Epilogue #2
His dark blue eyes light up as he tracks the motion of my throat.
Patrick… he’s so down bad that he gets hard just watching me drink my coffee.
Of course, considering how hot it gets him when I swallow him…
yeah. I first thought he had a throat kink.
Nope. He has a Noelle kink, and I’m okay with that.
I’ve never been so desired, so wanted, so loved, and it’s by a killer who won’t hesitate to add more leaves to his delectable body if I ask him to.
There isn’t anything he won’t give me. Well, except for my freedom, but I don’t want that anymore.
I just want him.
Patrick clears his throat. I can hear the lust—the arousal—in the sound, and I hide my smile behind my cup as I lift my eyebrows. “Mm?”
He knows better than to suggest we return home for an afternoon quickie.
He promised me a Christmas tree today so we’ll be going to get a Christmas tree, even though it started to snow when we left the house, but when he leans in again, I’ll admit that I didn’t quite expect him to ask me what he does—though, considering how we first met two Christmases ago, I probably should have.
“So… did you make a list yet?”
A Christmas wish list.
Two years ago, I wrote a wish list on a laptop in this very coffeehouse.
I typed the five names that had haunted me since the holiday party the previous Christmas, then went back and added a poinsettia because I needed something to soften the reminder of the horrible, ugly act.
Back then, I was consumed by a pain and a rage I didn’t know how to carry without completely falling apart.
I needed an outlet. I needed some release after I smelled cranberry on the breeze just outside of the coffeehouse, floating to me from the bakery next door and twisting my guts as the memory of what happened slammed into me…
lost and alone, I wished. So I told myself they were only words.
Just a desire for revenge that I’d never have.
After all, I never meant for anyone to bleed.
But then my very own Santa Claus turned that violent night into a holy one over a year-long rampage, culminating with a Christmas memory to replace the one from two years before.
And, sure, maybe I’m still broken. I might always be.
Replacing one trauma-filled Christmas with another can’t be a healthy coping mechanism.
I went from being roofied and assaulted by five of my co-workers to taken captive by my stalker.
That would shatter most people, but I don’t think there was much left of me to obliterate by the time Patrick found me.
Instead, through vengeance and obsession and a determination to love me even when I didn’t want him to, he put me back together. Now I’m his, and those fuckers are dead, and he made sure my Christmas list was satisfied, even if it took him a year to accomplish it.
It’s a new year now, a new Christmas, and I have a new list.
I place my latte on the table, exchanging it for the small purse nestled on my lap. Pulling my phone out, I slide it across the table to Patrick.
We don’t hide our passwords from each other.
Once he proved how easily he was able to track me through my electronics, I didn’t see a point in trying to keep him out.
As for Patrick, he was so eager in the early days to prove I could trust him that he was an open book.
I’m sure the head of the Libellula Family wouldn’t be too happy to hear how much of his business Patrick shared with me, but he wanted me to know what sort of man he was.
At first, I thought it was a threat. A warning. A reminder. I could try to escape him if I wanted to, though it would be useless, and we both knew it. He had the years on me, the experience… most importantly, he had decided I belonged to him, and that meant that he belonged to me.
I have his heart, his loyalty, and his gun. Not bad, Noelle. Not bad at all.
So, yeah, I give him my phone. I added a Christmas list to my notes app a couple of days ago. That he’s asking me makes me think he’s already seen it, but in case he hasn’t, I wait for him to see what I’m hoping for this December.
Patrick doesn’t touch it at first. He never rushes things that matter to him, almost as though he wants to savor it—and that’s exactly what he does as he slowly lifts my phone up, reading what I’ve typed there:
MY WISH LIST
a week at the chalet for New Year’s
a Christmas ornament for our first anniversary
a pair of fuzzy slippers (red)
a baby
I can tell when he reaches the final line, my greatest wish.
My chest tightens as I watch his face, searching for some sign of his reaction.
We had one talk about starting a family after he made it clear that there was no getting away from him, and I admitted to being on birth control.
It was an implant. Patrick offered to remove it himself, but I told him that would hurt me, and he told me to get it taken out as soon as possible.
I did. Last month, when he was out of town doing a job for Damien Libellula, I went and took care of it without my overprotective husband knowing.
At least, I think he doesn’t know, but, then again, this is Patrick North.
At this point, I don’t believe there’s anything about me that he isn’t aware of.
But children…
For a long time, the idea of having a kid felt impossible. Not because I didn’t want one—I’ve always wanted to be a mom—but because I couldn’t imagine bringing something so damn small and soft and fragile into a world that had proven it could tear me apart so easily.
And then Patrick happened to be drinking his tea when I came running into this coffeehouse, fleeing the scent of cranberry, and, before long, the world stopped touching me without consequence.
The thought of a baby doesn’t scare me because of the responsibilities that come with bringing a child into this world.
It doesn’t even terrify me because there might be a time when my child is hurt and, like my husband, there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to protect them.
No… it scares me because having one with Patrick means permanence in a way that not even marriage does.
It means proof that we belong to each other.
It means something that exists only because I survived—and because Patrick saved me.
As I wait, Patrick’s jaw tightens; not with surprise, but satisfaction. Letting the phone settle between us, he reaches for my hand, thumb brushing the ring like he’s checking for something that’s already his.
“That’s what you want for Christmas this year, Noelle?”
I nod.
“Then I’ll make it happen,” he promises.
I laugh softly, almost a touch giddy, because of course he would say it like that.
“You always do,” I tell him. “Even when I don’t ask.”
His gaze lifts to mine, sharp and intent, the way it always does when he’s trying to see behind the friendly mask I wore for too long.
“That’s because you don’t have to,” he says quietly. “You don’t have to wish, either, Starling. You just have to trust your husband and let me take care of everything.”
Outside of the coffeehouse, snow continues to drift past the window, clean and endless, covering the city street in white.
It won’t last long like that. Not here in Springfield, where it’ll be trampled, the pristine white turning a slushy grey as passersby make quick work of the winter weather.
Even so, Patrick watches it like it’s a language he understands instinctively: how it hides footprints, how it erases evidence, how it makes the world quieter.
It is quiet. The hustle and bustle of the lead-up to the holidays will be here before we know it, but for now, it all falls away as I see the promise in his eyes.
He leans in, close enough that no one can hear him but me.
“Make your lists. Make your wishes. Whatever you want, it’s yours, Starling. Just so long as I get you for every Christmas.”
Because, for Patrick North, I’m the only thing that’ll ever be on his list.