Page 20 of Dreadful

My palm flattens against his chest, fingers pressing into the hard plane of muscle like I can push the understanding straight into his heart. My eyes dart toward the dark house, then back to him. I lean in, my voice dropping to something barely louder than the rustle of the oleanders. “The second your family finds out what happened, I’m gone anyway. I’d rather get a head start.” I blow out a shaky breath. “I don’t deserve it, but I’m asking anyway.”

“You did exactly what we agreed to do, baby. You don’t have to worry about Ma or the others. They already know everything they need to.”

I go still. It’s such a simple thing to say. It shouldn’t land the way it does.

I’ve been bracing for it since the warehouse—the moment someone looks at me and starts tallying. And Rafe is just sitting here, guns on the armrest, moonlight on his jaw, not tallying. Like there’s nothing to tally.

That’s the part I can’t find the edge of.

“You don’t have to protect me,” I murmur, dropping my forehead to his and closing my eyes. “You shouldn’t.”

His palms skim along my ribs, one rising to settle along the back of my neck. “That’s where you’re confused.” His mouth brushes the corner of mine. “I protect what’s mine.” A beat. “And without question, you, Bellamy Hale, are mine.”

Something in my chest gives way, a slow collapse behind my ribs. I can feel the truth of it in the weight of his hand on my neck, in the unblinking certainty in his gaze, in the quiet hum of the night around us.

He isn’t just saying he’ll stand between me and danger; he’s saying I am part of the thing he guards.

I’ve been held before—kept before. I know what it looks like when someone wraps a hand around you to keep you from leaving. This doesn’t feel like that. It feels like something I don’t have a word for yet, something that sits wrong in the best possible way, like a key turning in a lock I didn’t know was there.

My throat tightens around a question I can’t quite form. All that comes is a shaky breath that fogs faintly between us in the cool air.

His expression is different, stripped of all its usual edges. Then, softly, just one word: “Baby.”

It holds the weight of all the things we haven’t said and maybe never will.

So I do the only thing I can think of.

I kiss him.

It starts slow—just the press of my mouth against his, tentative, like a question I already know the answer to. But his hand tightens at the back of my neck and something in me stops asking. My fingers curl into the fabric at his chest and I lean in, and the kiss deepens into something else. Like I’m signing my name somewhere I won’t be able to erase.

And I’m not sure I want to.

Eventually I pull back, breathing unsteady, my forehead dropping back to his. His hands drop to my legs, sliding along the tops of my thighs. He stops where the hem of Cruz’s shirt pools.

“You need sleep.” His voice is rough at the edges, and his hands tighten their grip.

“I know,” I murmur eventually after another minute.

The corner of his mouth shifts. “Baby.”

I stand, and something between a laugh and a sigh moves through my nose before I can stop it.

“If something wakes you again⁠—”

“I’ll come get you.”

He shakes his head. “No, baby. Wake up Cruz, and don’t leave his room without a weapon. Then you find me.”

I nod, dragging my teeth over my bottom lip at the possessiveness in his voice. It should feel like a cage—this certainty of his. Instead, something tight in my chest loosens, a single knot untied in a tangled rope.

I lower myself onto the edge of Cruz’s bed slowly, holding my breath, and ease down onto my side. The mattress dips. His breathing changes—a small hitch—and then his arm curls around my waist, heavy and warm. He pulls me into his embrace in the middle of the bed.

“I was just about to go looking for you,” he mumbles into my hair.

“I wanted to check on Lola.” I look at the pre-dawn light bleeding around the curtains ruffling in the light breeze.

His lips press against the curve of my neck, a deliberate warmth that lingers. “You’re safe here.”