I imagine it happening to someone I love.

It did, though.

Pierre didn’t deserve that, no one does but definitely not him, and while my heart aches for Justine’s loss, I can’t help the sliver of selfish gratitude that’s come with mourning Leo’s dad.

Because it could have been her.

It makes me an absolutely terrible human being and solidifies my place in hell for thinking something like that but it could have been our girl with a knife through her neck, and the reality of that has terror racing through my entire body every time the thought crosses my mind.

Losing Leonor at any point is a sure fire ride to the afterlife but again? After she did actually die then disappeared from our lives for what might have been forever if she hadn’t accidentally called Lucky?

I wouldn’t survive it.

I almost didn’t the first time.

Thinking this way makes me feel like a bastard, though.

Especially with how incredibly destroyed my sweets is.

The death of her father was bad enough on its own but knowing what she went through while she was with his murderer, seeing Luck cradling her in his arms, covered in blood and unconscious? Running up to that after he called Pete actually did make me sick, and the feeling hasn’t changed much since that night.

I don’t anticipate it will for quite some time, either.

Not with everything turned upside down right now.

Justine is in France.

She’s been staying with what little family Pierre had left over there, trying to heal herself in any way she can because broken isn’t a strong enough word to describe how she was the last time we saw her. She almost took Leo with her, too, but the only reason Justine didn’t make her daughter get on that plane with her—aside from the fact that she hasn’t gotten out of bed in weeks—was us.

Justine knows we’ll take care of her.

Leonor will continue to see her doctors and stay healthy, we’ll do all the things we’ve been doing, and we won’t ever let her out of our sight because the guilt we have is too strong and the depth of our love for her is too deep to ever risk her life again.

So, Justine felt comfortable enough to go heal her shattered heart the way she needed to while we try to keep our girl here with us in more than one way.

But no one wanted to go back to Justine’s house.

We will eventually, it holds way too many good memories not to, but stepping through that door without Pierre’s cheery greeting or the sound of him singing from the kitchen, it was too hard. And since our building is a complete construction zone with work currently put on hold while we all go through the enormous amount of shit we’re going through, that wasn’t an option either.

Which means we’ve been staying at a hotel.

A nice ass hotel that Mark managed to convince to close off an entire floor for us, and we have the biggest suite so it’s basically like staying in an apartment that can almost house the five of us. It’s a lot like the early days actually, except we aren’t broke and doing drugs, and we aren’t crammed in some shithole like sardines and forced to cook ramen on a broken radiator.

I’d take that in a heartbeat right now, though.

Having no less than two security guards outside our door, a few beat cops patrolling the floor on a regular rotation, and an unknown amount of undercover officers staying at the hotel as well isn’t really great. My anxiety has been at an all time high from that alone but taking care of Leonor has me seconds from launching into space.

We take turns staying up at night to make sure she doesn’t need anything, to try to get her to sleep, to watch her chest rise and fall. None of us are sleeping much anyway but exhaustion isn’t a thing right now because worrying about our girl has each of us wired for sound.

Sure, her body is mostly healed.

A lot of her wounds were superficial, cuts and scrapes from being fucking dragged through the property, bruises and bumps from fighting with her attacker and falling from the top floor of the mansion. Shockingly, Leo only broke two fingers and dislocated her shoulder from that.

She has new scars, though.

The words that sick fuck carved into her stomach, he made sure they were deep enough to scar and I knew they were going to as soon as I saw her.

But she’s alive.

Leonor is alive and breathing, she’s here with us still, and as soon as she’s ready, we’re going to help her through this the same way we have with everything else.

I’m just worried loving her won’t be enough to bring her back this time.

With a sigh, I tip my head back against the wall.

It’s almost impossible to put myself in her shoes but I’ve been trying to.

Some of it I can relate to, and I hate that we’ve both been through it, but the rest is lost on me.

I’ve never had a stalker, definitely not two, and I’ve never had anyone try to kill me or succeed in doing so, so I can’t imagine what that’s doing to her mind right now. I still have both of my parents, I’ve never known anyone who was murdered. There honestly has to be so much fucked up shit running through Leonor’s head right now I have no idea how she isn’t trying to take a bath with a toaster.

