Chapter Sixteen Aria
Chapter Sixteen
Aria
“I think this was the best idea you’ve ever had,” I told Pax before I took a sip from my hot caffé mocha, then a bite from the gooey doughnut piled high with strawberry icing and sprinkles.
Pax let go of a rough chuckle from where he sat across from me in the small booth at the local doughnut shop. We were tucked in the corner, mostly out of sight of the rest of the lobby, though Pax had a direct view of the door so he could keep tabs on who came in and out.
It was midmorning, so it was fairly quiet, just a few patrons dotted about, and we’d felt somewhat at ease when we stepped inside.
People’s voices were there, hovering at the fringes of my mind, but they were subdued. No true distress in the handful of people inside the shop.
“You’re awful easy to please for a princess,” he teased. “Besides, I think I picked up early on you preferring dessert for breakfast.”
Pax tilted his head as he blatantly stared at me. Flames licked in the depths of his icy gray eyes as he made a slow pass over my face and down my neck.
Redness rushed in its wake. I wondered if I’d ever get used to it. Him looking at me that way. With unfettered desire. I’d longed for it forever and thought I’d never feel the full severity of it.
I’d thought what beat between us would be forever locked away by the laws that had kept us fractured.
My chest squeezed with the accusation that had been thrown out two nights ago by Emilia in Tearsith. One I’d understood she’d made in her distress. But after I’d seen that suggestion of Valeen’s in the stream, I couldn’t accept the assertion Emilia had made.
Valeen’s words had weaved through me like a thread that healed.
Together. Wholly.
I didn’t understand it, but at least I was sure that Pax was supposed to be right here with me.
This man a dream. The only good dream I’d ever had.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I whispered with the hint of a smile tugging at the edge of my mouth.
It was my turn for my eyes to caress. Tracing the sharp angles of his face. The scars that marred him. The tattoos that rolled up his neck to touch the base of his fierce jaw. His hewn, lean body that pulsated with rugged, rough brutality.
So terrifying, and still my greatest comfort.
“Because you’re the only thing in this world I really want to see, Aria. Because you’re every picture in my mind. The imprint marked on my soul.” His raspy, low voice filled the area between us. Then he sat back with a smirk. “Well, and on my skin, too.”
No doubt, he was making reference to the tattoo I’d finally noticed hidden on his abdomen.
We’d lain low in Indianapolis for the last two days, allowing me to take yesterday to recuperate. Allowing me time to regain my strength and for the blisters that had risen on my palms to subside.
In it had been a small respite of bliss.
Pax and I locked behind closed doors.
It was both frustrating and a relief that no one had come for us during that time. Ambrose remained elusive, but it wasn’t like we had been out and about trying to draw attention to ourselves.
“Get used to it, Princess, because I plan on spending my whole life staring at you.”
Then he reached out and snagged a piece of doughnut I’d torn off and popped it into his mouth.
“Hey,” I tried to admonish, but it was full of a giggle as he reached out to steal another piece and I swatted his hand away. I pulled the plate against my chest and curled my arms around it. “Don’t you know to never come between a woman and her sweets?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, aghast.
My brows drew together. “Says the guy who ate half my doughnut.”
“What can I say, yours looked better than mine.”
“That’s just rude. You need to pick better next time.” I tried to keep up the playful affront, but everything softened when Pax reached into the white bag on the table and produced a second strawberry doughnut.
He set it on my napkin. “Just because you’re my princess, I got you two.”
“You do love me,” I murmured as I ripped it to shreds, then put the largest piece into my mouth.
I groaned at the sweetness that coated my tongue.
Pax suddenly leaned all the way across the table and grabbed both of my hands. He pulled them to the middle and leaned forward to get closer to me.
I did the same, moving in his direction, drawn to the intensity he exuded.
We both leaned so far over it that his mouth was a breath away from mine when he whispered, “If it was ever a question, Aria, I want to make it clear. The way I love you. The way it feels when I look at you.”
His hands tightened around mine.
“It’s like I’m shredding apart because I can’t hold the magnitude of it inside.
It’s like there’s not enough room inside me to hold the fullness of it.
It is greater than anything I’ve ever known, and goes far beyond this reality and into the next.
Far beyond this life and into the next,” he emphasized.
Emotion pulled taut in his expression.
Gravity.
Passion.
Fervor.
“It’s unending. Eternal. And whatever that eternity might look like, the only thing I know for sure is I will meet you there.”
Moisture filled my eyes, and I squeezed back. “I will always meet you there. Wherever you are.”
We stayed like that for the longest time, before Pax suddenly went rigid when the bell dinged above the door and it swept open. I peeked behind me to see a woman step inside.
A police officer.
Pax was far more exposed, and he slowly shifted so his face was better concealed, the backs of his shoulders angled in that direction. Peering around the side of the high booth, I held my breath, waiting to see what she would do.
We’d thought to leave two nights ago after what had happened in the city, but I’d been so drained that I couldn’t move. We’d decided to stay here until I had rested.
Pax had checked the local news to find out if they were searching for us.
He’d found a news report of three men found dead outside a building. All had been arrested previously for drug possession and facilitating prostitution, and that article had speculated it had been some kind of deal gone bad.
I could only hope that belief remained.
It wasn’t as if those three men were the only reason the police might be looking for us. Not after Pax had broken into the mental facility to rescue me. I still thought of Jill often, the nurse who’d believed there was more to my story than my chart claimed, and had helped me escape.
I knew her life had to be intrinsically changed; no hope for her ever working in nursing again. Plus, I had no idea if any sort of charges had been brought against her.
I could only pray that she was safe and okay. Pray she didn’t regret what she’d done. I hoped some way, someday, I’d be able to repay her.
I carefully peeked around the back of the booth again, and I breathed out the strain when the officer moved to the counter to order.
I turned back to Pax, my voice quieted. “She’s just a customer.”
His nod was tight, and he busied himself by staring into his coffee. He didn’t look up until the door swung open again and she exited.
On a heavy exhalation, he scrubbed a flustered palm over his face. “Fuck. This is getting messy.”
My nod was slow. He grabbed his phone, and I knew he was searching the local news again. Antsy that something had changed. That someone had come forward and reported that they’d seen us. Had witnessed it all.
I expected there to be nothing, until Pax’s pale face completely drained of color, blanching a pasty white. Anxiety jolted my heart into an erratic beat as I watched him from across the table, apprehension curling through my being as I waited.
His eyes frantically flicked back and forth as he read.
“Tell me what’s going on,” I pleaded, so quiet the sound barely broke the air.
He didn’t answer. He simply turned the phone to me. It was an article, the headline reading Local man shot dead after closing pizza shop.
I wanted to scan the story. To take in the details that outlined what was known of the crime and understand what had caused Pax so much alarm.
But I didn’t need any of that.
I only needed the picture to know.
Only needed the image of a man who was probably in his forties.
A man with the palest gray eyes.
A Laven.
And he wasn’t part of our family.