Page 65 of Dark Ink

“Rian,” she mumbled.

“Shh…go to sleep, baby.”

“Thank you.”

I blinked. “What for?”

She shrugged, her eyes still closed. Then sighed. “For…making it okay. For making…me okay.”

My arms tightened reflexively around her. “You’re more than okay. You’re perfect.”

She smiled. “I’m not perfect.” Her features darkened. “I just…my father always told me there was something wrong with me. With who I was. With what I wanted…sexually, you know?”

I gritted my teeth. He was the reason why Eithne had been so unable to accept pleasure, unable to see the beauty in her own body. “I’ll cut out his tongue for saying those things to you.”

Her mouth twitched in a half-smile. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

She thought I was joking. I wasn’t fucking joking. “Tell me where he is.” When she didn’t reply, I added, “I’ll find out regardless.”

Her eyes opened, her gaze pinning me to the mattress. From the pain and relief in her eyes, I knew it before she spoke. “He’s dead.”

I fell silent, intrusive thoughts of my own asshole father and his own nearing demise twisting up my insides.

She nudged me. “Rian?”

“When did he die?”

“A few years ago. Heart attack. Right before I…I applied for art school.”

I nodded. His death had been a release for her. It’d given her the courage to reach for what she wanted. What she loved. Art.

“I thought I would feel sad that he was gone.” Guilt flashed across her face, a feeling I knew all too well. “I mean, I did kinda feel sad. But…”

“You felt relief,” I said for her.

She nodded. “You get it.”

“My father’s dying,” I said before I could censor myself.

It’d been the first time I’d actually said those words out loud. She was the first person I’d told. To my utter surprise, I felt the weight on my chest lessen.

Her stricken face turned to mine and her fingers came up toward my cheek. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” I weaved my fingers into hers and clasped them to my chest, against the beating heart that she owned. “He’s an asshole. Broke several of my ribs and my collarbone before I was even twelve.”

Eithne’s eyes filled with tears as she watched me in the dark. “I’ll chop off his hands for hurting you.”

I let out a half laugh, half choke. “That’s the nicest thing—”

She cut me off with a kiss, soft and intense, her tears making her lips salty. A kiss that absolved me. That called me back from the abyss.

She sat up and tugged at my shirt, pulling it up over my head. I let her push me back to the sheets with her small soft hands. Let her trace my ribcage and my collarbone, let her touch heal me. Let her body, stripped naked, cover me like a bandage.

And as I slid into her warm heat, her willing needy body, her arms wrapping around my back, her hot breath at my ear, I realised she was the only thing holding all my broken pieces together.

The only thing holding me together.

Eithne

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