11. Diem

11

Diem

I realized my mistake before we rounded the second-floor landing and aimed for the third. Tallus walked ahead, seemingly impervious to the heat, while I considered the fact that I didn’t have a shower in my apartment and had been baking in a fucking wool suit for the past couple of hours.

Tallus waited as I unlocked the door. Refreshing and recirculated icy air hit me in the face the instant I entered the room, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Of all the things that didn’t work or were falling apart in my office slash homestead, the air conditioning unit was not one of them.

My head cleared as I followed Tallus into the other room. He bypassed Baby’s aquarium, checking to see where she was—in her log—and aimed for the loveseat. He didn’t sit. He flopped across the entire thing, kicking his shoes off and shucking his tie like he belonged there. Next, he undid a few buttons at his collar before reaching for the remote and turning on the TV.

When I stalled in the middle of the room, he hitched his chin to the partitioned-off area I used for a bedroom. “Go change. I thought you were cooked.”

I had been steeled for an attack, for Tallus to insist on undressing me like he’d threatened more than a few times while we were out, but his attention returned to the TV as he flipped through channels.

Only when I was sure he was preoccupied and didn’t have an ulterior motive did I move my ass, find fresh clothes, and escape to the bathroom adjoining the office.

Naked, breathing easier for the first time since I’d put on the fucking suit, I stared at my reflection in the mirror. It was impossible not to notice the lifetime’s worth of damage. My body was a canvas of scars, some self-inflicted, most done by another person. Tallus had seen many of them but never all at once. The worst of the injuries, or the ones I was particularly ashamed of, were covered with tattoos, but they were still visible.

I wet a washcloth with cold water and doused it with soap, using it to clean up as much as possible, cursing my living conditions and life. The hottest guy on the planet was in the other room, expecting something from me, and I was taking a fucking sponge bath in my bathroom sink.

When I’d spent an inordinate amount of time getting clean, when my skin was red from scrubbing, I dried off and added deodorant. In a clean T-shirt and cargo shorts, I examined the man in the mirror again, but I didn’t like what I saw.

I never did.

Returning to the other room, I found Tallus exactly how I left him, except his shirt, socks, and belt were now missing. Lounging across the loveseat in nothing more than a thin tank top undershirt and cotton trousers, he watched a sitcom like it was normal to be at my house for nothing more than entertainment. Like I wasn’t having heart palpitations at the thought of where the night was heading. Craving a drink. A smoke.

When he noticed me, he moved his feet and motioned for me to join him.

I sat, tentative and unsure, since the loveseat was a cramped version of a couch, and Tallus was taking up more than half of it. When my ass was planted in the far corner, he once again stretched his legs and rested his feet across my lap like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like we’d done it a thousand times in the past.

Like we were a couple doing coupley things.

I was trapped. Mentally and physically.

Tallus focused on the show, so I didn’t think he registered my discomfort. If he did, he was going out of his way to feign obliviousness. Tense, frozen in place, and unsure what to do with my hands, I waited for Tallus to advance, to take things to the next level. It was a matter of time. It was why he’d come upstairs. Wasn’t it? The situation was not in my control, and I didn’t like it. I was used to drunken midnight visits to his house, not this.

Tallus didn’t move. He barely acknowledged my presence or distress. It was an act. It had to be.

I waited.

But no. Tallus lounged on the loveseat and watched TV with his feet pinning me down like a restraining bar on a roller coaster. Every so often, he would laugh at the comedic antics, his face lighting up the room and stealing the oxygen.

He had a great laugh. A beautiful laugh. It made me queasy with envy every time I heard it, knowing he freely shared it with random men—Memphis—all the time.

Still, I waited, but nothing happened. I earned a few Tallus smiles I didn’t know what to do with, but he never took it further.

Fifteen minutes and a commercial break later, I decided he wasn’t going to initiate anything and was content to watch TV. I relaxed a fraction, doing my best to appear engaged in the show when I had no idea what was happening.

Tallus’s feet in my lap were distracting. Pale skin. Long toes. Manicured nails. A faint smattering of dark leg hair peeking out from the cuffs of his pants, circling his ankles. I’d never been so close to his feet or paid attention to such a trivial part of his body before, but I couldn’t stop admiring them. He had a tiny freckle on the third toe of his left foot and another on the inside ankle bone of his right.

