28. River
RIVER
I run through the checklist in my head, making sure for the hundredth time that everything is perfect.
An hour ago, the kitchen island was covered in flour and scraps of dough but now it practically shines from how many times I wiped it clean.
The only trace of cooking left is the sesame oil I used to deep fry, cooling in the pan.
I don’t get nervous, I never have, but my hands are clammy and a tight band wraps around my chest. Tonight has to work. I’ve kept my distance, I’ve given her space to be mad, but I’m done. I can’t lose Freya. I won’t.
Her soft gasp alerts me to her presence, and I spin around.
My hand clenches into a fist by my side and it takes every last shred of restraint I have not to stride over, pull her into my arms, and kiss the ever-loving life out of her.
What she’s wearing can hardly be called a dress, the black silk wrapping around her body doing nothing to conceal the sweet mounds of her breasts and endless naked skin. It’s not the dress I left for her, but I find myself reveling in her subtle fight. If she’s still fighting, she still cares.
Any other time I’d be struggling to take my eyes off her body but right now I’m transfixed by the awe on her face as she takes in the space.
The open plan kitchen living area is barely recognizable.
I spent half the morning hanging fairy lights all around the corners of the ceilings.
Lit candles flicker on every surface, on the TV console, the windowsills, the small end tables.
And in the center, between the couches, the coffee table is set up for dinner, square cushions for sitting on either side.
My grandmother and I would eat like that every day, sitting on the floor at the sang .
She’d balk at me calling it a coffee table.
Freya’s lips part as she looks around. When she sees the plates of mandu and kimchi her teeth sink into her lower lip as she holds back a smile.
“You got Oz to cook?”
I rub the back of my neck. “Uh, no. I cooked . Mandu . Korean dumplings. The only good thing my mother ever taught me.”
Another soft gasp that goes straight to my heart. The organ scrunches up behind my ribs, hope that I can repair the damage I caused a dangerous, desperate beat.
Slits in Freya’s dress open up as she walks towards me, her fingers trailing along the back of the couch. My gaze drops to her long slender legs and deadly pointed heels before coming back up to her face.
She stops in front of me and does a perusal of her own.
Unsurprisingly, I’m dressed in a suit, but I’ve never worn this one for work. The jacket is double breasted and so dark blue it’s almost black with tailored trousers to match. I’d forgone the tie tonight for a shirt with a banded collar, a single navy button securing it around my neck.
The swells of Freya’s breasts rise as she breathes in and looks up at me from hooded eyes. “There you go again, not playing fair.”
I catch the slit of her skirt under my fingers, careful not to touch her skin, and run my thumb over the silky dress. “Yes, well, it seems two can play at that game.”
I let the dress slip from my fingers and hold out a hand. “Shall we?”
For one, soul-tearing moment Freya hesitates, then she places her hand in mine, letting me support her as she sits down on a cushion, folding her legs to one side.
I round the table and sit cross-legged opposite her.
Warmth hits my hand as I wave it over the first plate.
“This is jjin-mandu , steamed dumpling.” I take care with the pronunciation.
I gained most of my knowledge about my heritage from my Halmoni and I was twelve last time I saw her.
“ I did gogi and yachae , meat and vegetable.” I indicate each one as I speak then point to the other plate topped with deep fried dumplings. “And this is tuigim-mandu.
Freya licks her lips, making them glisten. “It smells incredible.”
“Just wait till you taste it.”
She laughs under her breath. “I feel like you’re using my love of food to keep me in place long enough to hear you out.”
“Is it working?”
Freya cuts me a look. “Depends how good a cook you are.”
My answer is to serve her up a plate. We make an unspoken agreement not to talk about anything serious while we eat. Mostly she asks me about the food, and I talk her through the cooking process and the different side dishes.
“Did you cook with your mom a lot?”
I shake my head. “Only ever at Lunar New Year. She’d make mandu to go in this soup called tteokguk . It’s supposed to bring good luck.” I don’t tell her I’m secretly hoping it will work now even though it never did back then.
When I’ve had enough, I dab my napkin over my lips and lean back on my hands, watching Freya delicately use her chopsticks.
I reach into my pocket and pull out her badge, placing it on the table beside her plate. I was an idiot to take it away from her.
Freya’s chopsticks still, suspended mid-air, as she stares at the badge.
“This is what I should have done when we first brought you home,” I say. “I should have sat you down and told you how every shred of light in me disappeared when I read your note.”
“River…”
“I’m not saying that to make you feel bad,” I add on a rush. “I’m just trying to explain why I went a little overboard.”
“A little?”
The air huffs out of me and I scrape my nails against the wooden floor.
“My only thought, for the last two months, has been getting you back. Keeping you here. Everything else went to the wayside. I’m supposed to be leading the SCU and all I’ve done is use every resource available to me to track you down.
” I shake my head, a grimace tugging at my face.
“And when I found you, I just kept thinking that if you ran once, you could do it again. I have nightmares of you going off to find Zach by yourself or trading your life for Harley’s. ”
“I wouldn’t do that,” she denies.
“You did before.” I meet her stubborn gaze.
I remember all too well finding her anklet on her bed after she slipped out the window to rescue Oz from her sister.
The same sister who also shot Jude and is currently living under our roof because I didn’t have the heart to send her back to the psych hospital when Freya asked me to let her stay.