I shake my head at that terrible thought.

It’s not fair to say something like that, not when she’s been there before, not when I’ve been there before. That’s something I do understand and getting to that place is scary but it’s even scarier when you can’t leave it.

I’m starting to worry that Leonor really can’t.

Between years ago and months ago, I wouldn’t blame her if that was the case. I’d be devastated and so would everyone else but my god, with all of the shit our girl has been through, it’s a miracle she’s laying in that bed like a zombie and not figuring out how to become one.

Scrubbing a hand over my face, I check my phone as it buzzes on the floor next to me.

PETE: Gonna be a while. I can’t get him out of the van to go inside, he just wants to turn around and go back to Leonor.

A sad smile touches my lips as I respond.

We’re fine here. Markus is asleep in the living room, I’m with our girl right now. Do whatever you have to do for Luck and let me know if you need us.

PETE: I will, sweet boy.

PETE: It’s fucking killing me to see him like this.

I know, but he needs to do this.

Because if Lucky doesn’t get himself in front of his therapist he’s going to end up surgically stitching his body to Leo’s after finding her on the brink of death a second time.

I don’t know why the universe had it play out that way but it did, and after about a month of Lucius seemingly handling it ok and being the strong fucker he is, our gentle giant completely fell apart.

For the first time I think ever, he had a full blown, bonafide nervous breakdown and it was nothing like what happens when he has rough OCD episodes.

Which scared the fuck out of us.

Lucky is usually so composed, so clear headed and rational, even when it comes to heavy shit but I guess this was something his mind couldn’t process. Rightfully so, but it was still scary to see him fall apart.

He started seeing his therapist more frequently, upping things from once a month to twice a week but it was all over FaceTime and while that was helpful and landed him a short term prescription to take the edge off things, it’s not doing what needs to be done.

So, his therapist made him leave the hotel for their appointment today and clearly it’s not going well.

Not that it’s surprising, I don’t think Luck has slept since he found Leonor in the cemetery and I’m pretty sure a few more days would have had him doing something none of us could handle but Pete managed to get him out of here to go to the appointment and I’m taking that as a good sign.

Luck physically going to therapy, Mark actually sleeping for more than fifteen minutes at a time. I feel like we’re headed in the right direction and I know that if we could get Leo to...

“Norm?”

My head snaps up from my phone, my wide eyes connecting with bloodshot cobalt blue ones. “Yeah, sweets?”

Leo swallows hard, her throat probably sore as fuck since she hasn’t spoken a word in two months. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Do…” My heart starts slamming into my chest as I fight the urge to scoot toward her, to rush at her and overwhelm her with everything in me screaming to take care of her. “Do what, Leo?”

“This.” She blinks slowly as a single tear slips down her cheek and lands on the pillow under her head. “I don’t want to live this way anymore.”

With a shuddering breath, I very slowly, very carefully move closer to the edge of the bed. My heart squeezes, my guts pitch, but I try to remain calm because the part of me that was convinced Leonor would be doing exactly what she is now is trying to take a back seat to the part of me that’s terrified of what it is she means by that.

“What… what do you?—”

“I don’t want to be afraid anymore,” Leo says as her voice cracks. “I don’t want to live in fear. I want my-my-my goddamn l-life b-b-back.”

Then she completely dissolves into a sobbing mess.

One I can’t sit by and just watch.

Much quicker this time, I go to our girl, wrapping her in my arms and scooting her toward the middle of the bed. I lay down with her, holding her close, sighing in relief as Leonor cries the hardest I’ve ever heard her cry against my chest. She clings to me as tightly as possible, her hands trembling as they clutch the back of my shirt, her legs tangling with mine as if Leo is trying to crawl inside me.

All while her sobs wrack her body for what feels like an eternity.

Cathartic.

Therapeutic.

These sobs are healing, they’re the first step to coming back to us and if it means we lay here like this for years, I won’t fucking move because I know this is what Leonor needs and I’ll be damned if I don’t need it too.

