Golden Hour (GarouxReader lemon)

Part 10

Hello!

I have a music request from you guys but I will detail it in the chapter notes at the end! Please have a read if you have time :)

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She comes back into the kitchen and says nothing. She knows I heard the exchange. She doesn't seem mad or upset. Just carries on as usual. I don't know whether this is a good sign or not. It feels...apprehensive. Like a calm before the storm. And I keep waitin' for it.
But the storm never arrives.
"Ok, Wolf Cub," she says eventually, and for the first time I find I'm relieved to hear that pet name. She hadn't said it since she found me delirious and drenched in sweat the other night and it made feel things ain't boding well, "I need to go get some paperwork done before tomorrow so I'll leave you to it. You must be getting sick of me anyway," she jokes but I just feel this frustrating tension. I don't want her to go. And I fuckin' wish she'd stop thinking like that. And I really fucking wish I could do somethin' about it.
"Are you going to be ok?" She says, knowing full well I will be.
"I'll survive, somehow," I give her the two finger salute.
"Delilah," she says as the cat senses she's leaving and comes to say goodbye, rubbing against her ankles, "you make sure Garou stays out of trouble, ok?" she says very seriously, bending down to give her one last caress.
Delilah says meow.
She straightens up again and gives me this look. This look that almost says 'I mean it, stay out of trouble. I can't make you but for the love of God, just try'.
She's just a step away from me. I sense a moment of hesitation on her part and then she quickly closes that gap and throws her arms around me lightly, her cheek brushing against mine as she gives me this very brief hug.
"Look after yourself, ok?" she says somewhere near my ear. And I'm caught so fucking off guard I don't have time to react, to do the same, to feel my arms around her, before she steps away again.
I don't feel hated. But I don't exactly feel like her pride and fucking joy either.
This fuckin' puzzle just gets more and more complicated.

Soon enough I'd find out that I was just as forbidden to her as she was to me. That she had her own doubts running through her head, tormenting her just like mine did to me at every fucking opportunity they had. That hesitation, it wasn't the partial rejection I thought it was. But at the time I didn't see that. Just saw a woman who wasn't sure whether she wanted to be around me or not. She never lets me think that anymore. Tells me, reminds me, that she wants me with her. It took a long time. I think it's finally getting through.

The next day, I get changed after work and wait for the kid to show up. But he doesn't. Delilah sits by the front window, as if waitin' for him too. She watches the birds and occasionally tries to pounce.
"You wanna go outside, eh?" I say, coming over and giving her a scratch under her chin. "Ain't allowed to let you out just yet, hunter," I say. "Hurry up and grow big and strong."
She looks up at me and purrs as if to say, I'm way ahead of you.
Eventually it gets too late and I realise the kid isn't coming.
I should be fucking ecstatic about it but for some reason it gets to me. And the fact that it gets to me, also fucking gets to me.
I glance out again in passing and see her lights are on. But after that whole weekend I don't want to be even more of a fucking nuisance, so I stay put.
It's an instant ramen kind of evening.

I lie awake that night. I should, all things considered, be out like a fucking light but it just ain't happening.
The cat's curled up in her box. The street outside is quiet. And my mind just won't settle the fuck down.
I think back to the last fight. The blood and the glory. Then waking up feeling the world is on fire. The sound of her voice holding back tears. The relief in her eyes the next morning. How fuckin' gorgeous she looked in the morning light. The feeling of her body against mine, a fistful of my t-shirt in her hand. Those last words. 'I'm here'.
I'm here.
I find my hand aching, don't realise how long I've been clenching my fist for.
I'm here...
And that hug.
I feel like a fuckin' idiot. Grabbing on to all these straws. A look, a touch, a word...It's fucking pathetic. I should know my place by now. But I find this whole thing...I'm in too deep now. I don't want to admit it, but I'm in too fuckin' deep.
I'm here.
Yes. You are always here. In my fuckin' mind. Day and night. Always here. Breaking and making me over and over again.
If she hated me, laughed at me, dismissed me, I'd find it much easier to let go. But then she goes and strokes my hair and kisses my forehead, helps me get undressed, her hands nothing but kindness and tenderness as she runs them over my bruised body, wiping me down, laying next to me just because I wanted it.
And I can't let go. Find I'm hanging on for my fuckin' life. Hanging on to fucking straws.
I should let go. I should get this out of my system with someone else. Anyone else. Find someone to get all this fucking tension over and done with. We're all fucking animals in the end so what does it fucking matter?
And yet, it does. There's a part of my mind, something in my chest, says otherwise, knows it's not the kind of satisfaction I want.
I want-
I don't even know what it is what the fuck I want.
I don't want to fucking think about what the fuck I want.
Whatever it is, I ain't ever got it before. I don't want to fucking fool myself I'll ever get it. Something inside tells me the disappointment of trying and not succeeding would be just a little too fucking much.