Page 51 of A Sweet Destruction

I broke eye contact, not even realizing how tightly Ford held my gaze until I pulled out of his grasp to look around the room as I gathered my thoughts. “I know.” Another breath. “It’s back.”

An inhuman sound, a low, dangerous rumbling, shot through the room and right through my stomach. Ford didn’t seem remotely phased by it. “What do you need? Right now.”

I understood what he didn’t say. If I answered him honestly about this, he wouldn’t press on the larger issues, ones I didn’t want to face right now.

My eyes fell to the bed underneath him, then moved to mine on the other side of the wall, forced as far apart as possible in the small room. Weariness bled into every corner of my being, and the idea of trying to wrestle the Bond for sleep while Ford was far away made me feel close to shattering.

“I just want to sleep,” I said, the words barely more than a whisper.

Ford didn’t respond for so long, I wasn’t sure he’d heard me.

Hard not to in a room this small. Even the softest whisper couldn’t hide.

It wasn’t until I looked back at him, realizing how deep into his thoughts he was. Considering, connecting.

Then, “You never fell asleep reading, did you?”

All the air sucked right out of my chest like a deflating balloon. My eyes flew up to his, finding them warm and curious, then hit the floor again as red hot shame burned my cheeks.

This was exactly the problem. Embarrassment was unavoidable if I started to be honest with him, if we got close enough to really, deeply talk about those early years.

“I just need to make sure you get a good night’s sleep,” Ford said, his voice noticeably softer in the wake of my silence. His pity hurt like barbed wire scraping over skin.

The Bond released its hold on me enough to let me shake my head. Realizing that didn’t quite answer his question, especially after he spoke again, I opened my mouth to admit to my shame—just one of many.

“No, I didn’t. The Bond…” The second I gave attention to it, it pushed a wave of memories at me, rife with dissatisfaction and confusion. It hadn’t started out my choice. I’d been drafted a month before my eighteenth birthday, or what they believed was my eighteenth birthday. The orphanage wasn’t quite sure, only able to make general estimates based on my development when I’d been unceremoniously dumped on their front porch.

An even harder task when neglect stunted a baby’s growth.

With Ford being on the far end of nineteen, base rules didn’t allow us to share a room. By the time they’d moved us into this one, I’d been deep in the Bond’s clutches and deep in the realization that Ford wasn’t.

The beds had started pushed apart, and I wasn’t going to be the one to suggest moving them together. Even though one of the paranimas on duty with us at the time had caught a glimpse of the set up and made a quip about voluntarily signing up for torture.

Naturally, the Bond fucking hated that, five feet far too much distance in the vulnerability of the night. I’d fought it for months, relegating myself to a life of sleep deprivation before I finally admitted that I would be getting no better if I didn’t figure something out.

Asking to share a bed was off the table, so I’d devised a new plan. I’d stay up late “reading” in a conveniently placed chair near the foot of his bed.

I’d manage to get more restful sleep in that chair—surprisingly comfortable, really—than I’d ever hope to manage across the room. On a particularly rough morning, I’d found myself folded over the foot of Ford’s bed, hand outstretched toward where his lay at his side.

That night, I broke into the infirmary and stole a bottle of sleeping pills. I ended up on the floor between our beds the next morning.

The only thing that had ever worked was the suppressant, though if I was honest with myself, I’d never managed a restorative night of sleep even once in the past eight years.

A warm, rich scent broke me out of the Bond’s clutches, only for me to realize it was Ford. He was standing right in front of me, close enough that I felt the heat of his chest.

I took a startled step back, not…not because I wanted to put distance between us, I realized. Because I hadn’t been paying attention and his sudden presence spooked me.

Ford clearly thought it was the former, his face dropping into a scowl before he forced it back up to as neutral of an expression as he could manage.

“You’ll learn that the Bond does not appreciate being separated. Especially overnight.” Ford’s face wasn’t moving from its displeased expression, and I couldn’t have that. Because I liked to improve things. Generally. Not that I had any care for his specific mood. “Peter used to say it was like a cat. They wake you up in the middle of the night because they want to make sure you aren’t dead.”

That did nothing but make the muscle in Ford’s jaw tick. A few times, like he was chewing on the words he wanted to say, but wasn’t. He finally settled on, “So you need me next to you in order to sleep?”

I did not appreciate his specific use of you and me where he did. “I figured it out just fine. I think we should be more worried about you. The Bond might start to chafe and we can’t have that, can we?”

I stepped forward, pulled closer by the allure of challenge. My lower lip pushed out on its own accord, curling into a pout. “Do you need me to sleep next to you?”

Clearly, I was not prepared for Ford to pin me with a serious stare and say, “Yes.”