Scheming Against Devotion (Book 2 of The Transition of Pinn)
Hands that held her (Chapter 17)

Ivy:

Giddean removes his hands from mine and brings them up to his face. He’s crying, softly, sadly. I can feel the oppressive weight of his guilt in the air, see it in his posture. He feels responsible for her death.

I can’t help myself. I don’t understand what happened, but I’m hesitant to ask him more. Maybe he is responsible? I don’t know. But it doesn’t sound like he murdered her, however responsible he feels for her death. And I can’t do anything to help her now.

So I do the only thing that comes naturally to me. I lean forward and wrap my arms around Giddean, trying to comfort him.

He jumps a little when he feels my arms try to encase him, but he lets me hold him. My arms don’t reach all the way around his wide shoulders, but he doesn’t seem to mind. I can see the anguish in his posture, he shakes slightly as he cries. It’s clear how much he cared about her and it surprises me, Giddean has always seemed so distant and well…. logical, caring more about work than anything else. But perhaps that is because of what happened with Julia…

I pull him closer towards me so that he is leaning down with his head on my breasts, his hair tickling my neck. I run my fingers through his dark wavy hair. It breaks my heart how much this affects him.

“Giddean, it’s not your fault she ran away. She was an adult, it was her choice” I whisper to him.

He leans back out of my arms, wiping his face with his sleeve, “You don’t understand. It was my job to protect her, just like it is my job to protect you. And…” He pauses as turns his face away “I fucking failed you both.”

“You didn’t fail us, Giddean. I’m here, nothing happened to me. And she ran away, Giddean. It was her choice.” I argue again, but he is not listening. He is already disentangling himself from me and getting up to leave.

I should, but I can’t let him go when he’s feeling like this. I hate that about myself sometimes.

He is already standing when I call out: “Giddean, what is the difference? You say the sacrificed women had a choice and they bear the responsibility of that choice. Why not Julia?” Yeah, I’m probably provoking him, but it’s better than watching him feeling sorry for himself.

He huffs and turns, “I don’t expect you to understand.”

I too am now standing and I can feel my irritation grow. He doesn’t make any sense. Either women have agency or they don’t. Either women are responsible for themselves or they aren’t. And not surprisingly I am leaning towards the former.

He is so much taller than me and yet I feel safe around him. I look up into his dark eyes which glint in the candlelight. Dark and handsome, remorseful, and surprisingly… caring. As quickly as my irritation rose, it falls again. He cared for her, she died, and he is still dealing with that.

He is watching me, looking down his thin aristocratic nose, his square jaw set, his lips in a thin line, and his eyes narrowed. He is ready for a fight, perhaps that would make him feel better, distract him from the pain of his loss even if only for a moment.

It’s somehow sweet he’s deeply hurting. Looking into his eyes I feel the strong need to smooth the lines on his face, to make him feel better. So I do the only thing I can think of to distract him from his pain.

I stand on my toes, lean into his towering frame and press my lips to his.

He doesn’t respond, his lips remain frozen in their pressed state. So I pull back, staking my head at my own foolishness. God, I’m an idiot- I don’t know why I thought kissing him when he was mourning another woman was a good idea.

I take a step back and fix my eyes onto the wall, anywhere but at him really. I feel the heat in my cheeks. How I continue to replace new ways to embarrass myself, I don’t know. I bite my lower lip as I mull over my stupidity.

After a few minutes, I feel his hands on my hips as he draws himself near. In reaction, I look up at him. He leans over me, his eyes jump between my lips and my eyes, almost as if he is waiting for me to object or push him away. I don’t though; I don’t do anything to spook him.

He brushes his lips softly against my own before kissing me sweetly. He tilts his head to the side as one of his hands brushes against my cheek before it slowly trails down my neck, along my waist, and settles again on my hip.

He suddenly yanks me towards him, pulling my hips so that I pressed right against him. I wrap my arms around his neck in response. His warmth seeping into me. He has gone from sweetly kissing my lips to passionately making out. He pulls me harder against him and I feel it, his length growing against my stomach.

I’m shocked but at the same time, somehow, aroused. Something about tonight brought us closer together.

He moves so that he is kissing my neck while slowly grinding into me. Despite the passion, he is still being gentile and everything about the moment feels fragile.

And I remember what happened last time we tried to be… intimate. I can’t imagine if that happened what it would do to him. No, tonight I will be brave and take things into my own hands.

And so I sink down to my knees.