More Than a Hotline Fling

-40-

Juneau's POV

Fear was a slippery emotion, fluid in how its effects varied by person.

Fear drove Damian restless. He constantly twitched with a need to do something, anything productive. While I was taken, he couldn't sleep, so instead he patrolled the streets. They offered him an outlet for his stress. New York City had more streets than one motorcycle could cover in an entire month, but he sure tried.

Fear elicited the opposite reaction in me. When confronted with terror, my body locked up. Rendered useless, my muscles morphed into petrified positions, my spine and joints immobilized, and my breath trapped within my lungs until they burned. Only my heart pounded, so hard that the skin on my breasts jiggled with each beat.

I was a cuddler before the kidnapping. Afterwards, I became bipolar. While awake, I kept to myself. I craved Damian's touch but my current mindfuck of a headspace left me still locked in that room. My mind worked fine, confirmed by the hospital's psychiatric evaluation, but my mouth was rendered inoperable.

Asleep, I became a damn strap-on appendage to Damian.

It's his fault.

He was so warm, my own portable furnace. The way his arms clutched me to his chest, as if he couldn't let me go, was so safe.

Despite the flaming body temperature that dampened both of us in sweat, he didn't mind my extra clinginess. Because of my freezing up sessions and his shaking night terrors, we both sweated out pores like we sprung a leak.

It didn't help either of us sleep but I didn't expect him to sleep once I was home. As in the hospital, he was my guard dog. The same guard dog shared the terrifying details with my aunt and uncle, held my hand during the police and counselor interviews, and logged every bite I forced down until I passed the swallow test.

Whenever my eyes opened, they met the warmth and security in his.

Even bloodshot.

He hadn't left my side since his arms swept under me. I imagined reuniting with him many, many times. Fuck, it got me through my own sleepless nights, but I never once thought I would feel embarrassed.

And I sure as fuck do.

Dirt under my fingernails. Layers of grime coating my skin. Knots in my hair. Stains on my clothes. I was hideous without checking my reflection. My oily, filthy skin would never rinse clean. Not even eight showers at the hospital helped, rubbing my skin with thin, scratchy towels until it was red and swollen.

Damian acknowledged nothing, even when he removed my clothes from sight. But he looked at me the way I looked at wounded animals brought to the hospital. Pity hung in his eyes as I relayed as many details as possible to Detective Jenks and Gail from the DA's office. Damian told me they requested a female prosecutor for me to be more comfortable.

Doesn't matter. Everyone looks at me with the same pity.

Aunt Margaret and Uncle Joseph were by far my hardest visitors to accept. Damian was stuck in a difficult position of telling them I wasn't ready to see them and me not wanting him to leave my room. So, he called them and, in the calmest voice, explained my situation in a way that both warmed and broke my heart.

"She's not ready to see people." Damian's voice vibrated across his chest, where I pressed my ear. "No, not right now... Yeah, I need to stay with her."

He then proceeded through a recap similar to the one I gave to Jenks and Gail, but with very glossed over details. Jenks' hand grip broke two pens. Gail offered that all suspected captors were held without bail and would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Edgár Santino was moved into Rikers' solitary confinement.