He shakes his head slowly from side to side. “Told you, not until you’re my wife. And if I step foot in there naked, Iwillfuck you against the shower wall.”
The only thing keeping me from begging him right now is my own insane arousal. It’s sucked all the words from my brain.Absently, I reach for my towel, unable to speak. He takes it in his hands before I can and instructs me to hold out my arms, then proceeds to towel off my entire body—every crease and crevice.
“Tommy.” The whispered plea slips from my lips when he slowly swipes the towel along my slit.
A groan is wrenched from deep within him right before he drops to his knees and props one of my legs over his shoulder. He’s instantly devouring me. I have to clench his hair to steady myself.
“Yes, Tommy. God, it’s so good.” Like some kind of hair trigger, I don’t have time to say more when a blinding wall of pleasure crashes over me. It feels extra intense being upright. I’ve never had an orgasm on my feet. It’s incredible. I gasp and shudder and shake, doing my best to stay on my feet until Tommy rises and helps to support me.
“D better hurry the fuck up.” His words are spoken through teeth clenched so tightly I struggle to understand.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you need to get in bed before I do something I’ll regret.Now.” He steps aside, his body rigid with restraint.
I put on my pajamas and brush my teeth while he takes his turn in the shower. I’m snuggled under the covers when he joins me, though he doesn’t get in bed right away. He checks the alarm panel first. I hadn’t noticed it until now. Once the alarm is set, he closes the blinds, stepping back twice to make sure each set hangs at exactly the same height. After that, he opens his nightstand drawer and takes out a gun. I watch with a bit of unease as he unloads and reloads the weapon.
“Should have done this earlier while you were in the shower, but watching you was too tempting.”
“It’s not a surprise to me that you have guns in the house,” I inform him softly.
“It’s not that,” he says almost to himself. He gets into bed and begins to situate himself, but in the process, his attention is drawn back to the blinds. He sighs heavily and gets up, adjusts one of the blinds, steps back to assess them one last time, then opens the nightstand again. As though he hadn’t already checked, he unloads and reloads the gun again.
His lips are pulled into a frown throughout, and his gaze keeps far from mine. There’s something about his movement, too. A stiffness that signals agitation. Annoyance. I think, maybe, he’s annoyed with himself for being unable to resist the compulsion to check these things.
I’ve known he suffers from these sorts of obsessive tendencies but haven’t seen much sign of them while I’ve been here. The part that bothers me most is seeing how upsetting it is to him. I can only imagine how vulnerable it feels to allow someone new to witness these challenges.
How very humbling to think he wants me close more than he cares about his pride or discomfort. I remember my years of speech therapy and my reluctance to talk to the other kids at school—those were the hardest years of my life. I’ve overcome those challenges, for the most part. Tommy is still right there in the trenches. It hurts my heart.
Once he’s finally settled under the covers, I scoot closer and wrap an arm and leg over him, snuggling into his side. His entire body relaxes beneath me. So much pent-up tension. I kiss his chest in one more silent reassurance and drift into a deep, dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER 24
TOMMY
The thingabout having obsessive-compulsive tendencies is I rarely vacillate … on anything. That includes my emotions—especially anger. Once I’m pissed, I’mpissed. It can take days for me to shake the stabbing irritation of whatever upsets me.
Hearing Danika downplaying our relationship to her mother sank me into a foul mood. Irritation and stress amplify my compulsive behaviors, which means running the course of a routine once isn’t enough. The cloying need to repeat and recheck tasks I’ve already completed screams so loudly in my head that I can’t focus on anything else. Feeling compelled to give in and allow Danika to see my inability to control myself made my mood infinitely worse.
I didn’t want her to see that side of me. The sickness.
Every second I spent on my insidious rituals, I berated myself for ruining my chances of Danika ever wanting to be with me. How could she? I know how ridiculous my compulsions seem to the people around me. I see the looks people give me. Even my family. Just because I keep doing it doesn’t mean I don’t care about the disapproval. I keep doing it because Ihaveto. I don’t know how to make myself stop.
The epitome of weakness.
I was certain any progress I might have made with her was being demolished with every second that passed. When I got into bed for the final time, I was furious with myself and knew I’d likely need to get up to run my routine again but swore I would wait until she was asleep first. I expected her to pull away when I joined her in the bed, but to my amazement, she didn’t. What’s more, she voluntarily curled her body around mine. Every acrid thought I spit at myself was drown into silence by her healing touch, as though the anger simply disappeared.
Danika had me experiencing such a whiplash of emotions I felt like I’d just taken my first steps on land after spending a year at sea. She has to be some sort of goddess from above. There’s no other explanation for the power she holds over me. It’s not just my obsession for her—she pulls my strings in places I didn’t realize strings existed.
A perfect example is my inexplicable desire to wait for sex until we’re married. I’ve never once in my life considered that remotely important. Not until Danika. I feel a strange fear that if I don’t make her mine in the proper order, I’ll lose her. It doesn’t make any sense, but my compulsions rarely do. I have to commit myself to her in an oath of marriage before her body can be mine. It’s as simple as that.
Following through is a whole lot easier knowing I won’t actually have long to wait. I’m so close to having everything I want that I go to sleep swathed in an unfamiliar sense of hopefulness.
Morning is filled with getting Petra moved to a safe house, which turned out to be a hookup pad used by one of our guys before he recently got married. I’ve decided to keep that little tidbit to myself. It has all the basic necessities, and he assured me the sheets are clean. Would I trust his assertion if it were me staying there? Probably not, but my standards are stricter than most. I figure Petra will survive.
“Where to now?” Danika asks, noting we’re headed away from home.
“Staten Island.”
