Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
brOOKS
Her lips part on a gasp. “That’s not—”
“Don’t try to lie to me, baby. It’s always been that way, even when I was breaking your eggs,” I snag the pants from her hands, drop them to the floor.
“I loved you from that first day, and though it took me a bit to break through those thick, icy walls of yours, you fell for me then too. So talk to me. Tell me. Don’t let the memories hold you hostage, don’t use them against us, not now. ”
“There’s no point.”
“Why?”
“They probably already know where I am. And they’re not going to stop until they get what they want.” She shakes her head. “And if I don’t give it to them, they’ll…”
“They’ll what?”
“The Lyons will hurt me or you or—” Her knees buckle. “Oh God! What if they target one of the others? Chrissy and Rome have a baby—”
“It’s going to be okay. Jean-Michel says they’re not particularly violent, and—”
“Not violent?” She shoves out of my arms. “Were they not violent when they lay in wait for me in my apartment and beat the shit out of me so I’d do a drop for them?”
“Baby—”
“Were they not violent when I ran and they tracked me down, dragged me back so I could pretend to be the girlfriend of a doddering old fuck they wanted to steal from?”
“Briar—”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t have to fuck him,” she snaps. “But only because I swapped his Viagra with fake pills and he couldn’t get it up.”
I clench my hands at my sides.
Fuck. I need to punch something.
Someone.
“I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you’d look at me like that, knew you think I’m…
” She waves her hand. “I tried to ignore the letters—you know that doesn’t work.
And then I tried to fight them—newsflash, that shit didn’t work either.
So, I left. Again and again and every time I ended up right back here!
With a disembodied voice on the other end of the phone telling me what to do.
Only each time I was dragged back it was with more bruises, more scars. ”
The quiet that falls between us isn’t silent.
Not in the least.
It’s punctuated by our unsteady breathing, by the faint hum of the fan overhead, by the thundering of my pulse in my ears.
“How am I looking at you?” I ask long minutes later.
She turns away. “You know.”
“Raindrop—”
Her body goes stiff and her words come sharp and icy. “Like I’m dirty. Like I’m broken. Like I’m a leper who you won’t ever want to touch again.”
“Okay, now you’re pissing me off.”
She blinks.
“I want you more than I’ve ever wanted another woman. And I don’t care who you fucked or touched.”
A shake of her head.
“I hate that your choices were taken from you. I hate that you were forced to do things you didn’t want to.
And I hate that you were hurt, Raindrop.
By me, by them, by the fucking shit they made you do.
But I wouldn’t care if you chose to fuck a hundred guys while we were apart.
” I move to pull her into my arms again, but when she steps away, I freeze.
“I’d still love you. And I still won’t let you go. ”
She’s quiet, so damned quiet.
And Christ, I want to take her in my arms, need to hold her.
“Briar, baby?”
She shakes her head again, but doesn’t retreat, thank fuck. Slowly, like I’m cornering a wild animal, I wrap my arms around her. It takes a long time for her to unfreeze, to relax into my touch.
“I didn’t,” she whispers.
“I don’t care, Raindrop. I promise.”
“I didn’t,” she whispers again. “The closest it ever came was that time. But one of the other women—” Her throat works. “Usually I worked alone, but sometimes there would be a few of us.”
“She helped you?” I ask gently.
A nod. “Angela gave me the bottle of pills to swap out.”
I stroke my hand up and down her back. “I’m glad.”
Her forehead drops to my chest. “At first it was just dropping off things and picking them up or being a lookout. Then it was…more—playing a role, causing a distraction. But it’s been escalating,” she whispers. “Becoming riskier, like they don’t care if I’m caught, like I’m dispensable.”
“Good,” I mutter.
She jerks in my hold. “Good?”
“It’ll make it easier to get you out if they aren’t trying so hard to keep you.”
“Have you been listening to me at all? These people are dangerous!”
“Yeah, they are. So?”
Her mouth opens and closes, eyes flaring wide. “So we’ve both tried to fight them, but it didn’t work.”
“Anything else?”
Another flare of those gorgeous eyes. “What do you mean anything else?”
“I mean, is there anything else you haven’t told me?”
“There are like five years of things, Brooks!” she snaps.
“Yeah,” I say, “and I’m going to be here to listen to each and every one of them.”
“You’ve lost your mind.”
I smooth back her hair, something settling in me at the steel in her tone. “Maybe.” I draw her closer. “But I’m not going to lose you.”
“I don’t know what we’re doing.”
“That’s okay,” I murmur. “I do.”
She looks up, her eyes holding mine for a long, long moment. “I’m scared.”
“I know. But this time is different.”
“How? How can it possibly be different?” She sighs heavily. “They’re always watching. Always ready to pounce.”
“We have help,” I remind her. “We’re not keeping secrets.” Something flashes across her eyes, but I keep talking before she can go back to arguing with me. “We’re going to be okay.”
“I don’t think—”
“Then let’s not think.”
“Again”—she throws up her hands—“you’ve lost your mind.”
“No. I lost you once and I can’t do it again. But, baby, we also can’t keep doing this, can’t keep looking back and regretting all the things that went bad, worried about what might go wrong. We need to live for today, live for each other, live for what we can build together.”
She closes her eyes and looks away, her words so quiet I can’t discern them.
“What’s that?”
A shake of her head.
“No more secrets, yeah?”
She sighs, and her eyes peel open.
But then she exhales and looks up.
And breaks my heart.
“I said, what happens when you leave again?”