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This time Tristan Caine left the room.
Morana sat back, stunned.
Overwhelmed.
Her eyes still stayed glued to the screen, watching her father make calls and whatnot. She pressed rewind and watched it all again from the start. The entrance, the broken thumb, the threats, the gunshot, more threats, the exit. And then she watched it again, and again, and again, until every stance, every nuance, every word had imprinted itself on her heart. Every word of his hammered onto her heart, cracking it open slowly, until it split in two and let him in.
She could not remember, not once in her life, anyone standing up for her. She had lived with men who were supposed to be strong and lived in fear. She had lived with her father turning the other way when men touched her under the table. She had lived alone, never, ever thinking someday, someone would storm into her father’s office, fearless, hurt him, threaten him, all for her.
And he had. Even before she had asked him to make a choice, he already had. Even before he knew that she knew, he had wanted to protect her. Even before she had exposed herself to him the way she had, he had wanted her. That entire interaction with her father - hours before he had found her, only based on their interactions as they had been - had shown her nothing but his fierce protectiveness and the respect he had for her.
A tear rolled down her cheek as she put the laptop on the table. Morana wiped it away, her heart full in a way it had never been. Surrounded in a warm, safe place with a strange woman who had opened her heart to her, with friends in her life and a man who would go to the ends of the earth for her without fear, her heart was full.
Standing up, she went to the window, more tears escaping her eyes - joy, sadness, pain, relief, gratitude all mixing together in a concoction until she couldn’t tell one from the other. Staring out into the lawns, she didn’t move until she heard the main door to the house open and Dante’s voice drifted in. Morana turned to the door, her heart in her throat, and waited for it to open.
It did.
Dante and Tristan walked in, both men still dressed in the same suits as they were in the morning but rumpled now. Dante’s tie was askew and Tristan wasn’t wearing one. Dante looked at her and gave her a small smile. Tristan just looked at her.
And Morana couldn’t hold it in anymore.
Without a moment’s hesitation, she ran towards him, and threw her arms around his neck, holding on tight.
S
he felt his body go rigid with stunned surprise and buried her face into the crook of his neck.
“Dante,” she heard his voice rumble from his chest.
“I’ll be outside,” Dante spoke. Morana heard the door shut behind them.
And then she felt his arms come around her, tentatively, as if unsure of how to hold her. Morana wrapped her own tighter around his neck, standing on her toes, leaning her entire weight into him, pressed into him like that for the first time. His arms, slowly, held her tighter, one around her waist, the other coming up to cup the back of her head.
“Did something happen?” he asked in a quiet, almost soothing whisper, the whiskey-and-sin of his voice right next to her ear.
Overcome with all the emotion bursting inside her, her eyes leaking, she shook her head.
“You okay?” his tone relaxed slightly.
She nodded into his neck.
She could feel his confusion at the way she was behaving but for once, she didn’t care. She deserved to hold someone who cared for her as he did. He deserved to be held by someone who cared for him as she did.
Without another word, he picked her up and moved in the direction of the seating area. Morana clung to the strong muscles in his neck, her legs hanging in the air. He turned, sitting down on the same couch she’d been sitting on and Morana bent her legs to accommodate, straddling him, feeling the gun at his waist press inside her thigh, still hiding in the space between his neck and shoulder.
She could smell his musky scent and his cologne mixed around his pulse, feel the vein throbbing against her cheeks as she nuzzled into him, feel his soft hair against her hands as she ran her fingers through the strands. His heart beat against her breasts crushed to his chest. His warm muscles felt hard against every curve of hers. His pelvis tucked into her hips perfectly.
His arms, tight around her smaller frame, didn’t move. Not to stroke, not to explore, not to do anything. She could sense he was half-afraid it would trigger her into something and half-confused as to why she was clinging to him like a koala to his favorite branch.
After minutes and minutes of holding him, and him allowing her to hold him without complaint, Morana pulled her face out of his neck and looked at his Adam’s apple, exposed by the unbuttoned collar of his white shirt.
Letting her eyes travel upwards, she finally locked her gaze with his.
Those blue, blue eyes made her sigh softly. They were patient, not in the alert way of predators but in a softer, much tender way. He was waiting for her to explain her bizarre behavior.
Morana moved her hands to the sides of his face, cupping his jaw in her palms, feeling that scruff scraping against her palm in that delicious way and told him, in two words, with every emotion strangling her heart.
“Thank you.”
