Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
THORNE
Watching Leaf fall onto the pavement, not even bothering to put his hands out, has me rushing from my car to help him. God, this guy cannot catch a break, can he? Maybe this is why he ended up a criminal. Maybe he got so beaten down that he ended up snapping.
Maybe Michael was just a poor victim in all of this.
Or maybe he’s not a criminal after all. Maybe this is all just one big misunderstanding.
Either way, it does nothing to deter me from rushing to his side and helping Leaf sit up. He has a gash on his cheek and dirt on his clothes, but other than that, he’s okay.
I think.
“Well, that was embarrassing,” he murmurs. “I blame bootcamp and happy himbos who want to work out at the butt-crack of dawn.”
“It’s eight o’clock.”
“It might as well be five a.m. I’m half-dead.”
“Well, after that fall, you might be.”
Leaf sighs and lets me help him up. His knees are a little scratched, but nothing major. That could have been a lot worse.
“Anyway, I saw your car in the parking lot, so I thought I’d say hi,” I lie. I’d seen the words on his lips as he was walking over, so I knew he was suspicious.
Leaf blinks at me. “How—?”
‘Lipreading,’ I sign. I don’t tell him I was trained in it before I started losing my hearing.
He huffs for a beat. “Seriously, are you stalking me?”
“I—”
“Because if you are, that’s very hot, and I would definitely tell you to keep doing it.”
I let out a small laugh. God, why is he like this? And why do I like that about him so much? Maybe it’s because I’ve been alone for too long, working behind a desk, staring at horrific things all day.
Or maybe it’s been a while since someone has looked past my hearing loss and at the person I am.
A guy who can do that can’t be bad. Right?
“Stalking is such an ugly word,” I tell him, deciding to opt for the truth. “I was following you.”
“Stalking, following. Doesn’t matter. Either way, it’s not unwanted. Unless you saw me in that bootcamp thing just now. Then we’re going to pretend like today never happened.”
“I didn’t.” I can’t help smiling. Why is his chaos so damn charming?
He lets out a heavy, relieved sigh and sags forward. “Well, thank fuck for that. It was embarrassing. I played dead for half of it. Not that Thom let me get away with it.”
Something ugly rears up inside of me, and I bite it back. “Who’s Thom?”
“A friend. A very happy friend who likes working out a little too much.”
“Alright.” The feeling hasn’t abated, but I have no business being jealous. We’re not a thing. I don’t have things with potential murderers.
Leaf wets his lips and peers up at me. That small gash on his cheek only makes him cuter. “Well, what are you going to do now that you’ve been caught? Follow me around town? Home? Right into bed? Because that’s where I was planning on going.”
“Perhaps. I wouldn’t be a good stalker if I told you where I was going to appear.”
He bites his lip and grins. “Right. Well then, Mr. Thorne, I shall see you when I catch you.” He winks at me and starts to stalk off, but not before turning around and leaning toward me.
“And maybe, the next time I catch you, I’ll suck you off again.
You know, as a thank-you for helping me just now.
And in general, being ridiculously hot.”
He adjusts his pants slightly, and my skin heats, my cock perking up between my legs. Fuck, what is this guy doing to me?
I stand there, wordlessly watching him get in his car and pull out onto the street. When I can no longer see him, I jump back behind my steering wheel and stare at the road ahead of me.
I really should go back to my place and do more research. I need to figure out how Leaf ended up in the middle of a dark web purchase, who Michael really is, and why the fuck that farmhouse feels familiar.
But instead of doing that, I turn left instead of right, toward his house instead of my rental, and tell myself this is more important.
Being close to him will give me more answers than paperwork will.
And if I get a blowjob out of it, well, we all have our burdens to bear.
I end up sneaking onto Leaf’s back porch while he’s upstairs taking a nap and connecting to his Wi-Fi, both observing and researching at the same time. Well, as much as I can on a phone. I start by looking up the address of this farmhouse and any history associated with it.
He said it was his aunt’s, which came up in the report I’d been given already, but I check through the tax history, and it looks like she was the first owner of the place. It was built back in ’67, but the barn wasn’t put in until ’92.
’92. That date feels weirdly familiar.
Not that Leaf would have had anything to do with anything in ’92. He would have barely been two years old, and while I can absolutely imagine he was just as much of a chaotic terror as a toddler, I don’t think he was up to any criminal activity back then.
