#Chapter 45: Intimacy

Nan’s POV This man…oh this man…. A few little words and defenses shatter. He is the center of all my fears. And my desires… It was his voice that pulled me from the depth of my nightmare. A lifeboat out of the cold and dark. Saving my drowning soul as well as my physical body. He makes me want to fight…. to fight him when provoked…to fight against the injustice I face …to fight for myself. I thought I had felt his arms around me in my delirium. Embracing me. Whispering reassurances and promises. ‘I must be imagining it,’ I thought. ‘Why would Lionel be here when I am so unwell?’ Then I woke up from my sickness. And there he was. Sitting at my beside. Tired lines were etched on his face. His fancy party outfit crumbled and dirtied. His face unshaven for the first time I’d seen him. ‘So handsome, even when he looks exhausted,’ I muse. Yet he smiled so warmly at me. Open relief all over his face. It left me confused. Hadn’t he left me to the wolves? Had he not stood