Chapter 10 #3
Bel sighed and peeled her face off of Eamon’s chest. So much for spending the day locked in his arms. “Yes, I’m on my way now.”
“I can come get you.” Eamon brushed his mouth against Bel’s as he spoke into the phone’s speaker. “I’m already driving Isobel to work.”
“Could you?” Olivia said. “That would be great, but you’d have to drive me home as well.”
“It’s no problem. We’ll be there soon.” Bel hung up and leaned back in her seat. “Playing hooky was a nice fantasy.”
“One of these days, I’ll convince you to shirk your responsibilities and spend the day hiding beneath the covers with me.” Eamon jumped out of the car and peeled off his shirt. “I’ll be quick.”
“I’ll be enjoying the show.”
He smirked at her before jogging to the obstruction, and for a split second, Bel’s faith faltered.
The tree was a monster in her own right, thick and long and impossibly heavy.
It would take mere mortals hours to cut apart its gargantuan truck and tow the parts off the road, but Eamon simply bent his body until the trunk rested against his bare back.
With a groan that echoed off the distant mountains, he heaved, the wood protesting the pressure, and just when it seemed like the weight would crush him into the asphalt, he surged heavenward.
With a visceral roar that was more animal than human, he shoved the tree into the woods, her mass splintering apart with a crash so earth-shattering that Bel involuntarily yelped.
The deafening noise echoed endlessly, and when the world finally fell silent, all that remained of the obstacle were the hundreds of lost leaves and a dirty Eamon.
“That was hot!” Bel whistled suggestively as her boyfriend cleaned the broken branches from the road.
If only she hadn’t answered Olivia’s call.
She could’ve been on her way home to spend the day tangled in the sheets with this human perfection, but alas, she was headed toward hours of dead ends and paperwork.
“I don’t know why you doubt me.” Eamon climbed back into the SUV, and Bel picked out the nature stuck in his hair.
“I don’t.” She traced her fingertips down his abs. “I know you were trying to preserve your shirt, but this was a dirty move, taking it off after I’ve resolved to go to work.”
“Gotta give you a reason to come home to me.” Eamon caught her wandering hand and pressed it to his lips.
“And it is a glorious reason.” Bel captured him in a kiss, biting his lip with enough pressure to tell him exactly how affected she was by his display of power.
“Call me selfish, but I like this Isobel.” Eamon smiled against her mouth. “I’m happy this case isn’t dragging you down with it.”
“I’ve experienced so much pain in my life, especially this past year.
” Bel sobered, retreating to her seat at the reminder of how many lives they’d lost. “My mom passed away when I was a kid. I’ve almost died…
a few times. I’ve been kidnapped. I’ve seen more dead women in the past few months than I’ve seen in my entire career, but I’ll end up sick or dead if I forgo my own happiness.
I deserve to be happy. I feel everyone’s pain so deeply, then you add my own trauma to the mix, and I feel like I’m drowning. I am allowed to be happy, aren’t I?”
“Of course, you are.” Eamon reached across the divide and pulled her hand into his fists.
“You carry the weight of the dead on your shoulders. You fight for them when they have no voice, but you’re alive.
You get one chance at life. I don’t want you to waste it falling into depression every time you work a tragic case. ”
“I feel selfish because the girls in the lake suffered. They didn’t get a happy ending, but I can’t do this job if I spend every waking moment suffering alongside them.
And I want to do this job. I love it, but there’s so much evil in this world.
So much darkness. It’s easy to let it poison you, but you make me happy. I want to be happy.”
“Lord knows, you make me happy.” Eamon started the SUV, transitioning her hand to his right fist so that he could navigate the debris-strewn road.
“Griffin knows about you,” Bel said. “So does Olivia and my dad. I think even Barry is catching on. Everyone important to me understands that you’re different, meaning we don’t have to hide like we did in the beginning.
It’s a tremendous weight off my shoulders since I feel safer when you’re around.
I love knowing that you’re unofficially part of the team. ”
“I’m glad. We spend almost every night together, and now I’m barging my way onto your crime scenes. I sometimes worry you’ll get sick of me.”
“Oh, I’m so tired of seeing your handsome face everywhere. Who even likes looking at a chiseled jawline twenty-four/seven?” she teased. “I think it’s time for me to find a different boyfriend.”
