Kimber's Daughter - Tommy Shelby x Reader Fan Fic

Chapter 24

My eyes snapped open in the darkness. It was the dead of night. For a moment, I feared the worst — someone had broken in, we were in danger. But when I heard Tommy's shouts, they were even more devastating.

He was tensed up, a layer of sweat coating his bare chest, muscles protruding from his neck and shoulders. He let out another shout, twisting in the bedsheets. I froze for a moment, before I realised what was happening — he was having a nightmare.

"Tommy?" I whispered. I gave his shoulder a small shake.

I splayed both my hands across his chest and shook him again. Finally his eyes opened, and he sucked in a deep breath, his hands flying to my own as though to push me off.

"It's me," I whispered. "It's okay."

He blinked for a moment, then sighed, eyes falling shut. He ran a hand across his forehead.

"Bad dream?" I murmured.

"You could say that."

Instinctively, I brought my hands to cup his face. His skin was soft beneath my thumbs as they stroked his cheekbones, reassuring, reminding him where he was. Thomas Shelby may have been the most frightening man in the county, but here, beside me in the dead of night, he was human. Unprotected and vulnerable.

"Ah," he groaned softly. "Feels nice, that does."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No use." Without breaking my touch, Tommy reached for a cigarette and put it between his lips. "Talking won't change what's happened."

My heart broke for him. The war. I wondered how he'd been before. How he'd still be now if he'd never had to fight, to kill, to watch his friends die. As I held him, I wished I could take it all away, make it so none of it had ever happened.

"What's wrong?" he asked softly.

"I don't like watching people suffer."

"Not even bad men?"

"You're not a bad man," I said quietly. "You could chain me to a table a hundred times over. You still wouldn't be a bad man."

He tensed a little at the memory. "Don't say that."

"Why?"

"Kimber..." Tommy put his cigarette in the ashtray and wrapped his hands around mine. "You have to understand something about me. I can't... feel. Not like you can. When they sent us to France..." he exhaled. "If I stumbled, even for a moment, the men on my squadron would die. Never come home to their families. It's not an easy thing, to switch off a part of yourself. It's even harder to switch it back on. You understand?"

"That doesn't make you bad," I whispered. "Don't you see, Tommy? It's the opposite."

He sighed, closing his eyes. "You're being unusually kind, Kimber."

"Don't get used to it. I said I forgive you for the table — not the bed."

Tommy opened his eyes and they flashed with a warning. "You're tempting me again with those handcuffs."

"Don't start."

His fingers gently trailed the length of my bare arm, leaving goosebumps in their wake. He worked his way across my shoulders, up my neck and behind my ear. I leaned into his palm when he reached my jaw, savouring the feeling of his skin against mine.

"I'm very glad I kidnapped you, Kimber," he whispered in the darkness.

Something about the black air of the room, his bare chest beneath mine, his hands at my neck, stopped me from retorting or snapping. His heavy eyes lingered as he gently guided me down, closer to him, until our faces were only inches apart. His lips parted for me. An invitation.

I must have lost my mind. "I'm glad you did too."

He brushed his lips against mine gently, so gently. The softest taste of his still-burning cigarette went straight to my lungs, and the taste of him went straight to my core. He let out the softest groan at the contact and pulled me in closer, parting his lips and brushing his tongue against my own. My hands clasped around his neck as his snaked down to my waist, finding their favourite spot at either side, fingers spread. His teeth grazed against my bottom lip. I gasped quietly.

"We broke the rules," I whispered.

He ran his thumb across my lower lip. "Fuck the rules."

He became more urgent. Sliding his hands up my thighs, he pulled me onto him, his hipbones firm beneath my own. Not a gap of air existed between us as he continued to kiss me — like a dying man seeking oxygen, like a dying man seeking life. Currents of pleasure jolted through my body. I never wanted the moment to end. I never wanted Thomas Shelby to pull away.

"Do you think," he murmured against my lips, "I would let anyone else speak to me the way you do?"

He moved to my neck. I sighed as he kissed the skin, softly at first, then deeper, his teeth gently grazing across my throat.

"Do you think anyone else could disobey me, and live to tell the tale?"

When I did not answer, he clasped my chin with his fingers, forcing me to meet his gaze.

"You chained me to a bed," I reminded him, breathless, but a shadow of my former fury. "I think that means you have no choice."

"I'll do it again if I have to," he quietly threatened against my lips. "Might incentivise you to behave."

My knees weakened at his words, but still I managed a scowl. "Not a chance. If anyone's wearing the cuffs next, it'll be you."

I could feel his lips pull into a smile beneath my own. "And here I was worried you'd gone soft on me, Kimber."

This was good. Too good. And unbidden, a flash of warning images seared through my mind — my father. I still needed to deal with him, before he put a bullet through the man at my side. My future with Tommy. He'd just told me he struggled to feel... did that mean he couldn't feel anything for me? Was I no more than one of his whores in his eyes?

Was I destined to a life trapped in a marriage, falling for a man who could never love me back? Was that really the freedom I so desperately craved?

I pulled away, fighting to ignore my own inner screams and protests. Here was Thomas Shelby, unclothed and at my mercy, in a way I couldn't imagine him being with anyone else. And I was turning away from him.

I clasped my fingers through his own and brought his hand to my chest. An apology. A lingering sensation.

Then, without waiting for his reply, I slipped away from the bed and into the bathroom, locking the door with a soft click. By the time the first morning light glinted across the golden faucets, my bath water had gone cold, and a shiver crept across my shoulders. I'd had hours to think, and yet my brain could not seem to move past the same stubborn thoughts that had plagued me earlier.

Except for one — perhaps the most important, and the one I could not reconcile.

Why had Arthur warned me not to trust Tommy?