Page 60 of Dirty Pool

It had to be heard again.

“I’m sorry,” Charles mumbled. “I’m so sorry, Gabbie.”

“This has to stop, Daddy,” she told him. “Don’t you understand? It has to stop now.”

He nodded fast. “And it will. It will.”

She wanted to believe him.

But could she?

• • •

Gabbie was almost drifting to sleep in the hospital bed when the jiggling of the doorknob had her blinking back awake instantly. The hospital had long since quieted—visiting hours were over, and despite her father’s complaints, he wasn’t allowed to stay.

She ate a snack that the sweet nurse brought in, and realized all at once just how knackered she was. Sure, she kept asking for her phone so that she could call Michel, but no one seemed to know where in the hell it went. She resigned herself to falling asleep when nothing on the small TV seemed interesting, and she really didn’t have anything else to do.

Peeking over the pile of blankets, and expecting the same nurse to check in like she had done an hour earlier, Gabbie froze in the bed. It wasn’t the nurse at all.

“Michel.”

He winked, gave her a smile, and slipped in the room without ever saying a word. He closed the door behind him, and she swore it didn’t even click when it latched shut. His footsteps couldn’t even be heard as he quickly crossed the room, and came to the side of her bed.

“Did they make you leave?” she asked.

He shrugged, his hand coming up to stroke her cheek and move some of the wild curls out of her face. The graze of his fingertips along her cheekbone was enough to make her eyes flutter shut, and she reveled in warm, soft skin against her own.

“No one made me do anything,” he said, making her open her eyes again to look at him above her. “But it wasn’t exactly comfortable out there. Someone was kind enough to say I probably didn’t want to be here when your father finally came around, so I slipped out and walked around until visiting hours were over. I snatched an ID someone had left sitting around in the cafeteria to get back in your ward once everyone was already gone.”

He flashed the badge in question, chuckling. “I’ll drop it off at the nurses’ station before I head out again.”

She blinked. “You didn’t actually leave?”

Michel smiled. “Why would I leave, Gabbie?”

“I just … never mind.”

In the next breath, he bent down so that he could drop a sweet kiss to the very tip of her nose. Gabbie couldn’t help but grin under her pile of blankets, suddenly a hell of a lot warmer than she had been before. His hands slipped in to cup her face, so he could tilt her head up a bit, and get another kiss.

That one wasn’t as innocent.

Still sweet, sure.

But it burned her from the inside out, too.

“Scared me to death,” he whispered against her lips.

“Me, too.”

“I bet.”

“Thanks for staying.”

Michel laughed darkly. “Oh, I wasn’t going anywhere. Fucking nobody was keeping me out of here, no matter what I had to do to get back to you.”

God, she loved that.

And him.