AllFreeNovel
Share Us
So we waited until they came, and then we took the helicopter back home.
“This is never going to be my favorite way to travel,” I yelled at him when we’d been up for five minutes.
He smiled. “Me neither, truthfully, but I’m grateful for it now.”
The house was quiet when we arrived. I stepped inside and the surrealness of it struck me hard. Everything was cleaned up, scrubbed, as if that night had never happened. Even the poker game had been put away—I never did get around to cleaning up after the game. The air conditioning buzzed, and the normalness was a disguise for the memories I could still see as if they’d just happened. I walked inside carefully, as though blood might suddenly appear and coat me in the sticky redness again, so hard to wash off.Blood. Brain matter. Skull.I hated to think about any of it.
To get to Michael’s bedroom, I had to pass the office. I couldn’t hide from where it happened, much as I might like to. Instead, I forced myself to stand there and stare.It is just a place. A terrible thing happened here, but it’s just a place.
Michael came behind me, placing his chin on my shoulder. “I never saw it coming, Bridget. Not Tito. I still can’t make one plus one equal two with him. I am going to spend time trying to figure out when he was in Russia. And how I missed it.”
I leaned into him. “If that’s what you need for closure. For me, I just think it’s all over. You killed the Russians, and they had someone set up to take me out if they weren’t successful. He almost seemed…reluctant.”
“It just doesn’t make sense to me. We both saw that murder in Russia. Why kill just you? Why wouldn’t they have him in place to kill me, too? He told you that I wouldmournyou. That doesn’t sound like Russian mobsters. It’s not their style; they wanted to wipe the slate clean. I am, just…something isn’t adding up for me, and until it does, this isn’t over. I’m sorry.”
So we wouldn’t be making plans? He said we would,when this is over. I asked, “Just tell me what you were thinking? In terms of those plans we were going to make. Something. Anything.” I don’t know why, but I needed even a tiny shard of something shaped like hope.
He sighed. “I don’t feel like I can do that, not until you’re safe. I shouldn’t even touch you until I’m sure you’re safe, so that I’m positive my focus isn’t distracted, but I don’t care. I love you. I need you in my bed with me. I have to love your body like an addict needing a hit, but I won’t take things further until you are free to walk away from me.”
I turned in his arms, considering his logic. “I think that makes the slightest bit of sense. Some might even call it romantic. I just hate it.”
His lips curled into that sensuous smile of his, the one that promised things even when his words didn’t. “Yes, but you still haven’t told me that you love me, so I may just be wasting my time, anyway.” He lifted his brows in a teasing manner.
I stared at him.Fuck.He wasn’t wrong. I really hadn’t said it outright. “I love you, Michael Li. I love you, like, Ineedyou to exist, okay? I love youcompletely. I…”
He kissed me to stop me, and it was the softest gentlest kiss. So sweet, it stole my breath and made me tremble. His deep voice rumbled over my skin. “Thank you, Bridget. I do need to hear it. I guess you might say I’m needy. Fuck, who am I kidding? I am. When it comes to you, I am so, so, so needy.”
He punctuated the words with nibbling kisses up my neck. I wrapped my arms around him. “You’ve been up for days. Come to bed.”
“Only if you do. I need to hear you breathing. It’s…my favorite sound in the world. When you’re breathing next to me.”
Snoring, I thought with a smile. I could do that for him.
The soundof the treadmill reached me as I typed on my computer the next day. Michael was running. Again. He’d been doing it off and on all day. I leaned back in my chair, tapping a pen against my lip.He is going to hurt himself if he keeps this up.
Not that I would stop him. I put the pen down and rolled my shoulders and neck to release tension. I recognized his hyperfocus on his research, since it seemed similar to when I worked on a pattern. I couldn’t speak about other things. We hadn’t faced that part of me together yet. I had to assume that he’d be okay with it. He seemed to be good about most things, when it came to me.
Was anyone ever so lucky?
I sent my sisters a text.
I’m okay. The guy I killed was going to kill me. Stephen’s going to live. Michael keeps running on the treadmill. He’s thinking really hard, and I don’t want to distract him. I love you. I tell you that, right? I’m not always that good about remembering to say it.
It took a few moments, but they both texted me back.
Hope:I love you. Let him run. It’s probably better than other things he could be doing.
Layla:You have no idea how much I love you. Can’t do without you, Bridget. If Michael is running, he must be really working something out.Give him time.
They were right. I should leave him to focus. Meanwhile, I could take stock of the kitchen situation. We needed groceries, and I had to believe it was safe enough for me to go to the store soon. Or to order groceries. What did we have that I could cook for dinner? If anything, unless it expired?
I learned the hard way once not to eat expired food. It wasn’t worth the risk.
I scowled and thought about the fact I shouldn’t have had to learn so many things via the fuck around and find out method. It wasn’t like I’d had anyone to tell me those things, with my mother gone and my father absent, after all. I’d had to figure out a lot on my own in college.
I abruptly stopped upon entering the kitchen. A cupcake waited on a plate in the middle of the granite countertop. And not just any cupcake—exactly my favorite kind of cupcake, with pink icing smothered over vanilla cake. Yes, it was girly, but I’d loved it my whole life. It was what I ordered every year on my birthday, no matter where in the world I might be.
I loved the simplicity of it.Let Hope have all the fancy desserts.I’d eat that cupcake any day of the week.Leave it to Michael to know it.
