Chapter 34 - Kate
He’s there in the morning, sitting by my bed, wide awake, reading something on his phone. He’s swapped the ice pack for a hot water bottle to keep me warm. Steam rises from the coffee resting by his outstretched legs.
“Morning.” He looks over at me, regret engraved into his forehead. “Can I check your wound?”
“Sure.” I pat at my bandage and sit up.
He spins onto his shins, easing me upright and tucking an extra pillow to prop me up.
He peels back the bandage to inspect the worst of it. “It’s healing well. No infection.”
Officer Daddy unscrews the bottle of antibiotics and dispenses another for me, and I swallow it down with a gulp of water.
“Headache? Dizziness? Vision? Nausea?” he asks in his no-nonsense detective voice.
“Pain’s down from a screaming seven to a four. Though, I may have the Tylenol to thank for that.” I wipe at the sleep in my eyes and remember the rest of his question. “No dizziness. Vision is strange.” I squint at him.
His brow pinches and he presses his wrist to my forehead, checking my temperature. “How so?”
I huff out a little laugh. “I’m messing with you. I’m not used to waking up to your face or unruly bed hair.” A nice problem to have, given the scope of what I’m dealing with.
He exhales some of the tension between us. “I’ll put the helmet back on.”
“Don’t you dare.” We both smile and stare at each other.
When his gaze lowers to my mouth, I cough and break the hold of his spell.
I cover my tracks and resume my health report before my Book Girlie flirts away our betrayal and winds up pinned beneath him. “Nausea is flirting, not dating. The room is steady. Can’t say the same for your pipes, which kept me up for an hour.”
“That’s what you get for living in an abandoned warehouse that’s seventy years old.” He brings two fingers to my gaze, and I follow them, left and right. “Any light sensitivity?”
I lift my hand to shade my eyes. “Only to the morning glare coming off the harbor and the tin panels in your window.”
He almost smiles. “Good. I’ll get you more Tylenol and water.”
“Thank you for checking on me last night,” I say.
“PJ3 would be jealous of my guard dog duty.” His smile is forlorn and falls fast as he departs for the bathroom.
I check my phone for messages or missed calls.
Several updates from Harper. She’s with Josh and they’re safe.
He’s bitching because she didn’t bring his favorite toy.
I snort and shake my head. A question asking if I’m okay and do I want to stay with August?
Ending with a promise to call later. A message from Charlie, who I also texted last night to let her know I’m okay should she hear anything on the news.
I drop my phone to my lap and ponder Harper’s question. Book Girlie me signs me up for Witness Protection, Dark Romance Edition. Rational me drafts a contract with strict boundaries, limited touches, and absolutely no smiles or jokes.
He returns with a fresh glass of water and pills, leaving them on the nightstand this time. He’s gone from growler to professional gentleman, the possessive edge sheathed, hands within reach, yet too far away.
“Hungry?” he asks. “I don’t have much. Cereal. Long-life milk.”
I smile and lean on my elbow and rest my head in my hand. “You don’t stay here much, do you?”
“It reminds me how alone and numb I am,” he admits.
Oof. The helmet’s off, the truth is out, and it’s too early for that kind of honesty and bruises… especially without caffeine.
I try to lighten it with, “Feed me zombie apocalypse cereal. What vintage is the milk? Are there clumps and hints of a nuclear fallout bunker?”
Bad Book Girlie. No joking.
He huffs out a breath that almost counts as a laugh. “You’re feeling better.”
Just trying to break the awkwardness strangling me.
“Back in a bit.” He disappears, rustling food together with tea, and I watch him move, efficient and precise.
His kitchenette is simple with a single burner, old plastic kettle, chipped enamel mugs, everything scrubbed to an anxious shine with lemon cleaner, probably to remove any DNA.
The dented mini fridge hums softly. One plate and cutlery set neatly in the drying rack.
Everything precise and so fucking lonely.
I can’t stop cataloging him now that there’s no barrier between us.
The curve of his cheekbone. The concentration line that wasn’t there before.
Or the hard set of his mouth, which used to smile a hell of a lot more before the world dimmed his light.
Being in his orbit after he kept it padlocked down feels like I’ve lock-picked a forbidden room and crept in.
In the space of a day, he’s brought me deeper into his private world. I don’t know what to do with that.