My gaze skipped up his long legs, over the formfitting pants, and lingered a second on the slight mound beneath the zipper. With his belt gone, the waistline had shifted lower, and his hip bones protruded. A tease of skin peeked out from the bottom of his shirt. The tank top pulled tight over his flat stomach and covered the miles of smooth chest I’d seen a handful of times. With his arms folded behind his head, the groomed hair in his pits showed, a dark contrast to his milky skin. It drew my eye and stirred my imagination.

In porn, men often shoved their faces in the other guy’s pits and inhaled. I’d never understood how it could be sexy until this very moment. The impulse to do exactly that, inhale all that was Tallus, was so strong and virile that it stirred my blood and tingled my groin.

I had to fight the urge to squirm or adjust myself before it became a problem.

I shifted my attention to Tallus’s profile. His face was turned to the TV, high cheekbones prominent, shapely jaw like a razor’s edge, dusted with a shadow of stubble. His perfectly mussed auburn hair over a broad forehead and sharp nose always gave the impression he’d just been fucked.

While I was lost in thought, replaying snippets of our history, Tallus snuck his foot under my T-shirt and grazed his big toe against my abdomen. I startled from my daze and sucked in a breath. Tallus was no longer riveted by the TV. Alluring hazel pools were aimed in my direction, full of mirth and mischief as only Tallus could pull off.

“You’re staring.”

“No.”

“Guns, don’t lie to me. You were eating me alive with your eyes.”

I had no defense. It was exactly what I’d been doing.

His toe kept moving, and I didn’t know where to put myself. The August heat penetrated the air-conditioned room, and a new sheen of sweat coated my skin.

Likely sensing my discomfort, Tallus stopped tracing patterns with his toe and sat upright. TV forgotten, he shimmied closer, closing the gap and tucking his legs under his bottom. He didn’t touch me, but the proximity was enough that I held my breath and fought the urge to put distance between us.

“At ease, soldier,” he whispered as he displayed a hand. It was the warning he often gave before touching me, and I appreciated it more than he knew. Tallus always ensured I was prepared for contact. Sadly, he’d learned what could happen if he didn’t.

He understood my hang-ups.

I waited on pins and needles, watching his hand and readying myself.

It wasn’t often Tallus did more than massage his fingers over my scalp, but there had been a handful of times when I’d stormed his house in the middle of the night when he’d pushed boundaries. When those hands had wandered over my body in a way that plunged me into madness.

I’d never stopped him. In fact, I loved when he touched me. But I’d never been able to return the affection. I’d never been able to loosen up and enjoy it or verbalize how it made me feel.

Tallus went with the familiar, stroking his fingers over my scalp. His focus was on my face, on my reactions. It felt good, and the tension vanished as I relaxed a fraction. It was comforting.

“Do you like it went I touch you like this?”

I stared at his chest through the thin tank top and nodded, my throat too dry to speak.

“Diem, use words.”

“Yes,” I croaked.

He tilted my head so I stared into his eyes. Their warmth enveloped me. I missed his glasses, but without them, the flecks of gold and emerald swimming in the pools of his eyes stood out. It was subtle, but the colors shifted ever so slightly with his mood. They appeared more amber when he was subdued or tired and greener when he was flirtatious and playful. The deeper shades of brown became more prominent when he was serious or upset.

At the moment, his irises were a kaleidoscope of browns and greens and golds, and I didn’t know what it meant. They reflected warmth and kindness. They asked a thousand questions I couldn’t answer. They seemed to be able to bypass my barriers and see right into my soul, and that terrified me because there was nothing nice to see down there, and I worried the truth would scare him off.

His fingers moved from my shorn hair to my face. The pads danced lightly over my unshaven cheek, rasping along the remains of an old silver scar. The touch was intimate, but the location was personal, and it was messing with my head.

I closed my eyes when echoes of the past made me want to draw back. I tried to stay present, but the pull was too strong. I felt sudden, slashing pain as his weapon of choice made contact and split my cheek wide open. I smelled the recently oiled chain mixed with the coppery scent of my own blood as it streamed down my face. I tasted iron and rust as it coated my lips. I heard his shouts of anger and her screams of protest. I—

“Diem.”

Something touched my hand, and I catapulted back to the present, eyes flying open on a gasp. Tallus. Tallus was in front of me. Closer than ever. His hands were wrapped around my clenched fists, trying to break the tension, but it was like cracking granite.

“It’s me,” he said, an edge of worry in his tone, a hint of concern wrinkling his brow. Was he remembering a day many months ago when I’d been caught in the past and had almost decked him because he’d touched me during a nasty flashback?

“You’re okay.”

I wasn’t. I was never okay.

