Chapter 5 Aerin
AERIN
“You saved my life.” Words I shouldn’t have to say, but the truth is unavoidable.
It was supposed to be fun. They promised me fun. I thought they liked me. By the time I realized they were just taking me further and further away without any real care, it was too late. It became a game to them.
I just wanted a friend, and instead I got three people who wanted to take my money then led me up onto that walkway, promising to show me a beautiful view of the city. Instead, they wanted to kill me.
“We shouldn’t make this a habit.” Falco opens the door to a small house and ushers me inside. He lingers on the doorstep for a few seconds, staring up and down the street, then he joins me in the hallway and closes the door.
I don’t move.
I stand where he left me while he slides several locks into place and secures the door.
When he faces me, I try to look up at him, but Falco doesn’t look me in the eye. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was avoiding looking at me.
I blink slowly and the world fuzzes around the edges of my vision.
Falco guides me by the shoulders into a small kitchen that hasn’t seen love or warmth in years.
He sets his bag down on the single circular table in the middle of the room and starts to unpack.
A couple of long knives, ammo magazines, and his gun join each other on the table, followed by a small tin of instant coffee.
“Should I call my dad?” I clutch my hands together at my stomach.
“He knows,” Falco replies stiffly. “We’re staying here until I get the all clear.”
“All clear?”
Finally, he looks at me, not directly but he faces me for a short minute.
His golden eyes have lost all their sparkle, and they look almost black under the heavy curl of his brow.
Wrinkles deepen around his eyes. For a moment, I think he’s not going to say a word. After pressing his lips together, he speaks.
“No one can get in touch with Giacomo. After what happened to you, we’re not moving from this spot until he’s located. Understand?”
I know he just saved my life, I know I made a terrible decision chasing after people because the craving for a friend was so strong, and I know I’m at fault here, but something about the way Falco speaks irritates me.
Maybe it’s the alcohol or the adrenaline still pumping rapidly around my system.
Maybe it’s my close call with death, I’m not sure. But everything about Falco suddenly irritates me.
From his dark hair to his rough, handsome face, right down to his sexy, strong hands that somehow caught me when I fell and lifted me like I weighed absolutely nothing, it irritates me.
How can we go through that and yet he still talks to me like I’m nothing?
“Maybe I don’t understand,” I say, stepping closer to him.
“Maybe you need to word it clearer.” As I reach out to touch his elbow, he sidesteps me, but I follow.
“You can’t even look at me, can you? Is that in your fucking guidebook on how to keep me safe?
Sure, you’ll kill people and throw yourself after me, but a normal conversation? Is that really so hard?”
Falco keeps his back to me until I shove both my hands into him and he stumbles ever so slightly into the table.
“Why won’t you look at me, huh?”
He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move. He’s like a statue and a weight settles in my chest, inflating with every passing second until I can barely breathe.
“I almost died!” I gasp. “You saved my life and then it’s like a switch has flicked and you’re back to being this cold, dead statue.
What the fuck is wrong with you? Am I hideous or something?
Are you so fucking disgusted that you can’t stand being latched to someone like me?
Well, sorry, not all women are paper-thin like my mother, okay?
Not everyone can be like her. Don’t you think I’ve yearned to be like her since the day I knew I was different?
Maybe then I would have friends and I wouldn’t have to chase after killers because I’m so desperate for someone to talk to me! ”
Falco spins on the spot and suddenly grabs my shoulders. His lips part ever so slightly, and a fleck of light returns to his eyes as his gaze locks onto mine. “Aerin. Stop. You’re drunk. You need coffee and sleep.”
“No, I don’t!” I snap, shoving at him again despite how he doesn’t move.
“I feel alive, do you know what that’s like?
I feel like I can see and smell everything, I can feel everything, which means you being such a dick is amplified and it sucks!
What’s your problem, huh? You can’t look at me unless I’m yelling at you, is that it? ”
Falco’s eyes dart back and forth between my own, but he doesn’t flinch despite how loud I yell. He just stands there and takes it, which infuriates me further.
But his hands are on my shoulders and that warmth seeps deep into my heart, soothing some of the pressure that’s restricting my breathing.
Am I this starved of attention?
“Say something!”
“What do you want me to say?” Falco says quietly, his tone flat. “I don’t care about your mother or your family. I’m here to do a job.”