“The detective has jokes, ladies and gentlemen.” Eamon captured her shoulders and pinned her against his chest as if she were a little brother and not his thirty-five-year-old girlfriend.
“And I’ll be here all week.” She pinched his stomach, and he played along with an exaggerated flinch.
Bel loved him for that, for being someone who defied his nature for her.
He was a monster born and bred for violent cruelty, yet he’d learned how to become her best friend, to become a man comfortable with an uncharacteristic playfulness for a creature his size.
“I love you, Detective.” He kissed the top of her head, refusing to release her from his grip, so she twisted her face against his still bare chest and kissed his eternally cool skin.
“All right, all right. I surrender.” He removed his arm from her shoulders and gently pushed her away from him. “You’re going to make me crash.”
“You drove through that storm yesterday without issue, but one kiss from me is enough to run you off the road?”
“You are all-powerful, Detective.” Eamon turned into Olivia’s neighborhood. “Holy deserving of worship.”
“Put your shirt back on.” Bel grabbed his black t-shirt and slapped it against his chest. “Your abs and compliments make me wanna smack Olivia for calling and ruining our proposed day off.”
“We can’t go home, but I can drive you around today if you like,” he said as he slipped into his tee.
“We can be together, just not in bed with a bottle of wine… as long as you’re fine with me crashing your crime scenes.
I don’t do it to be controlling or overbearing.
I’m just selfish. I want every second of your life to be spent alongside mine. ”
“I’m not worried about that. If you shoved your way into a case, took over my job, and refused to let me make my own choices, then we’d have a problem, but I wear my own pants. I choose my own fate, even if it’s a dangerous and sometimes stupid one.”
“Don’t get me started on the heart attacks you give me.”
“Maybe I’ll give you grey hairs to match mine once they start coming in.” She ran her fingers through his light hair, its paleness matching his skin.
“If anyone could accomplish that, it would be you. Another reason I hang around. I don’t want to run your life, but I do want to stop you from running headfirst into trouble.”
“I’ll always run headfirst into trouble, but that’s your fault, especially when you stay close on a case. Your presence at the lake helped me not internalize what the mermaids must have endured. Plus, your expertise was a huge help.”
“So you’re okay with the old ball and chain following you around?”
“I prefer it.” Bel held up her hand so that they could both see her bare ring finger. “But you aren’t a ball and chain yet, Mr. Stone.”
“I will change that right now. Just say the word.”
“Just like that? No proposal in Paris? No diamond ring heavy enough to be an actual ball and chain?”
“You would HATE a diamond ring that big,” Eamon emphasized the word, knowing her all too well. “And you’ll probably have to propose to me when you’re ready because I’d take you to the courthouse right now if you let me.”
“Even if I wanted kids?” Bel pinned him with her question as he parked before Olivia’s apartment and her mangled car.
“Isobel…”
“Then no, I won’t let you take me to the courthouse.”
“So, is this you saying that kids are a deal breaker for you?”
“This is me saying that I’m not ready to get married.
We haven’t even been together for a year.
We don’t live together, and I don’t know how I feel about kids.
All I know is I love you, and I want you in my life so desperately that it hurts when I think about losing you.
So, can we shelve this for now? I have work to do, anyway. ”
“Yeah.” Eamon didn’t look convinced. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“Thanks.” Bel kissed his cheek before pulling out her phone to text her partner that they were outside.
She didn’t want to talk about losing Eamon.
She didn’t want to face the fact that they might not be compatible.
Drowned women weren’t the right backdrop for this discussion anyway, and if she were honest with herself, she didn’t want to have the conversation, because what if she realized that she wanted children?
What if this was her deal breaker? She would lose him, and that was a fate she never wanted to meet.
“You’re here?” Griffin stopped short as the detectives climbed out of the SUV.
“I was just about to call and ask if you needed emergency services to come clear the roads for… oh. Mr. Stone.” He nodded at the mountain of a man emerging from the driver’s seat.
“I see you employed your own emergency service.”
“Fast and efficient,” Bel smirked.
“Good… good.” Griffin’s gaze shifted between the trio, and Bel’s stomach dropped at his expression. It couldn’t be happening again. Which god had Bajka angered to incur such wrath? What had they done to deserve such devastation?
“Mr. Stone, would you mind driving Emerson and Gold since the roads are still a mess?” Griffin directed his question at Eamon because he didn’t need to tell the detectives. They already knew. There was another body.