Chest heaving, I remained still as I reconnected with the present using Dr. Peterson’s method of grounding myself using my five senses. I could see Tallus. Over the pounding of my heart, I could hear the sitcom’s laugh track and the actor’s chatter. I could feel Tallus’s hands covering mine. I could smell his cologne. But it was bile that filled my mouth, choking me, and it wouldn’t go away.

I needed a drink. A cigarette.

Tallus worked my fists loose, and when I stopped clenching, he wove his fingers with mine so we were holding hands. His gaze was invasive and intense. He wanted to know what had happened and where I’d gone, but he didn’t want to ask.

“Do you want me to go?”

“No.”

He sat motionless, staring with such sorrow I had to look away. I wanted to pull my hands free but didn’t. I wanted to explain everything but couldn’t. I didn’t have the capacity to do more than sit there numb.

Why was he here? Why me, of all people?

“You really can’t do this, can you?” he said after a time.

What was I supposed to say to that? I told you so?

“No. I mean… It’s not that I don’t want to. I don’t know why you’ve ever looked twice at me. Any guy would be a fucking idiot to turn you away, but…”

“Then why are you turning me away?”

“I don’t want to. I want to be able to do this, but I can’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

And I couldn’t explain.

“Give me something, D. A reason. An explanation. I’m confused. You give every sign that you’re into me. You follow me around the city and sit outside my apartment. You show up at my door.”

Ashamed, I ducked my chin. “I know.”

“But you keep me at arm’s length. When I try to move forward, you retreat. Help me understand. Give me something, anything to help it make sense.”

“I’m not a good person.”

“Bullshit. You’re the only one who believes that because I certainly don’t.”

I stared at where he held my hands, wondering at the effortlessness of the simple action and why it was such a struggle for me. But I knew why. I was in therapy for a reason.

“PTSD.” It was a blanket statement that barely scratched the surface of my issues, but it was what he requested. Also, it was the first time in my life I’d admitted it out loud to anyone other than Dr. Peterson, who was the one who diagnosed me. Was admitting my shortcomings progress? It didn’t feel good. Would Tallus judge me?

When Tallus didn’t speak or acknowledge the confession, I stole a glance at his face. His expression showed confusion.

“What?” The growl in my tone was unintentional, and I regretted it. I tried again. “Don’t look at me like that… please.”

“You weren’t in the military.”

I frowned. “Of course not… It’s not just… It’s—”

“Did something happen when you were with the department?”

“You know it didn’t. Don’t feign ignorance.”

His focus moved to the prominent scar along my face, then to my disfigured ear. “Was it all your dad?” he asked, quieter.

I pressed my lips together, neither confirming nor denying, which was answer enough.

“I’m sorry. I knew he was part of it, but…”

“Don’t be sorry. There’s… a lot more to it than that, but… I don’t… I’ve never known how to…”

I blew out a raspy breath and tore my hand free to scrub my face. “Tallus, as much as I want to do this with you, I can’t. Fuck. How can you even stand to look at me? How can you invite me in whenever I show up at your apartment. I’m completely incapable of… How do you not get frustrated when I can’t…”

Tallus chuckled. “Oh, believe me, Guns, you frustrate the fuck out of me. Don’t flatter yourself.”

The tension bled away. I almost wanted to smile with him, but I didn’t. Couldn’t. I was too ashamed. “I’m not good at talking about it.”

“You’re doing great. I think this is the most important conversation we’ve ever had, and for once, you’re using your words. Thank you.”

Heat climbed my neck and settled in my cheeks. I wanted to get up and pace, put distance between us so I could breathe, but Tallus moved his hand to my thigh, so I was once again rooted in place.

“I’m going to say some things, and you aren’t going to interrupt or disagree, got it?”

I offered a clipped nod, staring at the restricting hand. He flipped it over, and the invitation was clear.

“Come on. Let me help ground you.”

Before I could talk myself out of it, I reached out and held his hand.

“Eyes up here, Guns. You’re going to look at me when I say this.”

A low growl radiated from my chest, and Tallus chuckled. But I found his face, met his gaze, and waited with bated breath.

“Ready?”

I nodded.

“I’m going to touch you.”

I steeled myself not to react as he raised his other hand and rested a warm palm against my cheek.

“Okay?”

I nodded.

“Hold still.”

Tallus leaned in and placed a delicate kiss on my forehead. It wasn’t the first time he’d kissed me. Every time his lips came in contact with my skin—never on the mouth—I shivered. My stomach warbled.

