34. Chapter 34

What the fuck just happened? With my face still buried in Siren's neck, my labored breathing has very little to do with having just experienced the most mind-bending orgasm of my life and everything to do with three little words.

Funnily enough, not "I love you."

Just like stars.

Those words, combined with the way she gripped my face and stared into my eyes, has me on the verge of a panic attack.

There's no way she could've known what those words mean to me, and yet, as they tumbled from her lips, they carried such a heavy sense of connection with them.

Very much like dots on a road map, only I'm not ashamed to admit that, in this moment, I feel lost.

That wasn't just some phrase thrown out in the heat of passion.

Each word resonated with the force of a bomb blast hitting me dead center in the chest.

If I were a man who believed in silly things like wishes and fate, it would be so easy to believe that my mama had somehow sent her to me.

How else could I explain the tide of feelings that have been slowly dragging me under for weeks? The way my throat tightens to near suffocation at the idea of letting her leave this house.

The way I find myself reaching for her in my sleep or the way I've come to crave the smell of fresh brewed coffee and chocolate.

Something isn't right.

Whatever this is, it's gone way beyond sex or fixation or even the need to protect.

I can't explain it, and I'm not sure I'd want to, even if I could.

Some things transcend human understanding, and whatever this feeling is that Siren's planted within me has taken root, and I have a bad feeling that trying to remove it will do permanent damage to my insides.

I never thought that anything could be as painful as losing my mother, but something tells me that uprooting this particular tree would make it so that nothing would ever be able to grow in its place.

Internally, I'd be a barren wasteland.

Fuck .

Is that what the Fed feels like all the time? No wonder they called him The Ghost.

I give my head a slight shake against Siren's shoulder because I don't wanna be thinking about that fucker while I'm buried inside my woman.

And she had become mine.

I'm still unsure in what capacity, but I know that she belongs to herself first and me second—no one else.

Siren releases a small yawn, and the noise breaks me out of my internal emotional struggle, causing my lips to curl into a smile against her shoulder.

I lift my head, brushing her sweat-soaked hair back from her face.

She looks up at me with heavy-lidded eyes.

I need to pull out of her before I do something stupid, like start this process all over.

Gently easing my way out, I lay down onto the mattress beside her.

She stays as she was, legs spread wide, arms thrown up over her head, and the knowledge that I'll be able to go back on camera later and capture a screenshot of her just like this has my dick hardening again.

Down, boy.

The way she looks right now, you'd never know this was the same woman who didn't want me looking at her naked body earlier.

She's now completely at ease with herself and me.

I turn onto my side, propping myself up on one elbow so I can look down the entire length of her body.

She glistens with sweat from her forehead to the apex of her thighs.

As beams of moonlight kiss her skin, it's almost as if she sparkles everywhere … like a diamond.

I think back to the auction and how much I paid that bastard Gaspari for the Oppenheimer Blue.

I'd give that times 100 to have this exact view before bed every night.

As much as it feels like a betrayal to my mother, this diamond shines so brightly in this moment that all other gems might as well be colored glass.

Pretty to look at but lacking in substance.

This gem, on the other hand, has it all.

Cut: she's the perfect shape and size, especially for me.

Color: the blush of her swollen lips after we kiss, the mauve-toned flesh of her nipples, and the creamy white of my come as it leaks out of her.

Clarity: she knows what she wants, and she's not gonna settle for anything less.

Carat: no unit of measurement on Earth that can quantify her.

Moments later, she still hasn't even attempted to cover herself, and I look up to find her asleep.

I'm starting to wonder if this woman has some form of narcolepsy or if being around me makes her so bored that she passes out.

As I lean in closer, I hear a faint sound coming past her barely parted lips.

I pull back, face breaking out into a grin.

She does indeed snore.

They aren't loud but they're there nonetheless.

And isn't that just the cutest fucking thing I've ever seen.

Now that she's fallen asleep, I don't feel so guilty about staring at her, mostly because she isn't awake to tell me to fuck off.

My gaze travels over every inch of exposed skin, stopping where her hips meet her thighs.

As if fed by some compulsion, I reach my hand out, running a finger through the slit between her legs.

When I lift it again, the proof of our mixed arousal is wet and sticky on my fingertip.

I take a quick glance back at her face but she hasn't moved a muscle.

So, I take that finger, and I use my come to draw a small heart around her belly button.

A sudden flash of the same symbol crudely carved into her back hits me, and I reach down to quickly swipe the substance away, but then I stop.

The sentiment may be the same but our vast differences show themselves in the method of delivery.

Leaving it there, I slowly drag that finger up her body until I reach her face.

There, I use the remnants to paint her full bottom lip.

When she wakes up, she'll lick her lips and be reminded of everything that happened tonight.

As she takes in my taste, she'll crave me the way I do her.

I can't be the only one falling in this situation because I fear that I'll never actually hit the ground if she's not there with me.

Nearly as exhausted as she is now, I scooch down until I can rest my head in the crook of her arm, between her breast and shoulder.

