Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
We barely make it through the door.
Julian's mouth is on mine before the lock clicks, hands tangled in my hair, backing me against the wall. His kiss feels like desperation, like too many hours apart, like everything we almost lost.
"I missed you," I gasp against his lips. "I missed you so much."
He doesn't answer with words. His fingers find the hem of my shirt, rough and insistent against my skin. He yanks it over my head in one swift, impatient motion, breaking our kiss for only the briefest second before his mouth crashes back against mine.
The fabric catches on my hair, pulling it hard, and I don't even care—I'm already reaching for his leather jacket, my hands trembling as I fumble with the zipper, tugging it down with clumsy urgency.
He makes a frustrated sound against my lips and shrugs it off himself, the heavy jacket sliding down his arms and hitting the floor with a soft thud.
His hands are already back on me, hot palms spreading across my bare ribcage, thumbs brushing the underside of my bra.
We stumble toward the bedroom in a chaotic tangle of limbs and heated breaths, neither of us caring about coordination or grace as we shed our remaining clothes along the way.
My jeans are the next casualty—I wiggle out of them somewhere near the small black table by our bedroom, hopping awkwardly on one foot while Julian's hands cup my face, refusing to stop kissing me even as I struggle with the denim bunched around my ankles.
I finally kick them free, and they land in a crumpled heap on the dark hardwood floor, forgotten the instant they leave my body.
His button-down shirt comes off next, and my fingers are clumsy with need as I work the buttons, fumbling each one while his mouth travels down my neck, his teeth grazing that sensitive spot just below my ear that makes my knees weak.
He helps me, his own hands joining mine to speed up the process, and together we manage to get the shirt open.
I push it off his broad shoulders, letting it fall carelessly to the floor.
The sight of his bare chest, the smooth expanse of his dark skin and the artwork of his tattoo sleeve, makes something clench low in my belly.
By the time we stumble through the doorway into the bedroom, we're half-naked and completely breathless, our hands everywhere at once—his palms sliding down my spine, my fingers exploring the hard planes of his shoulders and back.
Our mouths collide in messy, urgent kisses that are all teeth and tongue and desperate need, neither of us capable of slowing down, of being gentle or tender when all we want is to be closer, impossibly closer, to erase the nightmare of the past days with the reality of right now.
He lays me down, hovering over me, eyes dark and intense.
"Are you okay?" I search his face, fingers tracing the bruise along his jaw.
"I am now." He dips his head slowly, his breath warm against my flushed skin as he presses his lips to my collarbone first—soft, sweet kisses that make my breath hitch.
Then he moves lower, his mouth trailing down to my chest, lingering there as his hands slide up my sides, thumbs brushing the undersides of my breasts.
I arch into him, fingers threading through his beautiful wavy hair, and he travels further down my body, kissing lower still as he slides my panties over my hips and down my legs.
I’m drowning. I want him so bad.
When he enters me, I cry out—not from pain but from the overwhelming rush of relief, from the sheer intensity of having him here with me like this, alive and warm and real, free from that horrible place, mine in this moment and every moment after.
My nails dig into his shoulders as he begins to move, starting slow and deliberate at first, his hips rolling in a measured rhythm that makes me gasp.
Then something shifts between us—the desperation, the fear we've been holding back—and he moves harder, more demanding, setting a pace that steals the breath from my lungs. Each push sends shockwaves through my body, and I meet him movement for movement, our bodies finding their own frantic rhythm.
I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, needing to feel every inch of him. Tears slip down my temples, mingling with the sweat on my skin.
"I love you," I whisper, the words breaking on a sob.
He stills for just a second, forehead pressed to mine, breathing ragged. "I love you too. So much."
Then he's moving again, and I'm lost in the rhythm, in the heat building between us.
Guilt twists with pleasure, fear with love, until I can't tell where one emotion ends and another begins.
All I know is Julian—his hands gripping my hips, his breath hot against my neck, the way he whispers my name like a prayer.
When we come, it's together, bodies shaking, holding on like we're each other's anchor in a storm.
