Calloway // Michael Gray x Reader - Peaky Blinders Fanfic

Chapter 20

Michael

She snuggles up to him, sighing contentedly. He has an arm wrapped around her, and she rests her head on his chest. He lights a cigarette, waiting for a scolding, but it doesn't come. He realises it's the first one he's had in days.

It tastes a lot nicer with the taste of Calloway's lips still on his own.

"I'm only doing this because you're so warm," she grumbles. "How are you so warm?"

He glances at her in amusement. "What the fuck do you think I am, a reptile? Of course I'm warm."

She lifts her head to look at him. "You know what I mean."

He can feel her gaze linger, her eyes roaming the curve of his jaw, the slope of his neck.

"Careful," he says, having too much fun. "Keep staring like that and you'll fall in love with me, and I won't be there to catch you."

"Hilarious. As if I'd ever fall in love with someone like you."

The silence that follows is so thick, Michael finds himself tapping out his cigarette before it's finished, sliding down into bed and turning off the lamp.

"Goodnight, Cal," he murmurs softly.

"Goodnight, Michael."

Fuck, it feels so good to have her in his arms. He waits until her breathing has slowed, and he thinks she's asleep, before inhaling deeply against her hair. Pressing a kiss to her forehead.

She has become so precious to him.

Love? He muses once more. Is this it? Would he cross the seas, pull down the stars, for the woman sleeping all wrapped up against him? And then he recounts how she had looked while he made her come — the most exquisite thing in the world. In that moment, he would have died for her. Still thinks he might.

And then there was the strange surge of protectiveness that overcame him while she danced with Mosley, his jaw so tight and mind so focused he couldn't focus on a single thing Mosley's wife said. And then it surged again when Calloway said she was a virgin — a desire so different than anything sexual. A desire to keep her safe, unharmed. The same desire that stopped him from dipping inside of her, fucking her with his fingers — he didn't want to hurt her. Not tonight.

He doesn't think he ever will.

It all rolls around in his head, confusing him, until it returns to the childhood trauma, the shame. It plucks on his insecurities — did he please her well enough? Did she like him, how he looks, how he feels? Does her heart sing for him, like his does for her, or could it be anyone in his place?

The insecurities are fleeting. Tied to memories he'd rather repress. They never last long. He exhales them, banishing them, and finds solace in Calloway as he drifts to sleep.

***

The window tap comes the next morning. He stays with his eyes closed a moment longer, enjoying holding Calloway in his arms, enjoying the slumber.

Not wanting it to end.

But he feels her shift beside him, the annoyingly fast waker she is. He can sense it when she lifts her head to look at him, words forming on her lips. But they don't come. She just stays like that, thoughts running through her head.

"You're staring," he mumbles.

She quickly shifts back again. "Was not."

He sighs, rolling over and wrapping his arms around her. "Could feel you with my bloody eyes closed."