NERTHUS
“I don’t know what you mean.”
I try to avoid his gaze and keep my eyes glued to the floor while fumbling with my purse.
“You seem upset.” He tries to argue with me, but my subconscious has me reacting all wrong once again.
And I can’t seem to stop myself.
“I’m just tired. Can you leave me alone, please? I’m not in the mood to work tonight.”
Putting his finger under my chin, he gets me to raise my eyes to his. “I’m not here for your services. Tell me. What’s wrong?”
I sigh, taking a step back to free me from his hold. “I just had to identify a woman I worked with a few years ago. I don’t handle seeing dead bodies well, even if it’s not my first one.”
I throw my bag on my couch and turn around to face his intense gaze again.
“You are normally rather pragmatic, what perturbed you that much?” His question has my resolve crumbling further, and I hug myself as if it could help me hold the pieces together.
“I don’t know…” Sighing, I cross my arms in front of my chest. “At 19, I had a best friend. She was killed.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice full of pity, making my stomach turn.
I scrunch up my nose and shake my head distraught, “Don’t!”
He tilts his head as I take a deep breath. “She had strange… signs on her body. Her murderer… It’s like he signed his work.” I clear my throat, trying to steady my voice as I go on. “This woman had the same. The detective that worked my friend’s case surprisingly remembered her and me. So, he called me, and surprise number two,” I throw up my arms while my voice gets high-pitched. “I knew her too.”
I collect myself, lowering my gaze again. “So, if you wouldn’t mind closing the door behind you when you leave, I’d like to be alone.”
“What signs? What signature?” he asks, going all business mode as he furrows his brows.
I groan as I raise my voice. “Didn’t you hear me talking? Get out!”
He seems pissed by me wanting to throw him out, but as if I cared.
His frown darkens as he speaks again. “I could help you. I have contacts that ”
“No, Arawn. You don’t!” I take a step forward, wanting to get him to move back, but he doesn’t move an inch. “I don’t need your help! I’m not some pinky princess who waits for her Prince Charming to pick her up and carry her to some cozy castle of his. I’m just a peasant whore doing her job, waiting for her time on this earth to finally be over.”
As he doesn’t speak or move, I take a deep breath and continue shouting my lungs raspy. “If you don’t want to fuck or else just go. You don’t have to play the worried boyfriend just because you have a guilty conscience about how you treated me before.”
He takes a step forward too, towering over me. While being his usual entitled self, he ignores what I said completely, going on like nothing happened and as if I didn’t just try to kick him out of my apartment. “I saw the picture of you and another girl. It’s the only picture you have in your apartment. Is that your friend who was murdered?”
“Arawn!” I gasp audibly as I look up into his frown. “How dare you rummage through my things! What the actual fuck! You have no right to put your snobby nose into my things.”
His laugh shocks me like nothing ever did before. My numb body slowly loses the cold that was attacking my bones since I got into that damned room. “Nobody talks to me like that.”
“Argh, just leave already.”
“No can do, Princess,” he mocks again, making me stump my foot childishly.
“I’m serious. Get out!” I scream at him, but he just continues to grin at me unimpressed.
With a swift movement, he has his arms wrapped around me and pulls me into him. “Why are you so stubborn?”
“No!” I struggle against his hold, trying to free myself, but there is no avail.
He moves one of his hands into my hair and by grabbing it, he fixates me before he lowers down, pressing his lips to my ear. “Everyone deserves to be saved, Nerthus. And you are certainly too precious to just be on this planet to await your death by feeling like you don’t matter.”
I struggle again and he pulls me even closer. “I feel so much pain when I hear what you had to go through, and you didn’t deserve any of it. Unfortunately, there is just so much I can do to make you feel better. So, if I can finally help you by identifying some murderer acting on my territory, I will be damned if you can prevent me from getting him for you.”
I take a deep breath, his addicting cologne invading my senses.
Fighting my tears, I bury my face in his hard chest. “Why are you so talkative lately?”
He chuckles lowly, as he hugs me close. “Too much?”
I shake my head, taking another deep and shaky breath.
“Good,” he growls lowly, causing a shiver to run down my spine.
As the last pieces of my body and mind reawaken, I let my forehead slump against his chest as he moves his hand up and down my back. “You should have called me, beautiful.”
I nod, getting him to laugh. “Are you feeling better?”
Wrapping my arms around him and nodding again, I finally give up my fight and let myself go into something I haven’t done for decades.
As I sob into his chest, my feeling ashamed doesn’t stand a chance as Arawn caresses me further and hugs me as if his life depended on it.
Jeez, I never thought that could feel so good.
***
I wake up feeling exhausted even though I feel like I have slept the best in years.
My puffy eyes hurt as I peel them open, and I squeeze them back close again.
I hear a soft snoring sound and I am quite surprised to find Arawn sleeping soundly next to me.
He is lying on his back, his naked and chiseled torso on display, heaving lightly. His boxer briefs hinder my final paradisal vision, but it is an awesome sight to wake up to anyway.
I get up, careful not to wake him, and hop in the shower.
I ponder on the fact that he stayed over even if it didn’t get him any sex. And I still have to find out if I’m feeling comfortable with the thought.
In the last months, as I kept falling more and more for him, I had forced myself to deny that it could ever be something else than a cold working relationship between us. I had pushed down my feelings, wanting him to keep me close as much as he could before meeting someone he would regard as his perfect match. But the last few days had turned everything upside down, and even if I’m sure that this is happiness that keeps streaming through me, I’m still sabotaging myself by putting myself into a place where I could never be with him.
And his mixed signals don’t help me much at that.
After drying my hair, I put it up in a high bun and I surely feel like reborn.
Dressing into blue shorts and a white top, I take a mental note to myself about emptying a drawer for him to use as well before making a beeline to the kitchen.
If he stayed this long without getting what he wanted, I’ll at least serve him a yummy breakfast.
And I will just have to find something to drown these damned butterflies.