Because my girl is here .

Lucky kept saying that; she’s still with us.

Leo is still with us and despite how empty any promises we have made and could ever make again feel after we couldn’t save her, I know we’re going to try harder than before to make sure things change on some level.

They have to.

No one deserves to go through this much bullshit in one lifetime and while I can’t promise I won’t ever let anything happen to her again, I will do my damnedest to keep Leonor safe.

She is our beginning and end, the fucking heart and soul of us, and she deserves at least that.

Eventually, God knows how much time has passed, my girl’s breathing evens out, her tears slowly dry up, and she begins to relax as I gently rub her back.

“Are you good for right now?” Beyond that is a lot to ask all considering, but I need to make sure she let out what she had to in this moment. And when Leonor nods, I sigh. “Do you need anything?”

Leo’s grip on me tightens briefly as she shakes her head then I hear her suck in a stuttering breath as she asks, “How did you do it?”

“Do what, sweets?”

“How did you…” she pauses and I swear it’s like she’s working up the nerve to ask whatever she’s trying to ask. “You’re the only one who… who knows what it’s like to…”

Despite the extreme weight of her question, I smile into her hair. “Be suicidal? Or survive sexual assault?”

“Both,” Leo whispers. “How did you stop feeling that way? How did you stop reliving that hell over and over every time you closed your eyes?”

“I didn’t.” She scoots and tilts her head back to look up at me and I wipe the last of her tears from her cheeks. “I still have days where I question whether or not I should just… disappear for good. They don’t happen often and they usually come after a nightmare but I didn’t wake up one morning and stop feeling that way, not completely.”

“I understand that.”

“I know.” I smile down at her. “I think it’s something we’ll always have to battle, something we’ll always have to fight against since it’s rooted in things that don’t just magically go away but knowing we have an army in our corner makes a huge difference. I wouldn’t be here now if I didn’t have four really amazing and very beautiful reasons to wake up every day.” Leo’s lips tip up a tiny bit as I push her hair out of her eyes. “And I felt that way before I knew how I felt about everyone.”

She gives me the smallest smile as she says, “We’re all really good at living in denial.”

“Eh, maybe,” I say as I shrug one shoulder. “But you know all of that, Leo. You went through it, the same as me. You tried more times than I did and you overcame that so you already had the answer to the first question. Love and support get you through the dark days and help you overcome them. You had that from…” I stop because of what I was about to say but Leonor fills in the gap.

“I had that from Justine and Pierre.” She gives me a watery smile. “He wouldn’t want me to forget it.”

“No, he wouldn’t.”

“You’re right, though. I knew that and I guess.” Leo searches my eyes briefly, looking right into my goddamn soul. “I guess I just needed to hear it from someone I love who truly does understand it. I’ve been laying here for weeks thinking about how easy it would be, to eat a handful of pills, to do any number of things to make the pain go away, to make the fear stop ruling over my every waking moment. But like you said, I couldn’t do that because I have four reasons not to. I can’t do it to Justine, especially now. No matter how hard I tried to justify it, I couldn’t, and I think I needed to hear that from you because you’ve lived in the same circle of hell that I have.”

I lift a hand to her cheek as I smooth my thumb under her eye.

Things were a little different for us but I don’t need to explain any of that right now. I don’t have to say a damn thing other than what this incredible woman needs to hear from me because this shit isn’t about me or anyone else. It’s about Leonor.

“What about the other?”

Blowing out a rough breath, I carefully think over my words.

Because honestly, I do still have nightmares about being assaulted in prison.

Not as often as I used to, far less actually, but they do occasionally pop up and I’m not sure that will ever go away either.

That’s not really what Leo is asking me, though.

At least, I don’t think it is.

So, I tell her how I got over certain aspects of that kind of trauma. “Pete.”

Leonor’s nose scrunches and her brow furrows and my god, I have never been happier to see that confused expression in my entire life. “Pete?”

I nod. “I hadn’t had sex from the time I got out until I did with Pete, and it started because he found my toy.” Her expression intensifies and I match her look with one of my own. “He didn’t tell you?”

