Chapter 38
Bailey
After watching the last officer go, I wish I could say that I reached for a cup of hot tea, or even a glass of wine.
But I don’t.
It’s the whiskey bottle from the back of the cupboard that I grab with a shaky hand.
I splash a solid two inches into the bottom of a coffee mug that was already out on the counter, then lift it to my lips, getting an ounce of the fiery liquid down, wincing as it goes.
Letting it burn my throat before warming my belly.
I exhale, eyes closed, and take a second sip. This one hurts less, but it doesn’t taste any better.
The cup is still rattling in my hands, and I set it down on the counter, then bend in half, running both palms down my thighs, trying to force my breathing into submission.
The cops were here taking crime scene photos and evidence, but for some reason, the adrenaline is just hitting me now that the house is empty, with just Rhett and me left.
It’s making me breathless, like I’ve just finished running a marathon.
I’ve never been an anxious drinker. I’ve never reached for a whiskey bottle and poured it down my throat, hoping it acts like medicine, but I’ve also never walked in on someone trying to kill Rhett, then on Rhett trying to kill him.
Just having the whole scene start to replay in my mind has me reaching for the bottle again.
Rhett is watching me from where I left him across the room, near the front door, after telling the last officer goodbye.
He catches my eye when I struggle to take another mouthful of air since my lungs feel like there’s an invisible tourniquet strung between them, and they can’t stretch out properly.
He takes a slow, steady step toward me.
Speaking quietly and so calmly. I don’t understand how he’s not reacting exactly like I am right now.
“The adrenaline is what’s making you shake,” he says, sounding surer of that than I feel, but I set the bottle down and look at my hands.
He walks closer, but still leaves a wide circle of space between us, like he knows I need it.
The feeling of claustrophobia in my own body right now might make me bolt if he comes any closer.
Not because I don’t want him to hold me.
Because I really want him to hold me right now.
But because whatever this adrenaline is, it’s making my skin crawl.
“I don’t,” I start to say, feeling like I can’t breathe, “know why—”
“Just keep breathing, Bay. You don’t have to talk yet. I’m not going anywhere. Just let the adrenaline run through you, okay? It has to run its course. Try holding your breath for four seconds before letting it out.”
I inhale but only make it to one before it feels like I might suffocate if I don’t let it out, and gasp for another.
“Look at me,” he says. I focus on the Arctic blue of his eyes. The calm in the storm. “Try again.”
I suck in another breath. This one we do together, and I get to two instead of only one before having to gasp for a third.
Rhett slowly reaches out to take my hand, then presses my palm against his chest.
“Focus on that,” he tells me. His heartbeats are slower and steadier than mine.
I look at him, confused. My heart is raging compared to his.
But how?
“Try again,” he says. Then he exhales slowly and quietly while watching my own lips, silently urging me to do it with him. So, I do. “Good. Now, try to match your heartbeat to mine.”
His eyes draw me in, like the eye of the hurricane swirling in the icy blue pools. Calm. But concerned. Jaw clenched. Brows together.
I exhale.
He takes my other hand and just holds this one, rubbing his thumb across the top, testing out if I’m okay with it.
I close my eyes and take another deep inhale to focus on his heartbeat, and this time, I make it four beats before exhaling at the same time as him.
“Rockstar,” he says, already smiling when I open my eyes. “You’re good, Bay. Keep breathing.”
The view of his face blurs like rain pounding against a beautiful mural made of chalk, and I need to be closer to that.
To him. I let myself lean against him, feeling the claustrophobia strip away as my lungs begin functioning normally.
He wraps me up like a cocoon, and the pressure feels good, helping ground me right back here in the room.
I don’t know how he’s so calm. All I did was watch while he fought for both of us, and yet I’m the one falling apart right now.
I’ve never had a panic attack before. And I have no idea if that’s what this is, but the combination of his arms, mixed with the slow, steady beat of his heart thumping in my ear, helps me hold and release three more breaths.
The third one comes easier, and I’m no longer shaking from inside my core.
“What the fuck was that?” I finally manage to say, pulling myself back, feeling hungover from adrenaline. “He came out of nowhere.”
“That was the best outcome we could have hoped for,” he tells me.
“How can you even say that?” I stutter. “The best-case scenario would have been for him to never show up at all. He made it all the way inside. He tried to kill you.”
“He needs a lot of help, which he’ll be able to get now. But because he was armed with a knife, the judge will know he’s dangerous. As bad as it was, what happened tonight checked a lot of boxes that are going to help keep you safe for as long as possible.”
I close my eyes to exhale, but the view of Rhett holding that man by the neck so calmly, like he wanted to end his life, flashes behind my eyelids, and they instantly spring back open.
“Did you only stop because I told you to?” I ask barely above a whisper, unsure if I want to know the answer now or not.
“No,” he says. I adjust my arms, already wrapped around his middle. Steady as a rock. “But I needed to stop him. I—” He pauses.
“You what?” I ask.
“I didn’t want you to see any of that,” he tells me.
“The gun . . .” I start, wondering why he didn’t use it.
“We’re trained to stay in control. Only take a life if necessary. Plus, I couldn’t bear the thought of you seeing even a fraction of the horrible things I’ve seen. Especially with me in the middle doing it. Maybe it was a mistake to let him go, but—”
“No,” I tell him, firmly. “You were my hero tonight.” I bury my face back in his chest, wondering if his heart is constricting as much as mine is right now. He was holding that man’s life in his hands, and, when given the chance, he didn’t end it.
