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“You’ve graduated to beer since you no longer need the pain meds.”
“How long can we stay here?” Ice asked, taking a swallow of the icy freshness.
“As long as we want.”
Ice glanced over. “Who owns this place?”
“I do,” Echo said, picking at the paper on the bottle.
“It’s beautiful here,” Ice said, hesitant to voice the hundreds of questions that swept through his head. “It looks like a fancy vacation rental.”
Echo smiled and took a sip from the bottle. “I had the siding custom made to resemble a thatch hut when I bought it.”
“Was that around the time you left Erebus?”
Ice smiled at Echo’s look of surprise.
“Yes, it was. What do you know?” The words themselves could have sounded suspicious, but Ice found only curiosity in Echo’s deep brown gaze.
“I know that a few years ago, you left Erebus and were gone for six years. I came to work for them during your hiatus.”
“You quit the business.”
“I did. Just before you returned. That’s why we didn’t run into each other,” Ice said.
“But you came back,” Echo pointed out.
“I did.” Ice stared out at the sea. What would Echo think if he knew he’d come back to find him? He’d think he was nuts for sure. Ice rubbed the cool beer bottle against his forehead, and Echo was out of his chair with a hand pressed to his head as if feeling for a fever.
“Does your head hurt?” The assassin dropped to his knees between his splayed legs and Ice cupped Echo’s cheek, running his thumb lightly over the man’s lower lip.
“My head is fine. I’m too tough to die.”
“I saved you. I can’t let you die.”
Echo cringed inside at how stupid he sounded after he was the one who’d shot Ice, but he couldn’t stop from blurting out the words. Ever since he’d located Ice in the water beneath the pier, he couldn’t seem to let the man out of his sight.
Having Ice disappear on him last week had been a living nightmare. Echo still felt like throwing up at the memory.
All his fucked-up life, he had never had anything of his own, and right now, he considered Ice his. And god help anyone who tried to take him away.
“It’s hot and humid here. I’m use to the weather in the states. Another few days and I’ll be fine,” Ice assured him.
Echo searched the man’s face for lies and found none. The incredible blue of Ice’s eyes appeared to be magnified beneath the tropical sun. The lines of worry and stress had eased on Ice’s forehead and for that alone, Echo was glad.
He had no fucking clue how to be in a relationship and he’d probably fuck this up all ways to Sunday, but there was no going back. At least not for him.
“What are you thinking?” Ice moved the back of his fingers to his cheek and caressed him there.
“That you belong to me now.”
“Oh?” Ice said after a brief moment.
Echo wanted to kill something when he noticed the hesitation in Ice. It was going to take time for Ice to completely trust him again, and Echo never was one for being patient like the man sitting before him, but he’d try.
Ice had become too important too quickly for Echo to walk away and it didn’t only stem from when he couldn’t find Ice that day on the beach.
Echo couldn’t say exactly when this feeling began, but perhaps it had started when they’d fucked hungrily on the beach after the boat explosion. Or maybe it had begun the moment when he’d saved Ice’s life in the bathroom of that shitty bar. Because even doing that had been way out of character for him.
