Chapter 34 Come In With the Rain #2
Suddenly, the dream-like caresses she’d experienced right before she’d woken up made more sense. They hadn’t been phantom touches, but real fingertips tracing her body’s side profile. Fear and anger pulsed within her, banishing the desire she’d felt upon waking.
Each interaction he had with her was like he was trying to prove what he could do and get away with.
The feeling of Mikko’s lips pressed to hers on Halloween hadn’t vanished from her mind.
He was everywhere, a fact that made her thirty-one year old self smile, but her thirteen year old self shudder.
Emotion curled in her throat making it hard to swallow, and everything that had led Anika to this moment was starting to feel like it was going to explode. The pieces of her puzzle were simultaneously falling into place while also fragmenting in others.
It was now or never.
After clearing her entire house, Mikko nowhere to be found, Anika vowed that all this had to come to an end.
And soon.
* * *
Mikko - A Few Moments Before
He knew he was pushing his luck, but he couldn’t stay away.
After he’d found Cristiano at the party and returned him home safely, albeit slightly drunk, he’d changed out of his costume and went for a drive.
The storm that had been brewing unleashed itself on him, but he stayed out, content to let the precipitation wash away his thoughts.
And somewhere along the way, Anika’s house had materialized before him.
Mark my words, we will meet again, and it’ll be on my terms.
Mikko disagreed, and that was why he was here.
Rain dripped off his clothes, trailing down his skin causing goosebumps to pop up in their wake. The droplets that had collected on him during his trek to her house now puddled beneath him as he stood at the top of the steps leading into her kitchen.
He was here so much that it was beginning to feel like his own home.
Maskless and emboldened from the kiss he’d shared with Anika in the maze, Mikko had decided to pay her a visit again.
He was hellbent on proving her wrong. Inhaling, the deep breath bringing reassurance and balance back into his body, Mikko noted the ever-present fragrance of her.
While he might feel like it was his house through association, her scent was everywhere, reminding him of the opposite.
It was all he’d been thinking about since he’d stumbled out of the maze practically drunk on her touch and promptly found Cristiano.
After a soft scolding—Cristiano told him he’d been around one of the fire pits close to the sunroom—both men had left.
His friend had tried to ask what had Mikko so riled up, where his helmet had gone, and if he was on drugs.
But he quickly shut those questions down.
Now, he was silently slipping his boots off in the house of a woman who’d plagued him endlessly.
The light above the stove was on as always, lighting his way and inviting him in farther.
But at this point, he was able to walk her house from memory, even if she’d tried to shift her furniture slightly every couple weeks.
The stove clock had indicated it was a little past two-thirty in the morning and a certain kind of quietness blanketed the house. It was Mikko’s favorite time of night since he felt the whole world lay vulnerable at his feet while he crept through the shadows, not disturbing a soul.
And tonight, his world was Anika.
In the dim light, he sought out her sleeping form on the bed in front of him.
There.
Her thick covers were thrown off her body, bunched up under her legs as she lay on her side. An extra pillow was clutched to her chest and the sight made his heart lurch. Suddenly he was wishing to replace the pillow with himself.
Pitiful.
A flash of lightning outside lit her room up momentarily and Mikko gathered more details in that short span of time. Her shorts barely covered her upper thighs, and the tank top adorning her chest left little to the imagination. So many of her tattoos were on display.
He longed to walk over and run his fingertips across her silky skin, but he remained rooted to his spot near the door. Her soft breaths calmed the inner turmoil wanting to rise up in his throat. Raindrops splashing onto the floor sounded occasionally, reminding him that he was dripping all over.
His mind thought back to another time he’d been in here, dripping all over everything.
He smiled.
Another flash. Her hair, colored to represent the night, was carelessly thrown over her pillow as her green sheets swathed her.
Each time the storm showed Mikko her room, the harder it became for him to remain where he was.
He yearned to touch her—to caress her skin and risk her sensing he was there.
Despite knowing she wanted to kill him, that she was coming for him or Cristiano, Mikko’s lust was undeniable.
Maybe he could blame it on his childhood, so riddled with pain and loss that when faced with it now, it turned him on.
His body was confused—unregulated. He yearned to push past the boundaries she’d erected, and if she didn’t wake up, maybe he’d visit her in her dreams.
With the continual flashes of lightning to hide it, Mikko slipped his phone from his pocket, needing to solidify this moment. His camera clicked, the flash blending in with the storm. Anika barely stirred. These photos would join the rest of them.
A soft sound came from her silhouette along with the shifting of the sheets. Mikko froze, barely breathing. After a few seconds, Mikko was confident she was still asleep—unaware of the predator lurking in her room. But he was well aware of the predator prowling beneath her skin.
Anika had shifted more to her stomach, leg hiked up, and hugging that damn pillow. In a short burst of light, like the flash of a camera, he committed the image to his mind. Her sleep shirt had ridden up dangerously, hem barely covering her stomach. Floral ink trailed up her legs and arms.
“Fuck it,” he whispered, rain pounding against the window, drowning out his words.
As if a spell had been broken, Mikko stalked to her bedside.
His clothes smelled of petrichor which made him hesitate briefly.
Her sheets were dry and warm and smelling of her in a way he knew intimately.
It drove him insane. Need made him abandon all reasonable thought and without another second to waste, he silently crawled into bed with her.
He expected her to wake under the shifting mattress, but she didn’t, deep in sleep and ignorant of the beast crawling into her sheets.
Mikko laid down on his side, his front facing her back, about a foot separating them. Feeling her body heat pouring off her in waves, he was tempted to close the distance, but he didn’t. He was careful not to lay on her hair fanned out behind her, threatening to tickle his skin.
“Looks like we’re meeting on my terms,” he whispered, voice lost in the inky darkness and raging storm.
Mikko wasn’t sure how long he laid there, ruminating in Anika’s presence.
When she was asleep like this, it was easy to see her as she truly was.
There weren’t any walls in his way to block her true emotions.
Now, in the soft caress of sleep, he could feel the solitude she ensconced herself in.
It sounded silly to think, but his emotions had always ruled him, and so, he’d learned to also read others so he could rule them.
As the storm died down, Mikko resigned himself to leaving. He needed to go home to change and ask Cristiano for any more leads on Dimitri. They’d reported him as missing, unable to find him or any trace of him after Cristiano announced his absence.
Worry threaded itself through his heart along with whatever else consumed him when he looked at Anika. While there were no tangible leads, he knew who’d done it. All he had to do now was wait for the evidence to show itself.
Sliding soundlessly from her bed, Mikko crept back toward her door, but something glimmered out of the corner of his eye.
A necklace on her nightstand.
He hadn’t seen it at first, too consumed with her when he’d first arrived, but now…
Now, his eyes couldn’t stop staring at it. Stepping closer, mind trying to keep up with what his eyes were seeing, Mikko realized why it caught him off guard.
He recognized it.
And it wasn’t because he’d seen it around Anika’s neck.
It was because it was Dimitri’s.