Chapter 18
She was asleep before I finished pulling the blanket over her.
I lay beside her for a while, watching her breathe.
Her face was still blotchy from crying, her lashes dark against her cheeks, her lips slightly parted.
She looked smaller like this. Softer. The woman who had marched into a room full of armed men and sat in my lap like she owned me was currently curled against my chest with one hand fisted in my shirt.
I waited until her breathing deepened further, until her grip slackened. Then I slipped out from under her arm as carefully as she did that first morning.
The irony was not lost on me.
I pulled the door closed behind me and stood in her small living room for a moment, running a hand through my hair. The apartment was quiet. The food I had made sat cold on the stove. Then picked up my phone.
"Alex."
A beat of silence, then his voice came through, too loud, too cheerful, as always.
"Boss! You're alive! Romano said you were doing something important, but he wouldn't tell me what. I thought maybe you'd finally gotten yourself—"
"Alex."
"Right, right. What do you need?"
"Tell Luca to search on two names. Oliver and Anne." I paused. "I want everything. Where they live, where they work, who they talk to. Everything."
"Got it." No questions. Even Alex knew when not to push.
"Also," I said, looking at the cold food on the stove, "drop by. Don't look suspicious."
A pause. "Don't look suspicious. Boss, I am the least suspicious person you have—"
"Alex."
"On my way."
He arrived within fifteen minutes. Too fast. Which meant he had been in the area, or he had broken every traffic rule. Both seemed reasonable with him.
I handed him the container of food I had reheated just enough to be warm. He took it, looked inside, then looked at me.
"What's this, boss?"
"Food."
A beat. "For me?"
"Mhm."
His face split into something that was entirely too pleased.
"Really?!" His voice rose. "Food cooked by you? I knew it! I knew you liked me more than Roman—"
Before he could complete his serenade I shut the door in his face.
Through the wood, I could still hear him. Something about finally being appreciated. Something about Romano's face when he found out.
I stood there for a moment, listening to the muffled excitement on the other side of the door, and wondered, not for the first time, why I employed people who had no sense of self-preservation.
Then I went back to the room.
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I had cried into his jacket. I had cried on his lap. I had asked him to stay. I wanted the ground to open and swallow me whole.
I stayed very still, my face still pressed into his chest, my breathing carefully even. Maybe he was still asleep. Maybe I could slip out before he woke up and we could pretend this had never happened. Maybe I could move to another country and change my name and never have to look at him again.
"It's so embarrassing...!" I mumbled, letting out a silent scream.
I lay there for a few seconds, maybe longer, trying to become one with the mattress. His breathing didn't change. His arm didn't move.
He was still asleep. Good. Great. I could salvage this. I would slip out, pretend this never happened, and we would both go back to pretending I was a normal, composed human being who did not cry on relative strangers for hours at a time.
I lifted my head just enough to look at him. His eyes were closed. His face was relaxed in a way I had never seen it—the sharp edges softened by sleep, his jaw unclenched, his mouth slightly parted. He looked younger like this. Almost peaceful.
I poked his cheek to make sure he was asleep. Nothing.
I poked again, just to be sure. Still nothing.
Perfect.
Okay. This was fine. I could do this. I reached for his arm, the one draped across my waist, and started lifting it slowly, carefully, millimeter by millimeter. Almost there....
"Not this time, kitten."
I froze.
His voice was low, rough with sleep, and entirely too amused. I could feel the vibration of it through his chest, against my cheek, like he had been waiting for this exact moment.
Shit.
"You're awake?" My voice came out higher than I wanted it to. I pulled back just enough to look at him, scrambling for something that sounded normal. "I was about to go to the washroom. I have a habit of washing up as soon as I wake up. You wouldn't know, since my room was off limits..."
His eyes opened slowly. That faint, insufferable smirk was already forming at the corner of his mouth.
"Yeah?" His hand found my waist, not pulling me back, just there. Present. "But I know one of your habits very well."
I swallowed. "What habit?"
"Running." His thumb traced a slow circle against my side. "After your post-embarrassing situations."
I squeezed my eyes shut. Was there any way left to embarass myself in front of this man?
He heard. He heard everything. He heard me mumbling into his chest about how embarrassed I was. He heard me plotting my escape. He heard!
I opened my eyes and fixed him with what I hoped was a glare and not the expression of someone who wanted the floor to open up and consume her whole.
"You heard that?"
