He walked her back to the bedroom, pulled back the sheets, and waited until she’d slid in before tucking the blanket around her again.
For a second, he stood by the edge of the bed, like he might say something. His lips parted.
Then he turned and left.
She woke to darkness and soft breathing disturbing the hair at her nape.
A strong weight across her waist and shoulder, pinning her down. But before panic could seize her chest, a low sigh sounded against her neck before the arm tightened.
Warm breath. A beard-roughened jaw scraping sensitive skin. The scent of clean skin and cotton.
“Go to sleep,” Thane murmured, barely awake.
And despite the thunder in her chest, the tangle of what they were and what they weren’t, she relaxed against his warm body.
Her eyes closed.
And this time, sleep took her whole within seconds.
Chapter 35
She woke slowly, disoriented, sunlight slanting in from between the whisper-thin curtains. The room smelled like clean cotton and warmth. It was the first uninterrupted sleep she had in weeks.
The space next to her was empty. Did she dream that he had come to her in her sleep?
But the indentation was there, the dip of a head on the pillow, the indent of a body on the sheets that had once wrapped around hers in sleep. She hesitated, then reached for his pillow and pulled it to her, burying her face into the warmth he left behind.
How many nights had she dreamed of him?
This man, who had almost been the end of her. The man who had ignited everything—memories she didn’t want to remember, rage she wanted to suppress, need she didn’t want to acknowledge, tenderness she didn’t know she had in her.
But a little voice whispered again, like it had many times when she found her temper going out of control.
He didn’t know.
How could he have known?
She sighed. Her rational mind understood; he’d been eleven, a child. He had escaped, and he’d tried to find her again, searching her by the name she’d given him, Dorothy. She had tried to reach out to him once, only once, but after how that had ended, she’d recoiled into her shell.
Withdrawn. Rebuilt. Reinvented.
She had become this steely persona—a tough cop with a cold heart. A woman who couldn’t be touched, a woman who couldn’t be broken.
Even though she never found the monster who’d raped her again and again, she had survived. And now he was back, digging up emotions which she had buried deep.
She fidgeted with the edge of the pillowcase as she stared into nothing. But her mouth had softened, drooping slightly in that way that meant she wasn’t here anymore.
Thane watched her from the doorway.
He knew that look.
He knew that place too well.
“Breakfast,” he said, voice casual, interrupting her downward spiral.
“We need to talk”, she said. The vulnerable Faolan was gone, the mask firmly in place.
He leaned on the doorframe. “After coffee.”