“No.” Leo shakes her head. “I mean, we knew you guys had sex but he didn’t say how it happened.”

Huh.

I’m a little surprised by that.

Then again, he was so sweet with me, and that was so fucking meaningful, I guess I wasn’t expecting it to go both ways. Which is silly now that I’ve seen that side of Peter Lagrave.

And after I tell Leo about that day of fixing guitars that turned into mending so many pieces of who I am, I can’t help but smile over the way it moves her. “I didn’t mean to make you cry, sweets.”

She shakes here head and sniffles. “I needed to hear that, too, Norm. You have no idea how badly.”

“We can’t let things like that define us, as hard as that is. I did that for such a long time. My feelings were so conflicting, I made everything worse for myself by letting something out of my control, control me. It’s not fucking easy at all and telling you any of this is probably so goddamn hypocritical but it’s all true.” I lean forward and press a kiss to her forehead. “And whenever you’re ready to take back control, you know we’ll be here just as ready to do whatever you need us to so you can make that happen.”

“Make love to me, Norman.”

My head jerks back as I blink wide eyes at Leo. “What?”

She nods. “Please. I don’t want to feel this way anymore.”

“Leonor… I’m not sure now is?—”

“Please, Norm. I don’t want to feel this way anymore. I feel like that bastard took everything from me,” my girl pleads as her eyes well with tears. “I was just starting to get my life together, to get back on track the way I needed, on the path I was always meant to take and that son of a bitch, he took away my confidence, he took away my control. He took away my ability to feel safe in my own skin, to feel connected to the men I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. I need to feel something other than fear, Norman. Something other than ruined. Please.”

My gaze moves over her face, analyzing every beautiful inch, the way those dark as night eyes are swimming with the truth of every word she’s spoken. Being this vulnerable, essentially stripped raw and bare, it’s not easy for Leo and I know that, and if she were anyone else I’d question whether or not she was in her right mind. The thing is, I can see that she is. And I know exactly how she fucking feels because until Peter showed me again how sex can be, I was feeling the same way Leo is.

I don’t want that for her.

I don’t want her to feel any of those things and I sure as hell don’t want her to think for one goddamn second that she’s ruined.

“You’re sure?” Leonor nods as I catch a tear that breaks free from her lashes. “Then I would be fucking honored to show you how perfect you are, how strong and beautiful you are, and how no one has the power to take any goddamn thing from you if you don’t let them.”

Dipping my chin, I softly kiss her, Leonor’s eyes fluttering closed as my lips gently move against hers.

“I’m going to touch you, sweets,” I whisper, thinking back to how important it was to me that I was able to give Pete consent, and how much it meant that he told me everything he was going to do. “I’m going to slip my hand under your shirt and I want you to tell me if you want more or need me to stop.”

Moving slowly, I watch Leonor’s face as I do exactly that, sliding my hand under her shirt, over her hip and up her side. I ghost it along the curve of her breast after she nods her permission, smoothing my fingers up her spine and between her shoulder blades. Leo lifts her hand to my cheek, pushing my hair behind my ear as she meets my kiss.

There’s definitely a level of hesitation, an uncertainty almost coming from my girl and while that breaks my heart because she’s never been like this with any of us over anything, letting her go at her pace and even taking the reins is going to be critical for her.

Talking the entire time isn’t necessarily new for us, not really, but this scenario is.

There’s no aggression, no primitive urge or feral need like usual. The wild edge to having sex with Leonor is nonexistent right now but the amount of love I can feel emanating from her, the gratitude I see in her eyes, that I hear in her voice? It guts me.

Even when she gives me consent to remove all of her clothes and kiss away every horrible memory that’s trying to take up space in her mind and on her body.

Rolling so she’s on her back, I begin kissing and licking every inch of skin I can. Her eyelids that were black and blue, where her lips were swollen and split. I drag them across her neck, kissing a path where that fucking rope left her porcelain skin burned. I circle her nipples with my tongue, tracing the curve of her breasts, peppering a path between them until I get to her new scars.

