Chapter 23 #4
I waited until we were walking up the steps to enter the kitchen before I told him, “I definitely don’t want this to be the last time we see each other, but I don’t have answers beyond that.
Will moving in still feel like a good option once we’ve had some separation?
I don’t know. Any chance we can just agree that being separated will be hard, after being around each other so long, but might be a good thing, too?
We might be clearer-headed about the possibilities, with some distance between us. ”
“Fuck, do you have to be so logical about this?” He didn’t give me a chance to answer before he kept going. “I like you. All of you — fuckslave, houseslave, investigator, reporter, and a woman who knows what she wants, who she is, and apologizes to no one for it.”
I looked at my feet a good ten seconds, deciding how honest to be, and decided to just spill everything.
“Maybe I’m being logical to keep from falling to the floor and pitching a two-year-old-toddler-tantrum about life not being fair, did you ever consider that!
? I’ve given everything to you, and now I’m expected to just walk away and be a professional while my life is still on the line and I might die before I ever see you again!
How the hell am I supposed to hold it together without resorting to damned logic! ?”
He pulled me into his arms again, and that brought on the tears. Fuck, I hate crying. It pissed me off, but I couldn’t stop.
My heart hurt with the idea of leaving here and not being able to come back — either for a while, or for good.
I’d had a little less than two months of paradise — lake house, the yummiest high-protocol power-exchange ever, and a man I’d fallen head over heels in love with, though I was smart enough not to say that last part out loud.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. I’m sorry. Yes, your logic was sound, but it pissed me off a little. We’re adults, and we’ll deal with it. Neither of us is happy about it, but one to three months, and we should be able to figure out how to see each other again.”
Sex that night was heartbreaking because I was crying long before he drove inside me.
The idea I was going to lose this, at least for a while, was crushing.
He fucked me exactly the way I needed him to — hard and deep, with zero mercy.
I clung to him through every thrust, every ordered orgasm, every sharp edge of pain, trying to memorize the feel of him while I still could.
I pulled myself back together before everyone arrived the next morning, and I focused even harder on our final run-through. Our last practice. The next time we did this, it would be for real.
Ember and Sloan were already in Virginia, because Ember was planning to swap out the prescription glasses of someone who’d be attending the fight weekend.
She knew where he’d be at ten o’clock that morning, she had his prescription, and she knew exactly which name-brand glasses he had.
All she had to do was lift and replace, which she’s apparently really good at, and then we’d have video of everything he saw for the next thirty-six hours, which was about how long the battery would last.
By the time we pulled out and headed to Virginia, my chest was tight with adrenaline and gut-wrenching grief. The lake house sanctuary was behind me, and the sooner we rescued the missing, burned the fight ring and brought them into the light of day, the better.
Could this crazy thing with Magnum survive real life?
Outside of the private little bubble we’d been in for months?
I blinked rapidly, refusing to let anyone see the tears threatening to spill.
Falling for Magnum at the lake house had been the easy part.
Surviving long enough to see what came next was going to take everything I had.
And the truth I could feel deep in my gut? I wasn’t just fighting for my freedom and my life anymore. I was fighting to get back to his rules and routines.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and hardened my focus. No tears, no distractions. The only way back to his lake was through the fire waiting for us in Virginia, and then the aftermath — and that last part was going to be all on me.
Damn, it was hard not to cry in front of everyone, though. Sometimes, I’m such a damned girl.
Storm and Magnum’s story finishes in Magnum Volume 2
Thank you for reading MAGNUM. If you have the time and inclination, please consider leaving a short review wherever you can. It really makes a difference.
- - -