AllFreeNovel
Share Us
They were both asleep when his phone dinged at six with a calendar alert. He fumbled for it and tapped the screen. Shit, where had his brain gone?
“What?” she asked.
“With everything last night, I wasn’t thinking.” He pictured the open suitcase on his bed. “I have to fly out again this afternoon.”
Early morning light hadn’t yet brightened the room, so maybe it was wishful thinking, but he could have sworn disappointment clouded her expression. “I can change it. I’ll help you get settled at home and catch up with the team in a day or two.”
“You are not. Where are you going?”
“Brazil, Argentina, and Chile.”
“When do you come back?”
“This is a long one—almost three weeks.”
She sighed. “Well, can we get together when you come home? I mean, not like that . . .” The blush rose in her cheeks as she stammered. “I know it might sound hypocritical. I practically take you hostage to have sex—alotof sex—extraordinary sex . . .”
She glanced away, like she was picturing it. “And now I say I’m not ready for anything more, but . . .” She gazed up at him with those big brown eyes. “I’d still like to see you.”
He took her hand again, and this time he laced his fingers between hers. “And I would like to see you. It doesn’t sound hypocritical.” He thought of that intense night, afterward on the floor, how she’d moved back toward him, almost close enough to spoon.
And last night, how she finally let him hold her, how she relaxed and fell asleep against him. How his chest felt so full when she did. “We can get together for whatever you want. Do you play chess?”
He loved her modest smile. “No. Scrabble.”
“That’s unfortunate,” he teased. “I have a strict policy against playing that with writers. It’s bad for my ego. How about this: I’ll bring back spices from some of the markets, and I’ll cook dinner for us. Saturday night, the . . .” He picked up his phone, opened his calendar, and gave her the date. “My place, on the terrace.”
“That sounds perfect.”
“It does. A lot better than having my ass handed to me on a wooden tile worth two points. Seven o’clock?”
“Seven o’clock.”
That smile of hers, he would never tire of seeing it. He took both her hands and guided her back toward the stack of pillows.
“Rest. I’ll check on you later.” He held onto her until her weight shifted and her head touched the top pillow, releasing the scent of her hair.
If they were going to take a step back, he would have to ask her to change her shampoo. The fucking raspberries were going to be his undoing.
Slowly, he stepped backward toward the door, facing her and watching as the vacant, faraway look in her eyes these past few weeks began to focus closer, he hoped, on the present.
11
ALMOST AS IF
The second she got home from the hospital, she took the orange bottle of pain medicine out of her purse, dropped the bag at the top of the stairs, and undressed on the way to the shower.
With her cheek out of the spray—plastic surgeon’s orders—she let the warm water rain down, let the mist, the steam, soak into her skin.
When the pads of her fingers started to wrinkle, she turned the water off and pulled her towel from the rod. At the vanity, she pressed and twisted the cap off the pill bottle until it popped and eyed the capsules.
Her cheek was sore. Her body was bruised in a few spots and it hurt from hitting the ground, but she hadn’t broken anything.
If she took the medicine, she would sleep, and she was tired. But the pain was not bad—it was nothing compared to the pain of despair she had felt all these months.
Or the outrage she felt at that creepy asshole the more she pictured his sneering face. The capsules would not help that, though. Tracking him down to learn if he had some connection to the club or one of its members would, and Harris had many a detective colleague. She placed the cap back on the bottle, twisted it until it clicked, and threw it into the trash.
She put on her robe and pulled the belt tighter, determined. People had told her she would know when it was time and, now, although she could not pinpoint exactly why, it was.