Hell, I’m not entirely convinced he’s up to criminal activity now.
I’ve been fooled before, but not like this.
A sigh leaves my chest, and I notice a pulsing headache coming on. Pressure headaches were the first symptom that something was wrong with me—and the one thing that hasn’t eased up much, even with the treatment I’ve been on. And from the way it is now, I have a feeling it’s going to get bad.
It usually begins with a weird fullness in my temples that spreads to my ear canals. Sometimes it stops there, leaving me with a tender ache. Sometimes I get a rushing sound that pounds through my inner ears, like I’ve just been ducked under a massive wave.
Then comes the screaming tinnitus attack. The ringing is always there, but the ones that sound like an air horn going off in my head? Those ones take me out with huge waves of vertigo and almost total hearing loss. I’m steady right now, but I have a feeling that’s not going to last long.
I breathe and say a little prayer that I’m not about to have a massive attack right here on Leaf’s porch.
Glancing back down at my phone, I notice everything is waving slightly. I breathe and press my feet flat on the porch ground in hopes of heading it off. The pressure in my ears gets worse, so I reach up and snag my hearing aids out. All the sound goes thick and foggy, but the pressure eases some.
Of course, that makes way for the anxiety. Deaf wasn’t the end of the world, but not being able to hear—losing things that were important to me, like my job—is fucking hard.
I’ll adjust, of course. I’ll figure out what comes next.
I just want a little more time before the loss of sound becomes permanent.
I take a deep breath and glance around me as I squeeze my hand around my hearing aids. They omit a horrendous high-pitched sound, and I relax my fingers as the world begins to sway a little harder. “I’m okay,” I tell myself softly. “I’m fine. It’ll pass. I’m okay. I’m—”
The world gives a violent lurch to the right, and my gullet rises up into my throat. Nope. I’m not okay.
Slamming my eyes shut, I can’t tell if the world is moving or if I am. But the next thing I know, warm, strong arms are around me, and I’m pretty sure I’m on the ground. I’m too afraid to open my eyes to check.
“…hear…okay?”
With him this close, I can make out most of what he’s saying. His voice has a good pitch that I haven’t lost yet, and being out in the middle of literal nowhere, he’s not competing with the noises of the city.
“Mm,” I manage. My throat feels a little dry.
“Vertigo?” I don’t know if it’s on purpose, but he’s speaking close to my better ear, which helps too.
I nod and brace myself for the world to swim again, but everything feels a bit steadier now.
“Did you take a bite of the old salt lick in the barn?” he asks.
I frown before realizing he’s joking and open my eyes so I can roll them at him. I’m propped up against his chest, and he’s staring down at me with a tiny smirk. He looks adorably rumpled—his hair wet and messy from being washed and toweled off, and he smells really, really nice.
“It’s not always salt. It’s also stress.”
“Are you stressed?” His brows dip, his expression concerned.
“Stalking is hard work.”
He blinks, then laughs and helps ease me upright. When his fingers find my wrist, he uses his thumb to press against my palm until my hand opens, and then he presses something into it. Ah. My hearing aids. I must have dropped them.
“I know from firsthand accounts these are wildly expensive. Don’t want them to break,” he says.
“It’s fine. My—” I stop. I can’t tell him that my insurance covers them. I’m supposed to be a dark web explosives expert. If I mention insurance, he’s definitely going to have questions. “—warranty is still good.”
He hums, the pitch just barely audible over the ringing in my ears, which is always worse when I have my hearing aids off, and he pulls his hand away. “Want…inside?”
I think he’s inviting me in. I wasn’t looking at his lips, so I missed some of it, but I’m willing to take a guess.
I nod and push up to my feet and feel an almost physical punch of relief that everything seems relatively stable.
The little attacks are the worst, but they’ve been fewer this year, which is a blessing.
In reality, I will take all the hearing loss over the way the earth just seems to jump away from my feet sometimes.
“…something to…if you…” I lose most of what he’s saying as he opens the door and holds it for me.
I take a breath and remember that it’s okay to advocate for myself. At work, not so much. Asking people to repeat themselves or look at me when they’re speaking just reminds them that I can’t keep up. That I’m a liability. But with Leaf, I know it’s different.
I tap him on the shoulder, and when he looks back at me, I sign, ‘Sorry. Repeat?’
His face pinks. “Shit,” he says aloud, then lifts his hands to respond. ‘I can make you something to eat or drink if you want.’