Wrapping my arm around her middle, I pull her in tight, molding my body alongside hers.

Her skin is warm, and soon, the little purring sounds of her quiet snores prove to be the perfect soundtrack for sleep.

It's the jittery feeling that wakes me first.

The room is dark, and a faint whining sound comes from somewhere.

It takes me a minute to orient myself and figure out what's going on.

When I realize that the shaking sensation I felt against my face is coming from Siren, I lift my head to look down at her.

Her body is drenched in sweat, and I realize the sound I heard is coming from her, too.

Right before my eyes, those twitches turn to jerking movements that soon turn into full-blown thrashing.

Her wet hair is plastered to her forehead and shoulders as her head moves side to side on the pillow.

In the time it takes me to realize she's having a nightmare, the whining sound from before becomes whimpers and indiscernible pleas muttered under her breath.

Though her eyes are closed, tears leak from the corners, and I have no idea how long she's been trapped in the throws of whatever dream she's stuck in.

I don't have to guess what the dream is about, though.

I just don't know how to handle situations like this.

My first instinct is to wake her up, but I don't wanna do anything that's gonna startle her during those few precious seconds between asleep and awake.

The decision, however, is taken from me as she suddenly tips her head back, opening her mouth and letting loose a scream so loud it could shatter glass.

Fear takes hold of my throat, making it hard to breathe.

Fuck this.

Putting my palm against the side of her face, I turn it towards me so that when she opens her eyes, my face will be the first thing she sees.

At my movement, she startles awake with a gasp, like she's been trapped underwater for minutes and is desperate for oxygen.

As her eyes adjust to the dark, she takes in greedy gulps of air.

"Shhh, it's ok.

It's just me.

Look at my face,"

I say in as soothing a tone as I can manage.

She focuses on me, eyes zeroing in on mine.

Her bottom lip trembles and another tear escapes as she blinks up at me.

As she looks into my eyes, her breathing begins to even out, her body going from rigid as steel to boneless, like all the fight in her has gone, leaving only exhaustion in its wake.

In a quiet voice, I ask, "How long have you had these nightmares?"

She tries to look away, but I apply pressure with the hand still cupping the side of her face, forcing her to look at me.

After a moment, she says, "Nine years, give or take."

Jesus.

A thought occurs to me, and with a look of consternation, I ask, "Have you had them since you've been here? And don't fucking lie to me, Siren."

It's a testament to how drained she must feel because usually, me talking to her like that would get her back up, and she'd shut down.

But this time, she doesn't.

She only nods hesitantly.

Annoyance flares inside me.

At her, at myself.

How did I not know? Why didn't I hear her? My house isn't that big.

I still should've known something was going on, even from the living room couch.

Furthermore, why didn't I see or hear it happening during any of the wakeful hours I spent watching her on camera? Because I'm busy berating myself and her, I don't notice her moving until she's turned onto her side and wrapped her arms around my waist.

The tip of her nose brushes my chest, and I can feel the remnants of the tears staining her face.

There's only a split-second in which I freeze, blown away by the fact that she's seeking comfort from me, a man, because of trauma given to her by another.

By the next second, my arms instinctively go around her, one hand stroking her hair while she shakes slightly against me.

We stay like that for a long time.

I know she needs rest, but I also don't want her to fall asleep and go back into the dregs of the dream.

So, instead, I talk to her.

Senseless chatter and nonsensical things.

About me, about my life.

Things I've never told anyone, not even Merrick.

Maybe if I can draw her into the details of my life, it'll be enough of a distraction from the horrors of hers.

"When I was a little boy, I used to have nightmares.

They centered around my mother, and for years, I would wake up in a panic, rushing to her room to check and make sure she was okay.

When I'd find her sleeping peacefully, I could finally breathe again.

Then, one night, when I was 14, I had the nightmare again, only this time, I never woke up."

I speak in a whisper, and even though I tell myself it's for her benefit, it's not really.

The pain of talking about my mother seems slightly less if I only give it half a voice.

Her response is slightly muffled against my chest when she says, "She died, didn't she?"

I stare off at the wall on the far side of the room, swallowing past the lump in my throat.

"Yeah.

Drug overdose.

I found her in the living room, pills scattered across the ratty carpet."

She's quiet for a long time, but I'm too overcome with my own emotions to worry about what she thinks of me now.

Her voice, when it comes, startles me a little, "And your dad?"

My brows knit together, and I debate not telling her because I don't want to be defined by who my father is.

I don't want to be associated with the man at all.

But we're beyond the point in whatever this is where I can lie to her, so eventually, I tell her the truth.

"He's a United States senator.

I never knew him.

I never even met him until after Mama died.

Eventually, I went looking and found him living in a pretty white house with a wife and two kids.

I knew what the outcome would be, but I didn't really go there to be welcomed into the family.

I went to see what was so much better about the life he'd chosen over the one he could've had with us.