After, we lie tangled in the soft sheets of his bed, our bodies still pressed close, his arm draped heavily across my waist, his fingers tracing lazy, mindless patterns on my damp skin. The weight of him grounds me, reminds me that he's here, that this is real.
Neither of us speaks for the longest time.
The silence stretches between us, but it's not uncomfortable—it's full of everything we've just shared, everything we've been through.
We don't need words right now. Our racing hearts speak for us, gradually slowing in tandem.
The occasional brush of his thumb against my ribs, the way my fingers absently curl against his chest—these small touches say more than any conversation could.
I press the magenta marker against the intricate mandala, filling in petals with slow, deliberate strokes.
The repetitive motion should calm me—that's what the YouTube tutorial promised—but my hand keeps shaking, betraying my nerves and smudging the carefully drawn lines I'm trying so hard to stay within.
Between Daniel lying in that hospital bed in a coma, Julian's recent arrest that still makes my heart race with anxiety every time I think about it, and just..
. everything else happening in my chaotic, unpredictable life right now, I'm completely and utterly frazzled.
My brain feels like it's running on fumes, scattered in a million different directions at once.
I set the marker down for a moment, rubbing my tired eyes with the heels of my palms. From the living room, I can hear Julian's voice—low and tense, barely more than a murmur.
He's been on the phone for the past ten minutes, pacing back and forth across the hardwood floor.
Each footstep creaks softly, matching the edge in his tone that carries just far enough for me to know he's upset about something.
The actual words, though? Those stay frustratingly out of reach, lost in the distance between us and the deliberate quietness of his voice.
I pick up the magenta marker again, trying to focus on the mandala, but my attention keeps drifting toward the living room doorway. Whatever this conversation is about, it's clearly not going well.
"That's not good enough." His voice cuts through the quiet. "I'm paying you for results, not excuses."
I glance up, marker hovering over the page. He runs a hand through his hair, messing it up.
"Three weeks. I've given you three weeks and what do I have? Nothing." He pauses, listening, then shakes his head. "No. No more time. We're done."
He ends the call, stabbing at the screen harder than necessary.
"Everything okay?"
He tosses the phone onto the couch, exhaling hard.
"The investigator I hired to look into things?
" Julian's jaw tightens, his hands curling into fists at his sides.
"Completely useless. The guy's been following dead ends for weeks now, chasing his own tail while wasting my money and producing absolutely nothing of value. "
I set down the marker. "What dead ends?"
"Daniel's movements before everything happened. I wanted to know if there was anything—anything—connecting him to Claudia disappearing." He drops into the chair across from me, elbows on his knees. "This guy couldn't find shit."
My stomach twists. "You think Daniel really did something to her?"
"Don't you?"
I do. God help me, I absolutely do. Those text messages exchanged between Claudia and Dylan keep replaying in my mind—the desperation in her words, the fear she must have felt.
And then there's the way Daniel systematically controlled every aspect of her life, manipulating and isolating her in exactly the same calculated way he'd tried to control me.
The parallels are impossible to ignore. And the timing of her disappearance, how it all lined up so perfectly with when she was finally ready to break free from his grip—it's too much to be mere coincidence.
"Yeah," I say. "I think he did."
Julian leans back, staring at the ceiling. "Then I'm going to find out myself. Because the cops aren't doing anything, this investigator's worthless, and Daniel's lying in a hospital bed while everyone treats him like the victim."
"Julian—"
"I'm not letting this go, Liza. If he hurt that girl, if he's the reason she's missing..." He meets my eyes, something fierce burning there. "He deserves to pay for that too."
I should tell him to stop, to let the police handle it, to not make things worse—that's what the rational part of my brain is screaming at me to do.
The responsible thing would be to discourage him, to remind him that vigilante justice could land him in serious trouble, that interfering with a potential investigation could have consequences neither of us are prepared to face.
But even as those thoughts form, they feel hollow and meaningless.
The anger burning in his voice—that raw, righteous fury—it mirrors the exact same rage that's been simmering inside me ever since I pieced together what Daniel really is.
Since I realized what he's capable of. And when I open my mouth to speak, to offer some word of caution or restraint, nothing comes out.
All I can manage is a slow, deliberate nod of agreement.
"I feel the same way."