Lingering close, Tallus spoke in a whisper. “I think you’re incredibly handsome, Diem.”

“I’m not.”

“Shush. No talking. My turn. I’m an affectionate person, and—”

“I’m not.”

Tallus stabbed a finger against my lips and shushed me again. He wasn’t mad. A glimmer of humor shone in his eyes.

“And… unless you tell me not to, I’m going to start touching you more often. I want you to—”

“I can’t return the favor.”

He pressed a hand over my mouth and laughed. “Of all the freaking times I’ve tried to get you to talk and you refuse, now I want you to shut up, you won’t.”

I almost smiled against his palm. Almost. He would have known if my lips twitched or the corners of my mouth turned up. He would have felt it against his hand. Tallus’s sass was ever present, and I liked how it diluted serious moments and made them easier to handle. I liked how its presence warmed me inside and out. He was a firecracker. Lightning in the sky on a stormy night. A lighthouse in the darkness.

How could I not be drawn to him?

“Are you listening?”

I nodded, lost in his eyes. For once, unable to look away. His focus was absolute. Tallus looked at me like there was no one else in the universe. Like nothing else mattered. Like I was important somehow and deserved all his attention.

“Do you like fucking me, Diem?”

My brows rose, and a lump formed in my throat.

“Do you like bending me over the couch and taking pleasure in my ass?”

Was it a trick question? He wouldn't have to ask if he could truly read my mind.

I nodded without hesitation.

He smirked. “I thought so. Spoiler alert. I like it too. You may not believe me, but I’m very attracted to you, Diem.”

He was right. I didn’t believe him.

“But here’s the thing. Are you listening?”

I nodded.

A long pause ensued before he continued. “I. Need. More.”

Each word was an ice pick in my chest, gouging away chunks of my frail humanity and leaving me critically wounded. I couldn’t. Didn’t he know he was asking for the impossible?

“I need—”

I peeled his hand away from my mouth before he could continue. “I can’t.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Tallus… I want to, but—”

“Stop right there. You want to . You just said it. That’s what matters.”

I growled under my breath. “I want to, but —”

“No buts. The sentence ends right there. Stop making excuses.”

“They aren’t excuses.”

“They are. Why can’t you? What is the but that is stopping you? If you want to touch me or kiss me or take me to bed properly like I know you do, why don’t you? What are you afraid of?”

The walls were closing in, and Tallus was too close. His presence sucked the air from the room. I was trapped in my own home. In my own skin. Gently, because god help me, I never wanted to hurt him, I moved him from my space and rose.

What was I afraid of? Easy. I was afraid of myself. Of who I was. Of who I had the potential to become. I was afraid of the diseased genes that lived inside me. I was afraid of losing control. Of messing up. Of disappointing him, hurting him, or scaring him. Of him discovering who I was at my core.

I was afraid of everything.

I paced to the kitchen, found nothing in the fridge, slammed the door, and went to stand beside Baby’s enclosure. I stared at the snoozing reptile as Dr. Peterson’s speech about genetics, predisposition, learned behavior, and environmental influences rolled around inside my head. We’d talked about it endlessly. Mostly, I thought about his speech surrounding affection and the root cause of the issue.

He claimed I’d made progress since bringing Baby into my life. I didn’t see it. A snake wasn’t another human being. A snake wasn’t the sexy-as-sin records clerk I dreamed about nightly. She wasn’t the man who’d fallen into my life unexpectedly ten months ago who I couldn’t shake off. The skills weren’t transferable, no matter what my idiot doctor said.

“D?”

“I don’t know how. That’s the but . I don’t know how. I’ve never… I’m not comfortable with… intimacy or affection. I know what you want, but I can’t give it to you because I don’t know how.”

He didn’t have a comeback. Maybe, for once, he was listening. But a minute later, Tallus appeared beside me. Shoulder to shoulder, we stared at Baby coiled inside her hollowed-out log. Was he thinking that my boa got more affection than he did? He wouldn’t be wrong. Baby was like me. Ugly. Hated and feared by most of the population. It was easier with Baby. She didn’t judge me for making mistakes. She never asked for more than I could give.

I felt the heat of Tallus’s gaze before he touched my arm and encouraged me to face him. The man was so confident, so sure of himself, so comfortable in his own skin. For whatever reason, I’d never scared him off the way I did most people.

Without a word, without telegraphing his actions or offering a verbal warning, he took my face between his palms and drew me to his level as he rose to his tiptoes.

I had only a moment to recognize the intent in his eyes before his lips were on mine, and he was kissing me.