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Quillan stands, rolling his shoulders. “Guess we’ll leave you two to your… whatever this is.” His eyes soften when they land on me. “Good luck, bambino.”
Mathias pulls a business card from his jacket and sets it on the hallway table, next to my picture frame. “If you need anything. Anything at all.” He taps the card, then looks at Adrien. “You know how to reach me.”
Adrien’s answer is a sound that’s almost a growl.
Just before they reach the door, though, Adrien curses and says to them, “There’s a package in the trunk. You owe it to me after that shit.”
Quillan grins. “Damn, we really interrupted your errand, huh?”
Adrien gives him the finger as Mathias looks at Quillan with a grimace. “Handle it,” he tells him flatly.
“Yeah, yeah, always my fault.”
Mathias and Quillan leave together, closing the door behind them with a click that echoes through the rooms.
For a second, everything is still. Then Adrien charges toward me and takes my face in both hands, holding me so tight it almost hurts, but I don’t flinch. He leans his forehead against mine, breathing hard.
“You swear they didn’t touch you?”
“I swear, Daddy.”
He exhales in relief, then drags his thumbs over my cheeks. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”
I shake my head. “I was okay.”
He doesn’t look like he believes me, but he sits on the couch and pulls me into his lap, wrapping me up so tight I can’t tell where he ends and I start. His pulse is a wild throb beneath my cheek. My hands are small and useless against his chest, but I press them there anyway.
He holds me for a long time, his arms caging me in, chin hooked over the crown of my head like he’s afraid that if he lets go, I’ll vanish. I don’t squirm, or apologize, or try to be brave. I just burrow into the heat and weight of him until the last electric threads of terror unwind in my chest, and my body starts to feel like my own again.
Eventually, he pulls back, cupping my jaw to tip my face up. “You’re sure you’re alright?”
I nod, almost dizzy with the tenderness in his eyes. “I was just… scared. When I woke up and you were gone, I thought—” The memory needles me, and I flinch, then look away, ashamed.
He tips my chin forward with a knuckle. “I’m not going anywhere, Kammie. There’s nowhere in this world I’d rather be than right here with you.”
I squeeze his hand, a little too hard. “Promise?”
He leans in and nuzzles my temple. “On my fucking life.”
I relax into him, not even caring anymore that my cheeks are wet. He kisses the tears off, one by one, and then carries me into a silence so complete I can finally hear myself breathe.
We stay like that until the sun has shifted halfway across the sky, and the only sound in the room is the slow rhythm of Adrien’s heart against my ear. At some point, he starts stroking my thigh with lazy, absentminded motions, tracing the line where my sweater ends and bare skin begins.
Every time his fingers drift higher, the air between us stretches tight, until I’m trembling with something that’s not fear anymore.
When he notices, he tugs me closer, so that my legs are draped over his, and I’m sitting in his lap like a little kid. “You know I meant what I said, right?” he asks, voice low and dangerous in the most beautiful way. “About what I’d do if you ever actually tried to run.”
The words make me shiver, but not from cold.
I bite the inside of my cheek. “I know,” I admit, and the words come out breathy. “I wouldn’t get very far.”
He smiles, all sharp edges. “No, sweetheart. You wouldn’t.”
Something hot and wild sparks in my belly. My thoughts are static, fuzzed with need.
Adrien tips my chin up again, eyes searching mine. “You want to know what I’d do to you?”
I nod, my cheeks going nuclear. I can barely speak.
