“I wanted the reminder,” he said, glancing back at her over his shoulder, his expression unreadable.
“Of what? Pain?”
“No, that I won’t break.”
She was readying to go on, to offer him comfort in the form of words, but he shushed her with a kiss, almost making her forget what she was questioning him about.
This time felt different.
It wasn’t like they hadn’t ever touched before, that they had never explored each other’s bodies, but as her fingers drifted up his spine, feeling the grooves, but also over the scars the decorated his skin, she felt like she was feeling him for the first time.
Like she was becoming lost all over again to the things he made her feel.
* * *
“Niklaus?”
He turned his head in her direction, her calling for him distracting him long enough that he lost track of what shape he was tracing on her leg.
“Hmm…”
Shifting onto her side she looked down at him, her expression unreadable. He would have thought after the hours they spent rolling around in bed that she would be a little more relaxed next to him, but she just looked inquisitive, as though she was trying to figure something out about him.
“What do these mean?” she asked, gesturing with a touch of her fingers to one of the stars tattooed on his chest. The raised skin of the scar felt different to those on his back. Here, she could feel the texture.
“To me? Nothing. To someone else? Everything.”
She didn’t understand. “Then why get them if they mean nothing to you.”
“Because they meant something to someone, and in a moment of weakness, that someone meant something to me.”
Reagan still didn’t understand, not really, but the way he spoke about it made her wonder about the person he meant.
“Did you lose them?”
He shook his head, seeming sad in that moment. “I don’t think I ever really had them.” Then, he touched her face, smiling at her in a way that melted her heart. “But I have you, and that’s better.”
What could she say in that moment that could adequately describe what she was feeling for him…what she had been trying to avoid since the very beginning.
But his next words brought her back to reality.
“Don’t,” he said after a moment, his gaze drifting over her face.
Confused, she asked, “Don’t what?”
“Don’t fall in love with me.”
Was she that transparent that he could see just how much she enjoyed being around him? And worse, how could she possibly be falling in love with someone she hardly knew, not really anyway.
Unable to respond as she didn’t know how to respond to that, Reagan remained silent, listening to the thumping beat of his heart, the cadence slowing with every breath he took before he was asleep, still holding her like she was a lifeline.
Even as he slipped under, she still remained awake a while longer, too restless to fall asleep.
Chapter Fourteen
One thing Niklaus had learned after a year-and-a-half on the job was when to walk away. Whether it was just him losing perspective, or that he was risking death by staying on the mission any longer than what was necessary, he knew when it was time to abandon ship and get as far away from it as he could.
It wasn’t that he was in a particularly dire place, or even that his life was being threatened in any way, but his mind, his thoughts, his sanity…he felt like he was losing it.
All because of the girl fast asleep tucked into his side.
How had another week already passed them by? Niklaus could still remember flying out for London, helping an associate with an extraction job just six months ago because he had felt he had gotten too close to Reagan.
From the curve of her smile when she saw him, or how they fit together like two puzzle pieces when she was by his side…He had enjoyed it, the time he spent with her, and though he had been a little reluctant the first time around, he still had been able to leave her without thinking too much on it.
But now, lying next to her, feeling the way her chest rose and fell against his side, how her dainty hand rested against his chest, her fingers nearly touching one of the stars he had inked on his chest, Niklaus knew it was time to leave again.
He didn’t know when things had shifted between them, or rather, when it had finally shifted for him. He’d been content with using her for his own selfish needs, releasing pent up aggression that constantly hounded him.
Except now, he was beginning to crave more of her. Her time. Her attention. Everything.
He just wanted her…
Already, she had called off twice from that job of hers just so she could spend more time with him, and instead of dissuading her, he had been silently glad that she had.
Niklaus was beginning to realize it was no longer just a hookup to him. He actually liked her.