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I heard the scuffle again and knew he was approaching even before Charlotte spoke.
“He’s coming,” she cried. “Noah…!”
My instincts took over; they were all I had in the first place. I shoved Charlotte behind me and barked at her to run. The guy rushed at me, and I grabbed the violin case off the ground and brought it up like a shield. I expected to feel the edge of his knife open my cheek or plunge into my throat, as promised. But I heard his blade scrape against the hard plastic case. I shoved forward with all I had, and he grabbed on, locking us together as Charlotte screamed for help.
I smelled rotten teeth, sour sweat, alcohol. I think I had his knife-hand pinned between himself and the case, but that wouldn’t last. I yanked the case toward me, then shoved it back at him. The guy grunted. I felt his knife tear the sleeve of my leather jacket, and then the case was ripped out of my hands as he lost his balance and fell back.
The mugger hit the ground with another grunt, and then Charlotte’s hands were on my arm, pulling me away, crying for me to run with her. I hated that that guy was going to get her violin, but Charlotte needed to be safe. I took her arm and let her guide me away, running like a fucking coward.
I heard the quiet street open up to sounds: passing cars and voices, even at this late hour. We stopped to catch our breaths, and Charlotte’s hands were suddenly on me, patting me down, and it took me a second to realize she was searching for injury. She found the tear in my jacket, gave a little cry, and hauled up the sleeve to inspect my arm.
Finding nothing, she threw her arms around me and held me tightly; I could feel her heartbeat crashing against mine.
“You’re okay,” she said against my shoulder. “You’re okay.” She said it over and over, and I was too stunned to do anything more than hold her until she calmed down.
Charlotte led us into an all-night diner that smelled like old grease and burned coffee, and we called the police.
“I have my purse,” Charlotte said dully when I asked how she still had her phone. “I tripped on it when you told me to run and just…grabbed it. I wasn’t thinking clearly, or I would have taken your wallet too. Or your cane and tried to help. But I didn’t help. I could hardly move; I was so scared…”
The cops came to us, and we made a statement. Charlotte described the man who’d robbed us while I stewed in anger, regret, and the knowledge that I had failed her completely.
The officers didn’t sound hopeful. There was no way to track the violin down through the pawnshops as most wouldn’t take stolen goods, but the cops promised to put a call out anyway. I almost told them not to bother. The violin was as good as gone and we all knew it.
The police took us back to the townhouse—my second ride in the back of a cruiser in a week. We stepped into the foyer and Charlotte threw every lock on the door, her breath coming in shaking little sighs.
“I’m sorry, Charlotte,” I said gruffly. “I fucked up.”
“What? How?”
“I lost you your violin.”
“God, Noah, that wasn’t your fault. You protected me. You protectedus. Tomorrow, maybe, I’ll mourn it, but right now…”
Yes, right now I could hardly think of anything but Charlotte and the fact that she was alive and unhurt and here with me. I took her by the shoulders and pulled her to me fiercely, holding her as a torrent of emotions rushed out of my chest. Now that the danger was over, the enormity of what might have happened tonight swamped me. Not to me, to her. The strength of my feelings for her scared me more than a knife in the dark.
“You should have run,” I told her. “You would have been safe.”
“I should have left you?” She shook her head against me. “Impossible. And I am safe. I feel safe with you.”
I kissed her softly, tasting the salt of her tears, but no more fell. Our kiss deepened, and I infused it with every emotion I was too afraid to speak, and when she moaned softly into my mouth, I knew she felt everything I couldn’t say.
She broke away, breathlessly. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”
“You won’t be,” I whispered, stroking her hair, feeling the softness under my skin. “I couldn’t leave you if I tried.”
But for the first time in a very long time, I was nervous. She was to be my first since the accident, and I had no idea what would happen, how it would be different when I couldn’t see the woman beneath me. I worried I wouldn’t please her, that I’d humiliate myself, that all my poise and finesse from my old life was gone and I’d be reduced to something like a drunkard; fumbling and sloppy and finishing before she even began.
Charlotte put my hand on the crook of her arm and drew me with her. Not to the stairs; she was taking me to her room in her living space—a place I’d never stepped foot in until now.
“My bedroom,” she said, and I heard the nervous lilt in her voice.
I stopped at the door, shocked at how my entire body reacted; a white-hot flash of desire that surged through me. The room was suffused with Charlotte. Her perfumes, her soaps and shampoos, the scent of her on the bed… She was everywhere here, and my senses were filled with her.
“Noah?”
“Slowly,” I managed, “or I won’t last a minute.”
“I’m not worried,” she said, pushing my jacket off my shoulders.
