Addiction // Gavin Reed x Reader

Hands

"I love you," Gavin mutters in his sleep, his hand stretching across his white linens for... something. Skin-to-skin contact.

He's done it every day since she left. Marissa. Reaching for her as if she were still by his side, most likely sleeping with her bare back turned to him, the early sun highlighting her flawless, golden skin as the light peeked through the curtains.

He expected the same outcome when he reached for her this time. Nothing-- just cold, winter air. But instead, he felt skin. Gavin's eyes snapped open almost immediately after making contact with the stranger's flesh, the whites around his irises stinging from lack of sleep.

What he was expecting was actually a carbon copy of his ex-wife, yet it was one that was so different from her in every way possible. Still beautiful, but a beautiful contrast. The sun refused to shine. Instead, dull light from the overcast weather poured in through Gavin's window, creating a grey-white cast over her skin that had been littered in bruises of every color. In no way was she perfect, but fuck, she was still gorgeous.

(Y/n).

Gavin sighed both in relief and in content. He was satisfied with just this-- nothing more, nothing less. But he found it kind of funny that he nearly forgot that he had invited her to his home and let her sleep there. In his own bed, no less.

The last thing he wanted to do was wake her. Gavin had no knowledge of the sleepless nights she might have had before this, the ones where she would have been forced from her dreams by the machine she called her lover for so many months. He wouldn't repeat his mistakes. Never.

The moment she stirred in her sleep, the ex-detective felt guilty as all hell. He feared that he'd woken her from her deep sleep, and that she'd immediately wake up with dark bags under her eyes. And it would've been all his fault.

I wonder how I got by this week
I only touched you once.
Lately I can't find the beat
I used to feel the rush.

Luckily, it was just a simple adjustment of her leg to move into a more relaxed position. One that took up some of Gavin's own bed space, but he didn't mind all too much. He moved his hand to the valley of her back, right in between her shoulderblades, ghosting his fingers down the cloth of her shirt so lightly that she would barely feel it. He stopped once he reached the small of her back above the space where the sweatpants he gave her sat comfortably along her hips, covering the space Gavin only wished he could touch.

I'm pretty sure it's still too early for that. Way too early.

The male breathed gently through his nose, rustling a slight breeze through the ends of her cleanly-scented hair. He wished he didn't have to get up, but his conscious constantly nagged at him, screaming demands in his ears from his brain.

He rolled his heavy body from the bed, making sure that (Y/n) stayed just as still as she did when he first woke. The half-empty pack of Marlboros sitting on his dresser was snatched hastily as he walked by, along with a plain t-shirt that had been strewn across the floor the previous night. In one messy jumble of a motion, Gavin placed one cigarette between his lips and pulled the shirt over his torso as he walked out of the bedroom. He grabbed the lighter sitting on the kitchen counter near the back door while pulling the latch from the handle, sliding the glass open with ease.

Gavin made sure to close the door behind him, fearing that Ozzy would one day dash out from behind him and run off into oblivion, never to see the beloved cat ever again. He shielded the hot flame pouring from his lighter with a cupped palm, impatiently waiting for the butt of the cigarette to become orange with heat. He pinched the cancer stick between two fingers, huffing in a breath of nicotine-filled smoke so large that it nearly overcapacitated his lungs. He released it into the polluted air, the familiar smell of secondhand smoke seeping in through his nostrils. It calmed him, settling his wildly beating heart from the encounter he experienced not too long ago.