He cups my face in his palms, and the feeling is so opposite to what I just saw them do, so opposite to what they’re capable of.
He bends until we’re at eye level, his face just an inch from mine.
“We’re okay, it’s over. But—”
He swallows, without finishing. Instead, his thumbs brush across my cheeks while he studies my face.
“But what?”
“But this is going to change you. Probably in ways you don’t even know yet,” he says, holding my gaze steady. “I’ll go with you to talk about it with a counselor if you want. Or you can go yourself, if that’s better. Just don’t let it get too bad, before you decide to go.”
I nod, my face cradled in his palms.
Then he kisses me. Gentle at first, as if he’s unsure whether or not this is what he should be doing right now.
But the truth is, there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing.
I’ll face what happened and face it head-on after tonight, but right now, I want him to help me forget everything.
Help me stop what happened from replaying in my mind over and over.
“Do we just stay here? It seems so wild that they carted this guy out of the house, took some photos and made this house a crime scene, and then just left. Like, that’s it. This feels crazy.”
“Do you want to go to the lodge?” he asks. “I bet Savannah would have a room for us.”
Do I want to go to the lodge?
I look around at this place. The place that’s felt like home the longest out of anywhere I’ve been.
“No,” I tell him, honestly. “But I do want to reclaim it. Our space. This house. I’m not leaving it until it feels right again. We’re going to have to re-christen the whole damn thing.”
He smiles and tucks my hair behind my ear.
“That won’t be so bad.”
“And I’m so sorry,” I tell him. “I never saw it getting this bad.”
“Come here,” he says, then he pushes the whiskey bottle aside and hoists me up to sit on the counter right behind me.
My legs dangle off the ledge on either side of his hips, feeling shocked that it was only last night when we were making love right here.
He tilts my chin up with the top side of his finger.
“I never want you to apologize for any of this again, alright? You didn’t make me stay.
Hollis didn’t force me to come. Bailey, nothing could have stopped me from being exactly where I was tonight — right between that asshole and you. ”
“This should have—” I start, but he stops me.
“Never apologize for being someone I’d risk everything for. You’re mine to take care of, and don’t you ever forget that.”
My face is back between his palms, and he kisses me, lifting my face to his. The gentle touch of his hands sends a string of shivers all the way down my spine, and I’m suddenly desperate to have him touching me and wrapped around every part of my skin, erasing any trace of what just happened.
“I want you,” I manage to tell him. “I could have lost you. I could have watched it happen. And all I want to do is have you wipe away any doubt that you’re still here.”
“I would have never let anything happen to you,” he tells me. “But seeing you on the other end of that hallway after I heard you scream felt like you were standing on the other side of the world. I would have done anything to get to you. But, I never, ever want to feel like that again.”
I’m suddenly desperate for him. At first, right after the cops left, I didn’t want anyone near me, but now my body screams to be held and consumed by him. Throbbing for that sense of deep security that can only come from him.
“Follow me upstairs,” I tell him, hopping down off the counter. “I’d give anything for that hot shower now.” We’d changed into clothes while the police were here earlier, but I still feel chilled to my bones.
We make our way to the stairs, and I pause at the top, staring at the spot where everything happened.
I can practically still see it.
Rhett fighting that man.
Until he was slumped on the floor.
I shudder, allowing myself to picture Rhett slumped on the floor if things had gone the opposite way. What would have happened next?
I close my eyes.
He wraps his arms around me from behind.
I turn around and kiss him, then hug him tighter than before. “You make me feel safer than anywhere I’ve ever been,” I tell him.
“I could say the same about you,” he says, pulling me in.
When we make it to the bathroom, I lock the door behind us out of habit, my heart still racing a mile a minute, wondering if I’ll ever shower again with the door unlocked, even if I’m home alone by myself.
When I turn, he already has the hot water running. Just the familiar sound and steam of it feels soothing.
After we strip down, we get in, and he pulls me flush against his naked body, the warmth of it as hot as the water rushing out.
We stand under the stream, and he kisses my neck, my nerves already flushed with the heightened senses of adrenaline. My skin ignites, and my heart steadily picks up, calling for the type of release that I want him to give.
He holds his hand up against the wall, like he did at the grotto earlier tonight, and like he did in my bedroom back in New York that very first morning when I found out that he was planning to stay.
Then he slides his other hand around my waist, stepping into me, holding me steady while the water cascades down our skin.
“Make me see stars, Rhett,” I tell him. “Make me forget everything else but you.”
He understands the assignment. Savagely closing his lips over mine like he wants the exact same thing from me, biting, sucking, then finding my tongue to dance heatedly with his, wet with steam and water.
Curving my spine, I grab his hair and lower his mouth to my breasts as my head falls back against the shower door.
He pushes me harder against it, leaving kisses and nips along the heavy rounds and peaks of pink, making me cry out in gasps when he reaches the sensitive spot beneath my neck next.
He bends and lifts me up so my legs wrap around his waist. The hard and thick length of him grows beneath my ass, awakening that primal ache deep inside that screams that these kisses won’t be enough.
I need more.
I run my lips to his ear, my mind a raging river,
Adrenaline is a powerful drug when you need it to survive, but when you need it to calm you down, it’s nearly impossible without one thing.
A release.
I bite his earlobe, harder than I mean to, before topping it off by saying, “I need you to make sure that neither one of us can remember our names after tonight.”