I hate how much his betrayal hurts. I’ve survived far worse than an overprotective stalker with trust issues. With August, it’s not just about safety anymore, it’s about wanting the version of him who makes me fearless and invincible. The one who taught me I’m safe without all the glow.
No, bad Book Girlie.
Do not get soft and gooey. Do not picture his stupid broad shoulders, the ink on his body, his sexy, tousled hair, or turquoise eyes.
Definitely don’t get suckered in by how good his arms look curled around you and how they’re the only arms that make you feel safe.
Nope, do not recall the sexy, quiet way he says your nickname, and how it makes you melt every time.
Absolutely, under no circumstances are we to remember his fierce growl to never touch what’s his or the sweet little ornaments he spent hours designing.
Rational me slaps the paperback shut on her face. We’re mad, remember? We don’t swoon over declarations. Don’t forget what he’s hiding or that he crushed us again. We’re not going to forgive him.
The part of me that uses dark romance like therapy, who gets off on being stalked, claimed, and obsessed over, leans in and whispers that this is exactly how the heroine gets pulled back in.
And, damn, my chest feels like he underlined my name in permanent ink next to Touch her and die, she’s mine and STFUATMDLAGG.
He brings me a chipped bowl with Corn Flakes and a long-life milk carton and sits by the edge of the bed.
“I don’t know what’s more deadly.” I point to the expiration date, three years out of date. “Your food or the Romans.”
“Haven’t died yet.” He lifts his arm and flexes his bicep in his shirt.
Wrong move. I point my spoon at him. “Holster the weapons, Officer Kelly. Those things need to come with a warning label.”
His smile is criminal. “I’ll file a waiver before flexing.”
Jokes ease the pressure between us.
I dive into my food as a distraction and take a bite. It tastes like trying to rescue dust, but his eyes tracking my every move make it edible.
When I finish the food, he takes my bowl, setting it aside and brushing his hands. “Do you want to talk? About the next step? How you’re feeling?” His throat clicks on his swallow. “About us?” It’s the first time he lets fear bleed into his tone.
I want to say I love you, be mine forever. I also want to tell him how much I hate him. Take it all back. Promise me you won’t leave again. Shit, I need a minute to think about this. Brace for anger, yelling, tears, and lasso my Book Girlie to prevent her from dry humping on his lap.
I lift my forefinger. “No more fucking lies, August. You’ve deceived me for long enough.” I press a hand to my roiling stomach. “You knew what happened to me and didn’t say a word. You touched me. Let me trust you. Betrayed me again.”
“I broke your trust. Hurt you. I can’t erase the past.” He takes a step and reaches for me. “But I want to rewrite the future.”
I step back from him. “For what? Your guilt?”
“Because I broke something I should have loved and treasured for the sake of saving you.” His voice breaks, and so does my heart.
No. I am not feeling pity.
“I should have told you sooner…” His voice trails off. “I wanted to a hundred times. I’m a fucking coward.”
I huff out an angry laugh. “I should have listened and walked away when you said the fairytale ends, midnight strikes, and Cinderella walks away.”
He rucks a hand through his hair. “Why didn’t you?”
“Apparently, I have a Daddy kink for grumpy stalkers with a hero complex.” I kick my socked foot. “And major character flaws.” I rub my forehead, careful of the bandage. “My therapist will have a field day.”
“Your flaws are beautiful.” His eyes hold mine, daring me to argue. “It’s mine that need therapy.”
“Flattery’s a dangerous game with me.” I sip my tea so he won’t see my hands shake.
He lets me sit with what he’s admitted. Or maybe the vulnerability stings him as much as it does me.
I cradle my drink to my stomach like a lifeline. “Tell me why you left, August.”
“After you made the report on Blackthorn, the Chief of Police pulled me into his office,” he explains, hands stiff by his side. “Told me to drop the case in no uncertain terms.”
“You never told me that,” I whisper.
“You had enough on your plate.” His voice heats with years of contempt. “The department closed your case before the ink was dry.”
Yeah, they did, citing not enough evidence for a conviction. Yet the DNA evidence Officer Kelly obtained matched Blackthorn.
August’s hands fist. “Formally, I let it go. Informally, I quietly gathered evidence. That bastard hurt one too many women. And when I started poking behind doors, the wrong people noticed.”
His jaw grinds, and he scrubs a hand over his mouth, weighing what he gives me and what he buries.
He braces his forearms on his knees and leans forward.