I don’t know how to make it clear to this woman that there is nothing I won’t do for her.
Freya puts her chopsticks down. She nods to herself and the bitter, resigned look in her eyes has me panicking. “Right. I ran one too many times so now I’m being punished.”
My spine jerks straight, her words sending a jolt of dismay through me. “No. I wasn’t trying to punish you, Freya, I was trying to keep you safe. I went too far, I know that, but I swear I didn’t mean too. I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I would never intentionally hurt you.”
I drag my palm over my face, my throat thick and aching with the knowledge of what I did. “I was scared, Freya.”
I close my eyes before coming to a decision.
I never talk about my past but if that’s what I need to do to keep Freya then there’s no question.
I’m only two words in before I realize I want to share this with her.
Freya may have run from us, but she’s told us more about her childhood than anyone and if that’s not trust I don’t know what trust is.
“After my parents got arrested, social services tracked down my halmoni.”
Freya doesn’t move, but I feel her eyes on me.
I took my jacket off a while ago and now I roll my sleeves up before I start to stack the plates, needing something to do with my hands as I tell this story.
“She was loving, caring, everything a grandmother should be. She got a confused, angry kid raised by con-artists and thieves and taught him the difference between right and wrong. After the upbringing I’d had she was my conscience.
Six months after I turned up on her doorstep, I watched her get driven away in an ambulance. Heart attack.”
My own heart still burns whenever I think about it, and I rub the heel of my hand against my chest.
“I’m so sorry, River.”
“So am I. For everything.”
The flare in her eyes tells me she understands I’m not just talking about my grandmother. “With the exception of Eli, Jude, and Oz I have lost everyone in my life. I would not survive losing you.”
Tears shimmer in Freya’s cloudy green eyes and I curse myself for making her cry.
“I never meant to hurt you,” I say again, “and I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you. If you’ll let me.”
Freya’s quiet for a short while. My heart beats in my ears, a heavy drum waiting for the verdict to fall. I don’t hear anything else until she finally speaks.
“Things will need to change,” she says. “You like rules, right?”
I dip my head. Rules were what kept me from going too far, from becoming like my parents. I just didn’t realize I could bend them so well before they broke. Never again though. Never again will I cross that line.
“I think we need some new rules. Ones we make together.”
I nod again. “Anything.”
“No locked doors. Ever.”
“Done.”
Freya lets out a breath, the tension shrugging off her shoulders. I hadn’t realized how worried she was I’d lock her up again until that moment and I feel like an idiot for not making that clear sooner.
“The bracelet stays on though,” I say, the silver band on her wrist shimmering in the candlelight. “I won’t check it all the time, but I need to be able to find you if something goes wrong.”
She purses her lips before nodding. “I can live with that. You can’t keep parts of the case from me, even if you think it will scare me or make me do something reckless.”
“I’ve never done that, and I never will.”
She nods and I tilt my head, analyzing her reaction as I lay out my next rule. “You need to tell me if I do something that triggers you. What I did is on me, and I take full responsibility for that, but if I’d have realized what it was doing to you, I would never have left you in there alone.”
Freya chews her bottom lip. “It’s not always that simple.”
She’s right, but I’ve thought about this. “I want you to have another safe word. One for the bedroom or anything physical, and another you can use if one of us does something to trigger you or if you’re struggling.”
“Star.” Her voice is strong, firm, and I can see her fighting to reclaim her power with it.
I keep my gaze steady. “You say ‘star’ everything stops. We’ll back off, give you space and time to communicate what it is you need. If you’re not sure what you need, I still want you to use the word. We’ll help you figure out what comes next.”
Freya’s gaze softens. I feel the shift in the air as the distance between us dissipates. I want to reach out and thread my fingers through hers, but I hold back. “Any more rules to add?”
She shifts on her cushion and my gaze tracks the way her body moves, the slight bounce of her tits and the long slender line of her neck. Now the tension from our fight has drained away an entirely different sort of tension thickens the air.
Freya must read my reaction because her pupils dilate, the green of her irises almost disappearing. “Just one more,” she says. “You have to at least try to trust that I’m not going anywhere.”
My chest hitches with such a desperate desire to believe her.
“I won’t promise not to run again because I know it won’t mean anything anymore, but I need you to know that whatever happens, I will always want you to find me.”
“And if a rule gets broken?”
Freya stands up, a deathly seductive smile on her face as she looks down at me. “I think you and I both know what happens if the rules are broken.”
My cock hardens but for once I ignore it. “I’m serious, Freya.”
She loses the smirk and sets a clear gaze on me. “If we mess up badly then we do what we did tonight. We talk it through and find a way forward.”
I stand up, making it so she has to tilt her neck to look up at me when I stop myself inches away from her. “I won’t let you go. That will never be the way forward,” I warn her. I can compromise on a lot of things but Freya not being mine will never be one of them.
Her eyelashes flutter and the swell of her breasts rise and fall. “I know,” she says.
Her lips flush pink and her tongue darts out, making them shine and glisten like liquid sugar.
My fingers curl into a fist. “You have to give me permission, darling. I promised I wouldn’t touch you like that until you asked me to,” I remind her.
Safe words are never to be taken lightly, and I won’t lay a finger on Freya until she’s told me explicitly that is what she wants, even if it kills me.
I’ve already hurt her once. I refuse to do it again.