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“Everyone dies.” He was a damned serial killer, so he knew that better than anyone.
His arms tightened around me. “Not you.”
I clung to his chest, whispering, “I couldn’t do it. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.” More tears fell, and they wetted his shirt. I was too tired to be ashamed, too exhausted to try to pull away. It was… it was nice to have his arms around me. “I’m just so tired. I want it all to stop.” I could hear Brett’s heart beating through his shirt, and it sounded like it beat harder than mine.
Did he… did he really care? Had he raced back because he cared about me? A part of me thought it was impossible, but another part wanted so desperately to believe it.
“It doesn’t stop,” Brett told me.
Through my tears, I managed a chuckle. “Gee, thanks.”
“No, I mean it. It never stops, but it doesn’t need to, because you can get stronger. You might not believe me, but you can. You get stronger, and you do whatever you can to live through it. That’s the most important part, Charlie:living. The hardest thing in this world is to live in it, and if you think I’m going to sit back and let you take yourself away from it, well, let me tell you something.”
One of his arms moved, and a set of fingers curled around my lower jaw, forcing me to pull my head off his chest and stare at him, wet face and all. His intense expression had softened somewhat, a look in his eyes I couldn’t decipher.
“I won’t let you,” he growled out, his voice so low and dangerous I fought an instant shiver. “I willnotlet you hurt yourself, Charlie. You’re worth so much more than you think, and I’ll annoy the shit out of you every day until you realize it.”
I couldn’t look away from him. “But what about—”
“Nothing else matters to me right now except you.” He said it so easily, so simply, as if I was stupid for not realizing it myself, like it should’ve been obvious he’d forget about his unfinished business in order to make sure I was okay.
“I just don’t know if I can keep going,” I whispered.
“You can, because I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere. Tell me to leave again, and I’ll give you the middle finger salute. I’m here. You can take whatever you need, whatever you want from me.” Brett heaved a heavy breath, and the hand cupping my jaw lifted to my face, swiping away a fresh tear. “You can take everything.”
I couldn’t say a word. All I could do was stare into those piercing blue eyes and wonder why my heart tugged with every word he spoke. I wanted to lean into him and breathe him in, feel his warm skin on mine again.
Everything I wanted from him I shouldn’t, though, because he was a bad man, a bad man who’d done very bad things. People like him didn’t get a happy ending in real life.
The hand that wiped a tear away swept back into my hair, and he pulled me into him again, cradling my entire body as he said again, “You can have everything.”
That was the problem. I did want everything. I wanted everything from him and it terrified me. Brett made me feel things I’d given up on. He brought me back to life.
The harsh truth was, though, I couldn’t have everything—not forever.
But that’s life.
All I knew was: to my parents, he was Ian, my twenty-nine-year-old boyfriend who I’d met by pure happenstance at my school. But to me, to the rest of the world, he was thirty-one-year-old Brett Banks, a wanted serial killer who I’d hit with my car and then kidnapped because I’d wanted his help with my stalker.
Maybe all the lies weren’t so bad. How could they be, when those lies only bound us together?
I didn’t know how long I’d have Brett in my life, but I swore it to myself then: it didn’t matter. I’d enjoy this ride as long as it lasted, and I’d only get off once life made me.
Besides, Brett still had a stalker to take care of for me.
