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“Blaire... you with me?”
I blink up at Charlie, coming back from my thoughts.
“You know,” I say, my tone low and soft, “maybe we can put Mexico on hold for a while. Maybe we could go back to your house here and it'll be just like before when it was just us, though obviously James will be there now.” My foggy head likes to imagine life as it was. It was perfect. There was no Maksim, just Charlie and me. Just how I want it to be.
Just as it is now.
“If that's what you want, baby,” Charlie says, dropping the syringe on the tray. He wipes a few loose strands of hair back out of my face and cups my cheek.
“Really?”
He nods at me, his eyes crinkling because he's smiling. There's something about his mood tonight. He's not completely content but neither is he angry. I can't tell what's wrong with him.
“Yes...” I smile to myself regardless of his weird mood, recalling the first morning Charlie and I woke up together in my bed—when I really let myself go and allowed my feelings for him to come out. I felt so whole, like I was right where I was supposed to be.
“I miss waking up next to you.” I take Charlie's hand from my face and hold it; fiddle with his long, callous fingers. “I miss my room at your house. We can stay in my room again, right?”
“Course we can,” he says. “If youwant togo back to the house for a while so you can recover, then that's what'll happen. You want us to stay in your room, then that's where we'll be.”
I smile again, somewhat staying in my thoughts—my memories. “Maybe we'll go have dinner like you wanted to?”
“We will,” he says, his eyes glancing up and down between my eyes and my mouth. “We'll do whatever youwant todo, baby.”
Feeling tired, I rest my eyes with a sigh. Something brushes over the bandage on my wrist where Maksim’s bite mark will forever be—where my bracelet should be.
My bracelet...I hate that it's gone. It hurts that it's gone.
“You could get me another bracelet like the one you gave me before.” I open my heavy eyes to look at Charlie. “I’m sorry I lost it.”
“Now why would I buy you another one when I have this?” Pressing his foot into the floor, he lifts his hips up off the chair so he can dig through his pockets, and shows me my bracelet.
I can't even put it in words how I feel... Despite it all—the suffering and the pain, broken by the thought that James might be dead, thinking I'll never see Charlie again and killing my master—I think I'm happy, finally.
Charlie unclips the pulse reader from my finger and slips the bracelet over my right hand this time. He puts the pulse reader back on, clicks the clasp shut on my bracelet, and lifts my hand to his mouth; kisses my inner wrist, sending some intense vibes through my body.
“Maybe I'll get you the gold one to match,” he kisses my wrist again, his eyes dazzling with something raw, “and you can wear them together.”
“You will?” I say, hungry for that moment again—the moment he first gave the bracelet to me. I was beyond anxious but I just didn't understand what was going on between us. Now I do, I want all those moments again and more.
“Sure I will. Anything you want, you can have it, Blaire.”
He keeps saying things like that—whatever I want. I swear if I asked for the sun he'd go right up there and get it for me.
He glances at the monitor and I notice the beeping has slowed.
“I'm gonna inject the anesthetic now,” as soon as he says that, I'm utterly frightened. Some people don't wake up from anesthetic, and given my physical state, I'm frightened I won't make it through the operation. I'm frightened I'll be joining Maksim sooner than I have to.
“Charlie,” I blink at him with obvious fear, “if I don't wake up, you'll take care of James, won't you?”
“Hey,” he leans into me so we're eye to eye, his widening in what almost looks like anger, “don't say things like that, Blaire. You're gonna wake up. You're gonna be fine. I'll be there while you have your operation and I'll be there when you wake up, okay? Nothing bad is gonna happen.”
I swallow down my nerves, shakily nodding.
“Don't be scared, baby. You know I won't let anything happen to you.” His eyes search mine in a desperate attempt to connect to me. “The sooner the operation is done, the sooner we can leave and go home and everything will be fine. It'll be just like before except there'll be no one between us, all right?”
The idea that it will be just us is comforting.
“And then we can be together properly, right, Charlie?” It's all I want now, for us to really be anus.