“A job? You save my life and I’m just a job to you? Is there nothing human inside you that can give even a word of comfort?” Back on the walkway, Falco was warm.
He held me close to his chest until I stopped crying, then he took my hand and cupped my face so I didn’t have to see the bodies while he guided me down the steps to the ground.
That Falco made my heart flutter.
This one infuriates me.
“It’s my duty,” Falco replies in that same tone. “I swore an oath to your father and I’ll follow that through to the end. Which includes making sure you don’t leave my sight even for a second after the stunt you just pulled.”
“You think that was a stunt?” I roll my eyes. “You’ve spent the past week tearing my life apart and you think tonight was a stunt? How can you know everything about me and yet know nothing. Some fucking guard you are.”
“Aerin, you’re drunk.”
“I’m not! I’m actually perfectly sober, I’m just feeling so fucking alive that nothing else really matters. Not that you’d know. If I were drunk, would I do this?”
It surges up like a wave inside me, and as Falco speaks I throw myself forward into his chest and clutch at his shirt.
There’s a second, a single second when my lips brush against his and his stubble tickles my chin and my cheek.
His lips are soft. Softer than I’d expect of a man so hard and grumpy, but they’re as soft as clouds and warm too.
It’s a kiss that’s barely a kiss, a brief glimpse of a touch that ends when Falco tightens his grip on my shoulders and holds me away at arm’s length.
“Go and take a shower. You need to sober up.”
Irritation swells in my chest as he doesn’t even acknowledge the kiss and warmth stings behind my eyes. “Bet you say that a lot,” I snap. “Who would ever try to kiss you sober?”
Something flickers in Falco’s eyes as I pull away from him, a look that’s so subtle and soft that it drags my attention back to him, but the look is gone before I can decipher it through the drunken haze fogging my mind.
This is how I end the night.
Death nearly took me.
My friends were not my friends at all, and my handsome bodyguard is nothing more than a stone statue.
Stomping down the short hall into the bathroom doesn’t grant me the privacy I expect, though, because for some reason Falco follows.
“What are you doing?”
“I told you I wasn’t letting you out of my sight.”
“You literally just told me to shower.”
“It’s right behind you.”
“I’m not going to shower with you here!” I glare at him, eyes wide. He’s got to be kidding.
“I’ll turn my back.”
“You’ll shut the door!”
Falco stands in the doorway and leans against the door frame, his arms crossed at his chest. “After you just slipped away from me at the bar, there are no doors closed between us until I can trust you. I’ll turn my back.”
He’s actually serious.
Fine.
Two can play at that game.
Glaring at him, I grasp the straps of my dress. Just as I slip them down from my shoulders, Falco turns his back and faces the hallway.
The dress pools down at my ankles and I step out of it, wobbling slightly and making as much noise as I can.
At the same time, I remove my underwear and snap the elastic of my panties against my skin, snap the elastic of my strapless bra as I remove it and dump it in the sink, and even groan as I loudly kick off my shoes.
He doesn’t move.
It almost doesn’t even look like he’s breathing.
Then I’m standing in a small, unfamiliar bathroom, completely naked, with Falco literally three feet away.
It’s as surreal as this entire night.
The urge to taunt him rises, but rather than pushing at him to start an argument I turn on the shower and wince.
“You’re right, I do need a shower,” I mutter. “Need to wash off what it felt like to touch you.”
Falco doesn’t react. Of course he doesn’t.
Rolling my eyes, I climb into the shower and tug at the floral curtain hanging limply from the metal frame.
Other than jangling the loops and rustling the plastic, the curtain doesn’t budge.
Wear and tear or age weld it to the bar and my frustration builds further.
At a loss, I face the hot stream of water and bury myself in the shower.
Tonight was supposed to be amazing. It started that way.
Those people were so nice to me but in the end…they weren’t friends.
They didn’t care about me.
They just wanted to hurt me.
And Falco, the asshole, he came for me.
His words about it being his job echo in my sluggish thoughts and a strange, raw sensation spreads from the base of my throat and down into my chest.
The hot water is a blessing as it hides the tears that creep into my eyes and washes off the glitter and dirt clinging to my skin from the warehouse.
Ignoring Falco, I wash myself slowly but poorly as dirt reveals grazes on my knees and palms and one angry cut near my ankle.
The weight of the water sends the pins in my hair clattering down into the bath and I have to wrestle the others out of my curls before they get too tangled.