Roaring /// Peaky Blinders

THIRTEEN.

( part two, CHAPTER THIRTEEN )

She led him up the stairs she'd travelled only once before, ignoring the chaos erupting downstairs and Tommy's quizzical look as she stopped at the window she'd used to escape the first time she'd gotten stuck in the Garrison. She pushed up the pane of glass, before sitting on the sill and pulling her knees into her chest so that she could maneuver them out the open window. Tommy pulled back on her hand, a panicked look in his eye, but she only gave him a crooked grin and a reassuring nod.

"Do you trust me, Shelby?" The mirth in her voice hid the strain she felt, but she was not focused on the fact that she'd have to explain away how she knew they could get out this way. She'd have a lie ready to go for later. Or, perhaps, she would spill the contents of her heart to him and tell him everything about her brother's distrustful nature and her less than honorable past. She would have to decide later, when she didn't have those painfully gorgeous eyes staring down into her own, looking at her, looking into her, looking through her.

Tommy shook his head, his lips pursed. She caught the slight movement, barely a twitch really, at the corner of his mouth, however, and she could tell her confidence was helping quell his panic.

"I will follow you anywhere, Thalia."

And she knew—oh, god, she knew—that he meant every word of it.

She lifted her hand to his face and let her palm rest on his cheek, but the moment was cut short as another shout echoed up from downstairs. Thalia knew that the danger was very real and very close, but it all felt so far away in that moment. She very nearly leaned in to kiss him, but she decided against it. If she started to kiss him, truly kiss him, she did not know if it would be within her power to stop.

When one brushes lips with a hurricane, there is no returning from the storm.

Instead, she jumped, more carefully this time, rolling out of it and springing up like a cat. Tommy was less graceful, but he hit the ground ready to run. They rejoined hands and took off like two bats out of hell, their footsteps reverberating off the walls around them—it sounded like drumming. Thalia wondered if he could feel his heart beating as fast as hers, or if she was simply overwhelmed by both the adrenaline and the serotonin burning through her nerves at that moment.

The city did not acknowledge them as the buildings and smog and noise swallowed them up and kept them away from prying eyes. Thalia swore up and down that more than a few men and women nodded at Tommy, discreetly and only barely, as if swearing to him that they would keep his secret, but the subtle movements were always gone in a blink of her eyes, the memory the only aspect of the interactions left lingering. In those moments, Thalia felt both a swell of pride for this town and for Tommy, for there was love pouring out of every crack in that pavement and every hole in those walls. The city adored him; the city would protect him.

She would protect him.

They made it to her apartment in a little over five minutes. They went up the stairs slowly, knowing that they were in the clear, and Thalia unlocked the door with a silent prayer that Théo was still out of town. Fortune must have been on her side that afternoon because, when she opened the door, he was nowhere to be found.

"You can lay low here for a while, until everything clears up," she told him, busying herself with the kettle in an attempt to stop herself from fidgeting under his gaze. She undid the belt from which her knife was hung, setting it on the kitchen table delicately, as she waited for the kettle to whistle at her.

"Why do you carry this?" Tommy asked, running his fingers along the sheathed weapon with no attempts to hide his burning curiosity. Thalia leaned against the table, her eyes on his slender fingers, watching as they brushed over the hard leather that had seen much of her time in Paris.

"I am French, Tommy. I had to."

"But you don't have to anymore." He wasn't prying too hard, merely poking at a subject he must know Thalia was sensitive about. She bit her lip, uncertain if even she knew the real reason anymore.

"It makes me feel safe. I know that I can protect myself."

"From what?"

It was a gentle enough question, and Thalia looked up at him with her war hardened gaze. She couldn't find an answer within herself to give to him. She didn't know. She didn't know what she was so afraid of still to this day.

"From everything." Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but Tommy nodded, acknowledging her aversion to this subject. His fingers trailed away from the weapon and towards her hand, which rested beside her on the table.

"I'll protect you. As long as I am breathing, I swear to keep you safe," he said, taking her hand in his. It was rough and calloused and forever stained with the blood of others, but so was hers. She felt the gentle tug of his hand as he moved to pull her up into the open space of the room, away from her knife and away from the past. "Dance with me."

"There is no music," she barely whispered, but her tone was warm and her expression inviting. Tommy chuckled, and she was so close that she could feel the vibrations in his chest as he did so. The feeling captivated her, this closeness. It felt right.

Tommy spun her around, gently swaying with her from side to side.

"We don't need it."

They remained close like that for several seconds, ignoring the screeching of the kettle from the atop stove and the bark of dogs from outside the window, just swaying and spinning and holding one another. When she could take it no longer, Thalia removed the kettle from the heat with a carelessness that stemmed from Tommy trying to pull her back into the warmth of his body with a laugh. She laughed with him, and then turned to face him with such a sincere happiness across her expression that Tommy was, momentarily, blinded by the beauty of her.

And then he kissed her—hungry and messy and wild, but with everything he had.

Thalia couldn't breathe, but she didn't care. She smiled against his lips and reciprocated, her hands moving to clasp together atop his shoulders, as Tommy's settled on her hips. They moved together like a carefully choreographed act, as if they'd been waiting all their lives to perform this wonderful dance with each other. She pulled away for a moment, finally succumbing to her need for air, and rested her forehead against his as their breaths mingled together. That lull lasted only a moment. Their lips crashed back together with a new heat ignited within them. Thalia did not remember who started it or exactly when it occurred, but they were grabbing blindly at each other's clothing, pulling it free of their bodies and continuing with a newfound hunger for one another, a craving to touch and to hold, skin upon skin.

And, for the first time in a long time, Thalia felt safe.