Chapter 31 Hero #2
I exhaled in relief and held her back. She cried, her body shaking while she clung to me, shaking apart while I tried to keep her together. “It’s okay, Daniela. I’ve got you.”
She pulled away suddenly and knelt on either side of me while she gripped the lapels of my flannel pajamas. “Are you crazy? I could have killed you!” She shook me once and then collapsed back on my chest, leaving me to gather her back into my arms where she belonged.
“It’s not comfortable, but I doubt it will kill me.
My back, maybe. Shall we roll onto the sleeping bag?
The foam pad inserts inside the bag are brilliant, if I don’t say so myself.
I designed them. You married such a clever tech geek.
Here we go. One, two, three.” I rolled us until we were on the bag, her on top of me because I wasn’t about to crush her.
I pulled down the zip and wriggled us inside.
It was cold at night in the desert, particularly in November.
“What are you doing?” she whispered, voice still wavery.
“Getting comfortable. You are going to have a good long cry, and I’m going to hold you. It isn’t more therapeutic to cry on top of me while we’re out of the bag, is it? Because we can reverse things and be right where we were in two seconds.”
“You’re such an idiot.” She took a shaky breath. “I could have killed you. I thought you were Philippe.”
My blood went cold at the name, and I held her even closer. “Someone you don’t like.”
She shuddered and pressed her face against my neck until I worried that she couldn’t breathe, but when I tried to pull away, she held me even tighter.
I relaxed and let her hold me tight. I was going to wait until she settled down and go to my own tent, but instead, I let her hold me, let it feel real, true, that she was mine and I was hers, and that I was going to keep the monsters at bay forever, and that she was going to trust me and love me as much as I loved her.
It had started the first time I stepped into that elevator and saw her, so brave facing her fear all on her own.
She was strong the way my sister hadn’t been strong.
I didn’t want her to be strong on her own anymore.
Never again, not when being with her made life worth living.
She wasn’t my revenge anymore; she was my future. That was more real than anything else.
I woke up with her in my arms, exactly where she belonged for the rest of my life. There would never be enough Christmases. Somehow I had to convince her that I loved her, without the destroying her at the end part of what she thought was a love story.
I kissed her forehead and watched her wake up in the shadowed light of early morning that spread through the thin tent walls. Her thick, dark lashes fluttered, and then she opened her eyes and stared at me for a long time, just staring like she’d never seen a face before.
“Dirk, did you sleep with me?”
I squeezed my eyes closed and then blinked a few times. “I did. Good thing, because staring at you all night would be creepy.”
“It was dark. You couldn’t have seen me in the dark.”
“I could have listened to you breathe.”
She frowned and raised her head off my shoulder to trace over my throat, talented fingers so light, I barely felt them. “I could have killed you.” Her voice was even, level, as though she’d never shed a tear in her life.
“You’re very talented with your hands.”
She frowned at me, fingers exploring my throat, tracing the skin with such a delicious feather-light touch, I got shivers, or maybe it was because she’d opened the sleeping bag and predawn’s chill was creeping in.
“Dirk, don’t do that again.”
“I have no objection to not being killed.”
She grasped my chin and shifted so she was looking down at me. “You could have fought me off. Why didn’t you?”
“I didn’t want to fight you off. I wanted to hold you, like now.”
She bit her lip. “I shouldn’t have come on this race. Everyone probably heard me screaming.”
“You know who is loud? Jezebel when she shoots things in the middle of the night. You can’t sleep through that, except for Trix.
She could sleep through being mauled by a bear.
Nix gets up every twenty minutes to check the perimeter, so I’m not sure if he actually sleeps at these things.
I wasn’t quite asleep when you got restless, and I slept so well when I accidentally fell asleep in your excellent sleeping bag that it made up for any disturbances I may have had. ”
She stared at me for a long time, emotions roiling in her eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
I kissed her nose and sat up. “We are in matching pajamas. We need to do a photo. Say, ‘flannel pajamas!’” I took a selfie of our profiles.
She didn’t look at the camera, only leaned forward and kissed me.
I got a picture of that too, but then the feel of her reminded me of our last kiss, the one where she’d been so revolted by me, and I needed to kiss her until I wiped out that memory.
Nix clapped his hands outside the tent, making her jump and look guilty while I tried to look pleasant and not furious that I’d been interrupted from something so important for something so trivial as winning a race.
“Hot breakfast is waiting, lovebirds.”
I kissed her one more time and then said, “Your timing is impeccable,” louder, to Nix.
She was staring at me, eyes soft, lips soft, everything soft, inviting, irresistible.
“We could skip breakfast,” she whispered, and touched my cheek, fingers lingering on my skin, sweet, delicate touch like I was a musical instrument that my wife wanted to play.
My wife. She was my wife to have and to hold. And it was starting to feel like it.
I blinked and then kicked back the sleeping bag and got out before I never moved again. “Hot breakfast means that Jezebel is cooking. If you insult her cooking, you might wake up with a rattlesnake in your bed.”
“I heard that,” Jezebel called. “That’s not polite. It’s not entirely untrue, but not polite. I’d make sure to kill the rattler before I put it in your bed, Daniela, but Dirk, yours would be alive.”
I grinned, still looking at Daniela, but loud enough for Jezabel. “You know that’s how I like it.”
Daniela cringed and then pulled the sleeping bag over her head. “Everyone heard me last night,” she mumbled through the thick fabric.
I hesitated at the door in my bare feet and collected the knife and gun I’d abandoned the night before. “Probably not Trix. She snores so loudly, she can’t hear anything.”
“I heard that,” Trix said. “I won’t bother with a snake; I’ll just drive over you.”
Daniela pulled the sleeping bag down to reveal her beautiful smile and adorably mussed pink hair. “It seems like we’re surrounded,” she whispered.
“Completely cut off. Surrender is the only option. You are so beautiful. We’ll continue this conversation at the finish line.”
“Lunch?” she asked with an elegantly raised brow.
“Dinner. We won’t have time to stop for any moving musical numbers and steamed asparagus today. It’s all go, go, go, until we hit that finish line. I miss you already.”
Her eyes brightened, and her cheeks went pink. Was she blushing? Who knew that goddesses of death could blush? My wife. To have and to hold. Now I was blushing. “We’ll have to go quickly. Wasn’t there something about you giving me my prize?”
I swallowed hard. “That’s right. I’ll give you whatever you want.”
“Play with me.” Her eyes danced, and I was brought back to the night before.
“For real,” I said, and slipped out of her tent.