Page 91 of My Lovely Tragedy
It’s easier to stay here.
Gooseflesh follows the path of my fingers. I’m painfully aware of their raised bumps when I make my way back down, over his hip to his covered backside. I follow the edge of his waistband, feeling the cool wetness between us more than ever.
Tobias’s breathing eventually slows—as does my own—until we’re both pulling in soft and sore.
I feel it the moment he decides it’s time to separate.
My heart lurches into my throat, thick and choking as adrenaline surges through my veins. Faint—but there, nonetheless. I lock my limbs, blinking through the pressure in my nose.
“Darling, I need to?—”
I squeeze my eyes shut in case he tries to look at me. “Please don’t. Don’t let me go.” I hate that he can hear my desperation. My vulnerability.
It’s quiet. Too quiet.
He’s watching me, gaze hot as it rakes over my face—or at least the part he can see. I squeeze a little more, but a tear slips out.
I gasp when Tobias catches it on his tongue, a small, tender swipe across my cheekbone. And it’snothingcompared to what we just did—what he did to me—but fuck, it’s so much more.
It’s everything and nothing I can have, and I fucking hate him for it.
He sighs softly and I loathe the comfort. “My sweetcorvus.You can have anything.” But I don’t care about his fallacious words. I only care about his body on top of mine, of the wetness cooling between us. Of the bruises pulsing along my flesh and the slices gaping my skin.
I only care of the blood dried, muddled with our shared tears and pants of past desperation. A torment that lingers, a crackle in the air. Ready to be ignited.
But I’m tired, and Ican’t think.
I just want to sleep.
Like this—with him.
Forever.
Tobias rolls to the side, pressing against the back of the couch, then he turns me away, just to pull me right back against him until my ass is flush with his groin—but it’s an innocent gesture.
One meant to bring comfortability and ease.
I fall right into it as I rest my head against his bent arm, just above his elbow, and breathe him in. I feel the key against my back as Tobias tugs my blankets over us and then curls his arm over my bare waist. His fingers drag softly over my flesh, a soothing back and forth motion as a hum draws from the deepest parts of his chest.
I press back, just to feel the vibration against our bare skin. To share it.
The lull is slow and rhythmic. A rise, then a fall into a deep rumble. I feel myself moving with it, falling into it, with him. Then comes his voice, soft and melodic, singing ofclosing my eyesandmy angel.
“A lullaby,” he says after a long time. And then, much softer. “Because you deserve to have one sung to you at least once, my darling boy.”
And when the tears come, I let them burn their way through me until Tobias fills their vacancy with the sound of his voice and his sweet, painful words becausehe knows and he cares and it hurts so fucking much.
* * *
When I waketo the soft whispers of sunlight, I pretend I haven’t—just for a little while. To pretend I’m still in that moment of peace just before my eyes open. When there’s nothing but the flash of sunlight over closed lids, oxygen in my lungs. The feel of it filling me and waking my muscles.
How, for a split second of time,I don’t remember.
Not where I am or what’s happened to me. I don’t remember I’m in pain, and death echoes in the vast halls of my mind. A comfort, even if it terrifies me. That my family thinks I’m gone, and they probably don’t care. That I’ve obliterated promises and hate that I love every moment of it.
How through it all, Tobias remains.
Even when it’s all a muddled, blurry mess,I know him.I feel him andache for him.
