Bad Luck, Baby

23 - More Bad Memories

We may have gone to sleep in separate beds, but we didn't wake up that way. Before I was even fully conscious, I knew that Ro lay wrapped around me, legs tangled with mine, and one arm looped around my waist. I turned over and discovered he was still asleep, his silky black hair obscuring half his face.

Taking the opportunity to study him without being studied in return, I cataloged his inhumanly perfect features: the straight, narrow bridge of his nose, his arched brows and expressive mouth, the dark fans of his lashes, and the strange blue-brown of his smooth skin, which had an almost iridescent quality.

Without thinking, I reached over to stroke his cheek with my fingertips...

And of course, he chose that moment to wake up and catch me watching him sleep.

The slit pupils of his yellow eyes contracted as he focused on me, and his lips curved in a smile. "What a lovely sight to wake up to," he murmured.

Reflexively, I frowned. "What are you doing in my bed?"

He yawned. "There was something wrong with mine."

"There was?"

"Mm-hm. You weren't in it."

He grinned with satisfaction as I blushed and sat up, pretending displeasure.

He sat up as well and stretched lazily. He wasn't wearing a shirt, and my eyes took off on a little accidental road trip across an expanse of taut muscle and smooth skin, and got stuck on the brown disks of his nipples just in time for him to catch me staring.

He smirked, but—to my surprise—he let the opportunity to tease me pass.

"Stop scowling," he said. "The truth is, you were talking in your sleep. You kept saying things like, Please, Daddy. Please, I'll be good, Daddy, I promise. Now, if I thought you were dreaming of me, it would be an entirely different matter, but you were also crying, and not the way I'd like to make you cry."

"Oh."

I blushed with a different sort of embarrassment and turned away. Unconsciously reliving childhood trauma in my sleep is not something I would have wanted anyone to witness.

Surprising me again, Ro rested a gentle hand on my back.

"Do you remember what you dreamed?" he asked. "Perhaps it would help to talk about it."

I shook my head. "It's not like my dad only tortured me one time. It could have been anything."

"You kept saying you were cold. You felt cold, too. That was all the excuse I needed to warm you up."

At his words, a memory lit my mind like a flash of lightning, and I rubbed my hands over my face.

"Oh. Yeah, I remember now."

I started to get up, but Ro reached out and grasped my hand, gently pulling me back down. "Tell me."

I sighed. "It was just another of his dumb tests, trying to force magic out of me, but of course I didn't know that at the time. I thought he was just punishing me for something or other."

"What did he do?"

"Took me up to a cabin in the mountains, in the wintertime. I used to love the snow, but I knew by then not to expect a fun day of sledding. He locked me outside with an unlit fire and no matches. I don't know how long I was out there. I just remember it got dark, and I was scared and... really fucking cold. All the crying and begging didn't help. I even tried to do what he said and sat down by the unlit fire, imagining it could warm me. I either fell asleep or passed out, and he must have relented, eventually, since I didn't freeze to death. Anyway, I hate snow now."