CHAPTER 36
"You were drugged. I stayed because I didn't trust anyone else to."
Low voice. Steady voice. Unapologetic voice.
And for the first time since I'd opened my eyes, I wasn't afraid.
I was confused. Apprehensive. But not afraid.
I stirred slowly, the blankets sliding off, and that's when I noticed—Tony's shirt. Black, enormous, cotton soft, wrapping around me entirely. My legs bare underneath, and my clothes neatly folded on the desk chair, not tossed, not torn. My body didn't ache. My lips weren't swollen. My skin didn't bear fingerprints.
I was intact.
But I wasn't whole.
Not after last night.
Not after him.
I looked at him standing there by the door, his two hands cradling a mug, no smile on his lips. Just that guarded caution, as if I were glass on a shelf and he wasn't sure whether to step forward or back.
"Black, no sugar," he said, presenting the mug.
I accepted it in both my hands, the ceramic hot against my fingers. "You remembered."
"I remember everything with you," he said softly.
No games.
Just honesty.
\---
There was silence between us that hung in the air like wire.
I drew my legs up to me and stared down into the coffee. "Did you—"
"No," he cut in. "Nothing happened."
I searched for him.
He came across the space between us, slowly, as if I'd fly away. "You fainted. I brought you here. I didn't change a thing. Just. kept you warm. Safe."
"Did you sleep?"
His laugh was stifled and unfunny. "Not really."
I glanced at the darkening bruises on his knuckles. He must have caught me looking, because he shrugged as if it wasn't a problem.
"It wasn't enough," he said. "Whatever I did to him. It wasn't enough."
I flinched. "I didn't even catch a glimpse of who it was."
"I did."
"And?"
"And he's gone."
Something in his voice made me shiver. Not because I was afraid.
Because I wasn't.
And maybe that should have scared me more.
\---
I sipped the coffee. He was sitting across from me, not too close, not leaning, just… there.
Everything about him was whispered.
Not being demedicated.
Just holding his breath.
Waiting.
Like if he inhaled incorrectly, I'd disappear.
"You folded my clothes," I said finally.
He raised an eyebrow. "You say that like you're surprised."
"It is."
He sat back, elbows on knees. "I'm not the monster you want me to be."
"I don't want you to be a monster," I told him. "That's how you made your introduction."
He didn't argue it.
He didn't need to.
\---
I consumed the coffee. Set the mug down on the nightstand.
Then I gazed at him, actually gazed—at the tension in his jaw, the knuckles that were raw, the rumpled hoodie as if he hadn't taken it off since last night.
"You didn't leave," I whispered.
"I wasn't going to leave you like that."
"Even after everything?"
He nodded once. "Especially because of everything."
Something inside my chest cracked open.
And for the first time, I let it.
"Thank you," I whispered.
He was startled-looking. As if he hadn't expected those words from me.
But I meant them.
Every syllable.
"Repeat it," he whispered.
I caught his gaze. "Thank you, Tony."
His eyes darkened—not with lust, but with something far more evil.
Hope.
\---
He stood up and crossed the room slowly, pausing in front of me. I tensed out of habit.
He didn't touch me.
He just glared.
"You were wearing that shirt when I found you," he told me. "Told myself if I could get you into something clean and let you sleep without looking at you… maybe I deserved another chance."
"You didn't look at me?" I asked.
His smile was small. "Not the way you think."
I pulled the hem of the shirt down. "It smells like you."
"Yeah," he said. "I liked that part."
\---
There was a shift then. A gasping hush.
He stirred, slow, gave me time to retreat.
I didn't.
His fingers brushed my cheek. Barely.
"I would've burned that house down," he told me, "if you hadn't opened your eyes."
I leaned in against his touch. Just enough.
"But you didn't," I told him. "You brought me here. You waited. You let me wake up whole."
His hand dropped away.
"Because if I'd touched you when you were broken, I'd never forgive myself."
My chest tightened.
He was trying.
Not pretending.
Not pretending to be something he's not.
Trying.
\---
"I should get dressed," I said finally.
He nodded and stepped back. Gave me space.
Not like he was retreating.
Like he was showing me respect.
\---
When I slipped into my jeans and pulled my sweatshirt over the black shirt, I didn't take it off.
I couldn't.
It felt like armor now.
Not from him.
From everything else.
From the night which tried to take something from me—and lost.
\---
I paused at the door before I left.
He was already resumed at the window, the same where he had sat the night before, watching the world beyond as if it owed him explanations.
"Tony."
He turned, and his eyes were unreadable.
"You didn't break me," I said to him.
His lips parted. Closed.
And then he nodded. "I know."
"But I think you're the only one I'd let catch me if I ever did."
The tension in his shoulders broke.
Not out of fear.
Out of release.
He was the sort of man who seemed to have been waiting for someone to tell him that his entire life.
And perhaps I had too.