He didn't answer. I looked up to find him looking down at me, one eyebrow raised, a faint smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. The smugness radiated off him in waves.
I wanted to strangle him. I also wanted to disappear. Both options felt equally viable at the moment.
His hand came up to my face, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear with a gentleness that did not match the expression he was wearing. Then his fingers found my jaw, tilting my head up, and I realized something.
My hair was down.
I had slept with it tied. It should be the same which I left for work with. I didn't have energy to comb it last night. And now it was loose around my shoulders, and I was wearing something soft and loose that I definitely had not put on myself.
My gaze dropped to my clothes. Then back to his face. Then down again.
The base of my palm found his chin and shoved upward with all the force I had.
"You pervert!!!"
He let out a small laugh which sounded so pleasant that I wanted to listen to it again.
I was on my back before I could react.
His hand pinned both my wrists above my head, one broad palm holding them there like it cost him nothing. His other hand cupped my jaw, holding my face in place when I tried to look away, and he was over me, around me, everywhere.
"You noticed now?" His voice was low, almost lazy. "You're quite slow."
"Slow?" I twisted my wrists against his grip. Nothing. "Slow?! Who are you calling slow! I'm not slow! I was sleep-addled! That's it!"
He let out a breath, something close to a laugh, and his thumb brushed against my pulse point.
"You're fierce, kitt—"
"Elera!"
A pause. His eyes held mine, something shifting behind them that I couldn't name.
"Elera," he said slowly, like he was tasting it.
My name.... He had never said it before. It sounded strange coming from him, odd and foreign, like a word I had heard a thousand times but never like this.
Not bad.
I shook the thought away and fixed my glare back into place.
"You! You changed my clothes while I was asleep!"
"I did."
The audacity. The absolute, shameless audacity. Couldn't he at least pretend to feel guilty? Just a little? His face was completely blank, like he had done something perfectly reasonable, like changing a sleeping woman's clothes was a normal Tuesday activity.
"That's harassment!" I twisted my wrists again. "You're a pervert! You old geezer!"
His expression changed.
The smirk disappeared. His jaw tightened. His eyes went very, very still.
"Old."
Old. Geezer. I had just called him an old geezer. I watched his jaw tighten. His tongue poked against the inside of his cheek, like he was controlling himself.
"Yeah!" I forged ahead, because retreat was not an option and also because I was committed now. "That's not the point! You—! you assaulter!"
He leaned closer, impossibly closer. His lips brushed the tip of my ear, his breath warm against the shell of it.
"I have seen every single inch of you already," he murmured. "Even the mole on your h—"
"Shut up!" My voice cracked. "T-That's not the point!"
He pulled back just enough to look at me, one eyebrow raised, and the smug satisfaction radiating off him was going to be the death of me.
"Right." His hand moved from my jaw to the side of my neck, his thumb tracing a line down to my collarbone. "The point is, you called me an old geezer."
His hand traveled lower. Down my side, over my ribs, settling on my thigh.
His fingers pressed in, slow and teasing, and I could feel every single nerve ending in my body wake up and pay attention.
I could feel the goosebumps forming on my skin before I could stop them, the way my body betrayed me with every touch.
"I'm itching to prove you wrong."
He placed a kiss just below my ear, and my body leaned into it, shrinking into his touch, my breath catching. His mouth trailed along my jaw, soft and deliberate, until he reached the corner of my lips. Before he could capture my lips, I turned my head away.
"Are you rejecting me, Carter?"
His voice was low, rougher than before, and there was something underneath it that made my stomach flip.
I shook my head quickly. "No. Morning breath.... We haven't brushed our teeth yet so...."
His laugh was quiet, a low exhale against my cheek. "We have done far more dirty things than kissing with some morning breath."
He brushed the tip of his nose against my cheek, light, almost gentle, and I could feel myself giving in. The fight draining out of me. The distance closing.
No.
I flipped him off.
Not metaphorically. I put both hands against his chest and shoved with everything I had, catching him off balance just enough to scramble out from under him. I launched myself off the bed and toward the bathroom, my voice following behind me.
"I won't give in to your words!" I shouted, slamming the door shut behind me. "You perverted manipulator!"
The door clicked shut. I leaned against it, my heart pounding, my face burning, and tried to remember how to breathe like a normal person.
From the other side of the door, there was silence.
I pressed my forehead against the wood and closed my eyes.
He was out there. On my bed. Laughing at me, probably. Definitely.
I should have run when I had the chance