Anger flares briefly, white hot and right under the surface but I bury it down.

This isn’t about that, and it’s definitely not about me.

So, I kiss those terrible words forever etched on her skin because whether she has them or not, Leonor is truly perfect, and she’s mine.

“Leo?” I glance up at her as I keep moving down her body, worshiping every bit of this woman all the way down to the soles of her feet before I brush my lips along the inside of her thighs. She looks at me with so much love that it steals my breath but it doesn’t stop me from asking, “Can I kiss your pussy, Leonor?”

She nods as a tear rolls down her cheek, whispering her response. “Yes.”

Then I do.

I press my lips to her pubic bone, continuing over her triangle piercing until I’m gently running my tongue along her slit. I never take my eyes off of hers as I keep going, slowly, almost reverently licking her core, kissing it softly before Leonor opens for me.

Even after everything she’s been through, after feeling like she was spiraling out of control, her pussy is still dripping wet for me and I need her to really understand what that means.

I reach up and take her hand, bringing it carefully down to my mouth. Smiling up at her I suck on her fingers before pressing them to her clit, showing her how swollen it is before cautiously slipping one inside of her. Leo’s other hand finds its way into my hair, her hips lifting as I push her index in and out of her core a few times before sucking on it again.

Then I’m losing my clothes and climbing back up her body.

“How are you doing?” I ask as I settle between her thighs, my cock hard as stone and resting against her pussy as I wait for her to respond. “You’re ok?”

Leo nods as she quietly cries, giving me the sweetest smile as she pulls me down so we’re bare chest to bare chest. “I’m ok.”

I arch a brow because I want to be sure.

“Really. I’m ok, Norman, and honestly, I need you inside of me.”

“You have to tell me if you need me to stop.” If it hurts. “I’m not going to care because this is about you and what you need, sweets, nothing else.”

Leonor smiles through her tears, cups my cheeks and leans up to kiss my lips. “I need you inside of me, sweet boy, and you have my consent.”

Propping myself up on one forearm, I reach down between us and fist my shaft, running the head through her folds before I press it to her entrance. I don’t take my eyes off her face, not once and when my girl holds her breath as I slip the tip inside, I pause to be sure she’s good.

And she lets me know by the way her hands move down my chest and around to my back, further to my ass where Leo pulls my hips until they’re flush against hers.

“Fuck,” I hiss, her walls so goddamn tight and positively soaked. “You still ok, sweets?”

“Mhm,” she hums with a nod before lifting her legs and wrapping them around my waist. “I need you to move, though, please.”

Trying to be gentle and slow isn’t as easy as I thought it would be, not when I’ve missed my girl so goddamn much and have been worried about her just as long, and even though she says she’s ok, I don’t want to hurt her.

Which is why I pump my cock into her slowly, burying myself all the way to the hilt before I pull it almost all the way out. My thrusts are languid and careful, sweet and unhurried. I kiss her to match, making love to this woman almost lazily, and I had no idea how fast that would get me there.

Fuck.

There’s something about this that is so goddamn intimate, so beautiful and it has my balls so fucking tight already that I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to last.

“Leo,” I pant, my pace quickening the tiniest bit. “Sweets, I?—”

“Whatever you want to do, whatever you need to do, you have all the permission to do it, Norman, because I’m right on the edge and I need you there with me.”

Thank fuck.

But I don’t take that as the green light to plow into her.

No, I drop my hand between us again and start rubbing her clit in time with my hips, circling it to the same rhythm, my cock thrusting with each gentle swipe.

Leonor’s hips buck and her back arches, her head pressed back into the pillows but she never breaks eye contact. “I love you, Norman.”

“I love you, too, sweets.”

Through her orgasm that rolls through her like a wave crashing into shore, through mine as it hits me all the same, even while she continues to cry as she comes, her nails digging into my back while the tears stream down her pretty face. Those starry night eyes stay locked with mine.

Leonor never broke contact with me once, and being the one to get her through this, to help her with something so vulnerable because she trusts me, because she knows I fucking get it? This is a memory I know I’m going to cherish until I’m too fucking senile to remember it.