Chapter 32
Nico
I drove straight to the motel from the Cole residence, thinking Alice will want to change back into her normal clothes.
But we’re just sitting here in car now, the only illumination coming from the many little lights on the dashboard of this car.
She’s taken off the wig, and her silver blonde hair is somehow glowing like moonlight despite almost no light anywhere.
She has no idea how perfect she looks. Maybe that’s the appeal for me. She’s a beauty, a total babe, but unlike all other babes out there, she has no idea she’s one of them.
All I want to do is kiss her, and hold her, lead her into the motel room and watch her take her clothes off. Or help her take them off. Then I’d be perfectly happy to just lay in bed with her in my arms.
But there’s a time and place for all that. It’s coming very soon now, but it’s not here yet.
“That went a lot better than I expected,” I say and chuckle. “With the Coles, I mean.”
She turns to me, her face so expressionless it’s a little frightening. “Now we have to deliver on what we promised them.”
I nod. “How do we proceed?”
She takes her phone from her purse and calls Zane. I can hear him perfectly well on the other end of the line, telling her that the priest is at home and looks to be settling in for the night.
“Can’t let him do that,” I say as she ends the call.
“We’ll pack everything up then go meet Zane,” she says, her voice and her face both totally expressionless now.
I want to kiss her very much, make everything better, breathe life into her. But this isn’t the time.
So I settle for wrapping my arm around her shoulders and holding her close as I walk her to her room. I half expected her to push me away, but she leaned against me and wrapped her arm around my waist. Now we’re standing at her door and she’s still not letting me go.
“What do you want with me?” she asks quietly instead of unlocking the door.
That’s easy. “Everything.”
She looks up at me, doubt the only readable expression on her face.
“Why?”
“Because you’re the most beautiful and the most interesting woman I’ve ever met,” I tell her. “Because you’re strong and brave and don’t need anyone to lean on. And yet you let me take care of you regardless.”
She cocks an eyebrow at me, suggesting she thinks I’m full of shit. I should’ve chosen my words better.
“Because I’m a challenge?”
I shake my head. “Because I fell in love with you the first time I saw you, and nothing you or anyone can do will ever change that.”
There, that’s more aligned with what I wanted to say.
She gasps, her eyes growing very wide as she looks into mine, so many emotions passing across them that I can’t read them all.
“OK,” she finally says and lets go of my waist, fishes the key from her purse and unlocks the motel room door. “I’ll meet you back here in fifteen minutes.”
Then she disappears into her motel room, leaving me standing in the dark.
I’ve never told a woman I loved her and meant it.
I meant it tonight. With everything I am.
And I’d be a liar if I said that getting only a whispered, “OK,” back doesn’t bother me.
But it wasn’t the time or the place to say it.
Maybe there will never be the right time for it. Because she’ll never accept my love. Because she’ll never return it. Because she can’t. Like she warned me.
And that’s a very scary thought. Much scarier than the thought of eternal damnation for killing a priest of the Catholic church. Which is what we’re about to go do, I think.