Chapter 17 #2
But that woman never really existed. She was just another performance, like the wrap skirt and the careful voice and the downcast eyes. A character I played so long I forgot she wasn't real.
The real me painted my body with bougainvillea. Danced nearly naked for a man who kidnapped me. Came apart against his hand on a kitchen wall. Chose to stay when I could have left a dozen times.
Normal women don't choose their kidnappers. I'm trading roses for thorns, and the thorns are what I want.
I start the engine. Take one last look at Papa in his garden, then I turn the bike hard, gravel spinning as I gun it south.
The ride back is different.
It starts in my hands about thirty minutes south of Pristine. A tremor in my fingers that makes me grip the bars tighter. Then my shoulders. Then my whole body, trembling.
The shaking gets worse as the lights of Miami approach. By the exit for Aventura, I have to ease off the throttle, my control over the bike compromised by the tremors running through me. Cars pass in the left lane, drivers probably thinking I'm just another Sunday rider taking it easy.
They don't know I'm shaking with the relief of finally choosing my cage.
Because that's what it is, isn't it? A cage. Just one I'm walking into with my eyes open, key in my pocket, door unlocked. A cage that contains the only person who's ever truly seen me.
By the time I reach Little Havana, tears are streaming down my face inside the helmet. Not sad tears. Not happy ones either. Just the body releasing what it's been holding for almost a month.
I pull into the loading dock, park the bike with shaking hands. Pull off the helmet. My hair is soaked with sweat, plastered to my skull. My face is a mess. Tears, snot, the imprint of the helmet's padding on my cheeks.
The climb up the service stairs feels endless. My legs shake on each step, the adrenaline finally crashing. Through the hallway where I can hear the family somewhere below, laughing over their Sunday dinner. A dinner Gunner's missing because of me.
I push open the apartment door.
He's exactly where I knew he'd be. At the desk, laptop open, angled so I can't see the screen. His phone face-down beside him. The plate of dinner someone sent up sits untouched on the counter.
His shoulders are rigid with the kind of tension that comes from holding perfectly still for hours. His fingers rest on the desk, deliberately relaxed, but I can see the white of his knuckles where he's been gripping too hard.
He stands slowly. Crosses to the kitchen. Pulls a glass from the shelf. Fills it with cold water from the tap.
Then he walks to me, extends it without a word.
I take the glass, drink it all while he watches. The cold helps, grounds me back in my body.
"I went home," I say, handing back the empty glass.
He sets it on the counter, waits.
"I came back."
Still waiting. Those gray eyes steady on mine.
"I won't leave, but don't ask me why."
Something shifts in his face. One word falls from his lips like thunder:
"Good."
We stand there for two seconds, maybe three. Me in my riding jacket that still smells like highway and sweat. Him in his black t-shirt and jeans, looking exactly like he did this morning except for something in his eyes that wasn't there before.
Then he moves.
Three steps to close the distance between us. His left hand comes up to cup my jaw, thumb brushing away a tear track I missed. His right hand finds my hip, fingers spreading wide with unmistakable possession.
He walks me backward. Not rough, not rushed, just decisive. Three steps until my back hits the wall behind me.
Then he kisses me.
Not like the soft punctuation of this afternoon's goodbye. Not like that first tentative kiss I gave him at this very counter. This is something else. Desperate and relieved and hungry all at once.
His mouth opens against mine, and I open for him, tasting coffee and something deeper, something that might be his own relief.
His body presses me into the wall, all that contained power finally unleashed.
His hand fists in my hair, holding me still for his mouth.
This isn't just a kiss. It's a claiming, and we both know it.
I make a sound against his mouth, half sob, half need.
A growl rumbles from his chest in response, possessive and dark.
My hands come up to grip his shoulders, holding on as the kiss deepens, escalates into something that makes my whole body respond.
His tongue strokes against mine, and heat floods through me despite the emotional exhaustion.
My body knows his now, responds without thought, nipples tightening under my t-shirt, wetness gathering between my thighs.
The kiss goes on and on. Thirty seconds. A minute. More. Building, escalating, both of us pouring everything we can't say into this contact. His hand slides from my hip to my lower back, under the riding jacket but over my shirt, and even that small skin-seeking gesture makes me arch against him.
We're both fully clothed. Both still processing what happened today. But our bodies are having their own conversation through this kiss that keeps escalating, keeps demanding more. The heat between us builds with each second, the kiss growing deeper, more desperate, more necessary.
His hand in my hair tightens, angling my head exactly where he wants it. The display of control, of ownership, makes me moan into his mouth. This is what I chose. This is what I rode back for. To be owned by a man who has violence in his hands and my name on his lips.
After what feels like forever and not nearly long enough, he pulls back just far enough to look at my face. Six inches between us, both breathing hard, his eyes dark with something that makes my stomach clench.
He steps back from the wall, his arm sliding around my lower back, guiding me with him. Not forcing, but decisive, his hand spread wide against my spine as he turns us toward the bed against the far wall.
We move together across the apartment, his arm guiding me forward. Past the desk where he waited. Past the folded bedroll that won't be used tonight.
I know exactly where this is going, exactly what I've chosen, exactly what's about to happen.
And I want it with the same certainty that I turned away from my father's roses. Completely, irrevocably, knowing exactly what kind of thorns I'm choosing instead.