Page 37 of Ends of Being

She peeks one eye open and gives me a small nod, so I go back out into the bedroom, where I pick up the various restraints strewn around the bed. I check them to see if they need to be cleaned before putting them back in the trunk, closing the lid and placing it back at the end of the bed. I quickly remake the bed, then return to the bathroom door, just in time to hear her call out that she’s ready.

I walk into the bathroom, stopping to check the water temperature before I scoop her up into my arms, and she shrieks, grabbing onto my shoulder as if she’s afraid I’ll drop her. I stoop over, depositing her into the tub, and then hand her the glass of mineral water. “Drink this. I’ll be right back.”

Taking a robe from the back of the bathroom door, I make my way down the hall to the other bathroom because I wasn’t smart enough to use the facilities before sticking her in the tub. Once I’m finished, I make my way down into the kitchen and get the plate of fruit, hard cheese, and crusty bread that I asked Matt to put together for me. He had given me a bit of grief about it, but he did an excellent job.

I grab a bottle of white wine from the wine fridge and one glass because that’s all we need, then make my way back up to my bedroom, stopping in the doorway of the bathroom to watch her. She’s laid out fully in the tub, submerged to just below her collarbone. At first, I think she’s asleep, but when I walk further into the bathroom, her head tilts toward me, and she asks, “Are you coming in?”

I’m relieved to see the soft look in her eyes, the corners of her lips still turned up in satisfaction. I know I still need to tread carefully with her; I may always have to tread carefully with her. It may take endless time, effort, and work to mold her into a woman who accepts that having soft edges with people you’re close to is not a weakness, that if two people take those soft edges and fuse them together, they create an unbreakable bond.

I may only ever get glimmers of it, a revolving kaleidoscope of intimacy and affection blended with bits of resentment and a troubled soul. But after months of sitting back and watching her, keeping my distance and biding my time, I’ll take it.

I walk over to the bathtub and place the plate of food, bottle of wine, and glass on the shelf by the wall, then grab another mineral water from the fridge, topping off her glass and handing it to her with a knowing look. She takes it from me without comment, gulping down half of it before giving it back to me, and I set it aside.

I sit on the side of the tub, picking up the bottle of wine and raising a brow at her questioningly. She gives me a small nod and a, “Yes, please.”

I pour a modest portion into the glass and hand it to her. “You should eat something as well.”

She glances at the food and then back at me, but I can see the confusion on her face. Then she asks, “Aren’t you going to join me?”

“Would you like me to?”

She gives me another slight nod, and the beast inside me practically crows in victory. I’m surprised as I figured she may want to have a few moments to herself, but I’m not going to argue. I make sure I have everything we need close by, then strip my robe off, motioning for her to lean forward so I can sit behind her. She settles back against my chest, her head lying on my shoulder, and I pull her close.

She turns her head toward me and says, “You should also drink some water.”

I chuckle, want filling my chest, so I reach for the remainder of her glass without comment and drink it down. She’s not wrong.

I pick up a strawberry, holding it up to her mouth, and she eyes me suspiciously but takes the offering anyway. She looks at me thoughtfully as she chews and swallows, then asks, “What are you doing here?”

I meet her gaze, craning my neck around a bit so I know she sees the seriousness on my face. “Taking care of you.”

She snorts. “Taking care of me? I thought that’s what you just did in the bedroom.”

I laugh again. “Well, that’s a different kind of taking care of you. But if I only tend to your needs in one area, then that’s not really taking care of you, is it?”

She’s staring off into space as she quietly replies, “I don’t think anyone’s ever taken care of me.”

I know this to be true. While she may not have had the difficult upbringing many people had, in some ways, she still grew up attention-starved and goal-driven, always one step shy of perfection, as she and her siblings took the competition of childhood way too seriously.

As far as I can tell, she does get on pretty well with her family at this point in her life, but that’s because she learned to put up solid boundaries and works hard to maintain them. She also lives thousands of miles away, so there’s that.

Of course, this is all information I’ve gathered second and third hand from watching her from a distance. I just pieced together bits of information that somehow managed to establish a causation for her pattern of detachment and aloofness.

I pull her closer to me, whispering against her skin, “I will always take care of you.”

She turns her head away a bit, her eyes still staring out into the distance as she says softly, “Until you leave me anyway.”

I squeeze my arms tighter around her, my face pressing into her neck, my teeth nipping her as I say, “I will always take care of you, baby girl. And I would never willingly leave you.”

She doesn’t say anything else, just turns her body and leans into me fully, her face pressed into my neck. I feel her breathing me in, one of her hands clutching at my arm, so I squeeze her tighter as if I can force her broken pieces back together again just by the force of my arms wrapped around her.

All while trying not to focus on the tricky wording I used in my last profession.

Willingly.

Chapter Fifteen

Toni

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