The truth is, everything about it was better.

He had money, his kids had expensive clothes, and I'm sure they never worried about where they were getting their next meal from.

Thinking about it objectively, the decision seemed like a no-brainer.

All I wanted to know was why he fed her the lie."

"Because he's a selfish prick?"

she says, finally pulling her face back so that I can see her features, even in the dark.

She lays her head on the pillow beside mine so we're face to face on our sides.

A look of sardonic amusement flits across my features.

"He was definitely that.

Mama was only 17 when they were together.

Like a true politician, he sold her the dream.

He gave her a ring and everything.

It was nothing more than costume jewelry, but he promised her he'd get her the real thing when he turned 25 and gained access to his trust fund.

So she waited … and waited … and waited.

By the time she found out she was pregnant, he was married to someone else and wouldn't have anything to do with her.

Still, she waited."

My voice breaks and I have to grit my teeth to keep the tears at bay.

I look off to the right so that I don't have to see the pity in her eyes.

I guess I wasn't too manly to cry after all.

"She wished on stars, threw coins into fountains, and stared at that stupid ring every day.

She nursed her pain with opioids, preferring the dream version of him to the real version of me."

The resentment I had convinced myself wasn't there rears its ugly head.

"He promised her the world and she died alone on a threadbare couch, her last moments still spent living inside her head."

She doesn't say anything but reaches up, running her thumb under my left eye where a tear has managed to break through my toxic masculinity.

When she finally speaks, instead of asking questions about all the trauma I just dumped on her, she says, " Tell me something good about her.

A memory you're fond of, maybe.

Do you have any of those?"

Without hesitation, I nod and say, "Yes, I do."

"So, tell me something.

A moment, frozen in time like a photograph."

I think about it for a minute before a sad smile touches the corner of my mouth.

"I think I was probably about eight years old.

I got into a fight at school with some kid.

I don't even remember what the fight was about, but I was prone to fighting at that age.

The school called my mother at work to come pick me up.

I was sure she was gonna be angry with me because she barreled into the principal's office like a bull-in-a-china-shop.

Instead, she cursed him out.

She told him that she didn't need to know the details of the fight because she knew her son."

Nostalgia morphs my sad smile into a real grin.

"We left and instead of going back to work, she took me to get ice cream."

When I focus again on Siren's face, she's smiling too.

"You feel that?"

she asks.

Before I can respond, she adds, "That's love and it overrides everything else.

That's your photograph, and you can take out that picture any time you want, look at it, and relive that moment.

You don't have to lock all the photos away.

You get to pick and choose which pictures to keep and which to discard.

Eventually, your mental album will be full of photos of the two of you when you were happy."

I stare at her, eyes dancing over her features, trying to figure out where the fuck she came from.

She shouldn't be real, but she is.

I wasn't looking for her, but I was.

I didn't want this, but now I do.

Leaning in, I place a soft kiss on her lips.

Not the kind meant to entice, but a thank you for doing the same thing for me that I've done for her.

She saw me and wanted me anyway.

Suddenly, something she said pings off the walls of my mind, and adoration turns to suspicion.

You don't have to lock all the photos away.

Pulling back from the kiss, I ask in a low tone, "Have you been snooping in my closet?"

She gnaws her bottom lip, glancing away.

That's a yes.

"Did you open the metal box at the top? Did you read the letter?"

I ask.

I know my mother mentioned stars several times in the letter, but I don't remember her ever writing the exact words Siren repeated back to me just before she climaxed.

There's no way she could've known, but a lot of things make more sense now, and I wonder if she found the box the same day she played that song for me.

Her eyes meet mine again, pleading with me for absolution of what she thinks will amount to a cardinal sin.

But I'm not angry.

In a way, I'm relieved.

The majority of my most painful memories were locked in that box.

Now she knows nearly all my secrets.

She's stitching together the tattered scraps of my being, and slowly, I'm becoming more and more whole, a picture beginning to form.

Not of a broken boy with a lifetime's worth of trauma but that of a man reaching out to someone for help, desperate to be saved.

Some pieces are still missing, but if the picture doesn't come together to reveal Siren as that someone, the entire puzzle will go in the garbage.

"Is the diamond for her? Your mother? It would seem very much like you to promise her not only a real stone but the biggest one in the world."

Laughing because I've become a forgone conclusion, I flop to my back, slinging one arm over my eyes.

"You're such a nosy brat and far too intuitive for your own good."

She creeps up until her face is hovering over mine.

Prying my arm away, she looks at me.

"It's time to stop hiding.

Behind a computer screen or a pseudonym, if you have one.

Step out from the shadows and into the light with me.

Let's both do what we need to do to lay these things to rest.

You'll never be happy otherwise, and I'll never feel truly safe until that fucker is dead."

Nodding, I reach up to cup her face in my hands and kiss her, her hair falling around us like dark curtains blocking out the moonlight.

If she's content to enter the shadows with me when necessary, how can I do any less than the opposite for her?