“The Romans were coming for us both. They didn’t cut me from the force, they collared me.
Tracked who I met, where I went, logged my patrol car, phone, computer.
Kept me visible to map my network. If they saw me with you, they’d burn you even more than they did, and I refused to give them any ammo.
When they came for my family, I made the shittiest decision of my life and went dark, quit the force, and wallowed in self-pity and whisky. ”
His confession lands like a mace to the lungs, heavy, brutal, and bloody. Rational me rages with fury. Book Girlie me is relieved that he never stopped protecting me, and the tramp wants to crawl into his lap and hold him.
“I get it,” I croak, my throat dry and sore. “Better the devil you know, right? They used your badge as a way to leash you.”
“Something like that,” he mutters.
I meet his eyes. “You didn’t just cut me out to spare me from the Romans, August. That’s not love or “protection.” That’s locking me up in a cell and holding the keys under the guise of love.”
Muscles in his throat flex like he swallows something sharp.
I keep going, because if I stop, I’ll fold. “I have a right to know who I give my body to. Agency, trust, and choice are paramount to me.”
His throat works. “I had no fucking right to withdraw from you without consulting you. That’s on me. I wear that scar. Now I’m giving you the choice, if you want it. Can you forgive me and let me make this right?”
His jaw tightens. Mine does too.
What a pair we make. I flinch from love like it’s a blade. He runs from the damage he believes he’ll cause.
My chest pulls so tight, it hurts to breathe. “You want me to forgive you? Rewrite my future? For me to even consider it, you’re going to have to grovel and make a grand gesture worthy of a dark romance.”
His mouth twitches. “How many more severed fingers do you want?”
I get serious with him. “I don’t need fingers, August. I need proof that you won’t disappear again.”
“Glitter Bomb, I’m not going anywhere without you.”
My pulse riots in my throat as I search his face, weighing whether I believe him or if I’m such a romance sucker that I want to. “If I let you back in for a season two love interest, it’s not a free pass. There are rules.”
His brow arches. “Rules?”
“Non-negotiable rules.” I use the term he throws at me a lot. “No more masks between us. No more ‘for your own good.’ You don’t get to be my shadow and jailer.”
His mouth curves into a semi-smirk. “No more stalker and masks mean you’re cutting the best tropes out of my repertoire.”
“You’ve still got morally orange grumpy.”
Before I can come up with more banter, his phone buzzes, and he stuffs his hand in his pocket to retrieve it. The curve of his mouth flattens with whatever he reads.
My stomach knots, because I just know it’s more bad news.
“What is it?” I scoot to the edge of the bed.
August twists his phone screen to me. I read the headlines. Brutal Attack on Upstanding Citizen. Fire sweeps over me. The synopsis is even worse. Shadow Lake Police Force seeks a woman and male for questioning in an aggravated assault case on an esteemed newspaper editor.
“Esteemed, my ass,” I mutter, wanting to throw his phone at the wall.
The grainy image is unmistakable. It’s us, leaving out the front door.
“Of all the things to immortalize,” I groan. “Not my hair. Not my legs, which look ah-mazing in that skirt. No. They print me and the finger! I look like I’m auditioning for Serial Killer Weekly.”
“Could be worse.” August shrugs and pockets his phone. “They could have used the still of you smiling.”
“Yeah. Imagine the memes captioning that.” I snort. Then I hit his chest. “Stop it, Daddy.”
His eyes darken, and his mouth curls slowly, the way I imagine it did behind his visor. “Say that again.”
“Not in your dreams.” Book Girlie betrays me and inches me forward.
He dips down, and I capture the neck of his hoodie, tugging him close for a rough, desperate kiss that says he’ll do anything to make us work. Hell. This time, I’m inclined to believe him.
“Stop looking at me like that.” He pulls back and leaves me breathless, lips pulsing for more. “We need to fire back.”
“Oh, yeah.” I scratch my head, and the plan comes flooding back. “Empire Strikes Back-style. Only we win. Period. No creepy emperor.”
His smirk screams victory. “You up for it or want to stay here?”
“Oh, I’m up for it, Grovel King.” I slip out of bed.
He nods in the direction of the bathroom. “Get your ass in the shower.”
I clamp handcuffs on my Book Girlie before she drags him under the hot water for some sensual action. My feelings are still here, glowing softly like an ember, and I won’t let his kiss turn it into a wildfire I can’t control.