Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
NOAH
We're leaving New York.
I've made the decision as the city has served its purpose, for now. I've established my reputation and built connections giving me access to perks, but also providing a financial investment that will make decent returns for the foreseeable future.
Chase is packing his clothes and essentials in the bedroom. I’ve already got a house lined up in LA, it’s a rental for now as I want to find somewhere permanent when out there.
I'm in the study, looking through the photo album on my phone at all of my kills. Such a variety in style and type of person. It makes me proud of the beauty I have created over the years. I wonder if Chase would mind if I had some of these pictures printed and framed for the house?
Dima wasn't pleased when I informed him by email that we were leaving. But he understood in the end, as I'm not his employee. I never was. They just got used to having access to me. Marcus was more chill, probably too scared to challenge me. But as long as the money rolls in, I doubt he cares.
Chase enters the study, his expression thoughtful. "Everything's packed."
"You know, we don’t need to take much with us. We can buy new shit when we are there, so we don’t have to travel with luggage."
"Oh, I never thought of that. The perks of being with a millionaire," he says, grinning at me.
I look at him and think of everything we have shared and how far he has come since we met. All of the travel, dangerous situations, murders, and he stayed. Not that he ever had a choice. I enjoy how he still watches me like I’m his world, the most precious thing in his life.
“Are you ready for a new adventure?”
"I'm ready for anything, baby."
I cannot wait to be on our own again. I need him, and not in the way normal people need their partners. I need him the way an alpha needs territory, the way a parasite needs a host. Except that's not quite right either.
Because when I look at Chase, I feel something that approximates what other people might call love. It's not the same and I know that. I've read enough literature, observed enough couples, analyzed enough data to understand that what I feel is fundamentally different.
But it's real to me. It's the only real thing I've ever felt.
"Noah?" Chase's voice pulls me back. "Where did you go?"
"Nowhere, I’m just thinking about you," I say, because he is all I think about.
His pupils dilate slightly. After all this time I can read every micro-expression, every physiological response. He's aroused by my attention and craves it daily.
"What about me?" he asks.
"How you've changed, how we’ve evolved."
He crosses to me, standing between my legs where I sit at the desk. His hand comes up to cup my face in a gesture of tenderness that should feel foreign but doesn't.
I've watched him transform from a therapist trying to help a court-mandated patient into a man who watches everything I do, some of the worst things, and writes about it because he wants to know the deepest parts of my brain.
He watches me kill with arousal rather than horror, and he's never been more beautiful.
"Los Angeles will be different from here. While it will be our peace away from New York, you’ll need to be more careful," I tell him.
"I know."
"We don't have established connections there, not the protection that we have here."
"I get it."
"Do you?" I pull him closer, my hands gripping his hips.
“Yes. It’s a place just for us and I won’t invite anyone into our space, Noah. I wouldn’t put us at risk like that."
"You're mine, Chase."
He leans down, pressing his forehead to mine. "I'm yours. I've always been yours. Since that first session when you looked at me like you wanted to dissect me."
"That’s because I did want to dissect you."
"I know." He smiles slightly. "And now you have. You've taken me apart piece by piece, examined every part of me, claimed every part of me."
"I have."
"And I've done the same to you."
That gives me pause, because he's right. Chase has dissected me as thoroughly as I've dissected him. His journals analyze my brain with microscopic detail. His novels expose my methodology to the world disguised as fiction, but true nonetheless.
He knows me better than anyone ever has, better than anyone ever will.
"We're leaving in three hours," I tell him.
"Okay."
"Are you ready to leave New York?"
He considers this. "Yes. I think I am. Tyler's recovered. He and Ivan are stable and I need some new inspiration for the next book."
He means new kills to write about.
"You'll have plenty of material in Los Angeles," I assure him.
"Oh I’m sure I will." His eyes are gleaming with anticipation. "I'm looking forward to it."
A killer and his witness. A psychopath and the man who enables him, and it's the dream relationship.