Something about being back in his sphere of the world was a natural calming force upon me. I could relax. I could lower my guard. Even though he was Emil Dubinin, a wanted assassin, I knew he had my back.
No one would hurt me so long as he was near, and that intrinsic conviction gave me the opportunity to crash. I’d been so tense for months. I was so wrought with stress and fear for too long, stuck in survival mode, that I was only now able to breathe and feel safe enough to sleep.
If we weren’t lounging and then having sex, we were napping. If we weren’t making a light meal and merely holding each other as we mutually confessed how badly we’d missed each other, we were discussing the baby.
He wanted to know everything.
“I didn’t know I was pregnant for the first three months,” I admitted during one of the periods when I wasn’t ready to fall back asleep yet.
“How?” He huffed a laugh, incredulous.
I shrugged. “My cycles were always light and I would miss some because I work out so much. I didn’t have any symptoms.” I hadn’t really thought about protection when we were in Mexico because, hell, he’d kidnapped me and I didn’t have anything with me. But I had assumed my shot was still sort of effective despite it being slightly expired by that time.
“You haven’t been suffering from morning sickness or anything like that?” He spooned me, rubbing his hand over my baby bump.
“No. I was sick sometimes, but it was more like dread was getting to me. The last half of the year has really been hell with the accusations and figuring out what was going on. I worried so much that I was being set up, too, and that my bosses were corrupt and trying to get rid of me…” I shrugged, nestling back against him. “So, no, it wasn’t even on my radar that I’d missed my period.”
While I knew he had to be impatient to know what had precisely led me back to him and what I wanted to do, he consistently asked more about my pregnancy, fully curious and intrigued. Perhaps worried, too, with how he seemed so obsessed over the idea that I was carrying his child. It assuaged my doubts about how he’d feel about becoming a parent. Knowing he was excited, even in awe as he couldn’t stop putting his hands on my bump, made it so much easier for me to want to believe that this was the right step to take.
That instead of sticking with my strict and rigid concept of viewing him as only a bad guy, I could believe he was my partner in even this.
Details had to be cleared up, but we were both mutually reluctant to start the big conversation. All we did was reunite,mostly in bed, but the plans about what we could do next remained looming unanswered, like an elephant in the room.
The second night, he yelled out in the middle of the night. It jarred me from sleep so drastically that I shrieked a little too. I was already a light sleeper, but hearing his cry of anger and anguish had me sitting upright and reaching out to him.
“Emil!”
I shook him, waking him from a bad dream. Scanning the dark bedroom, just to make sure nothing else was waiting nearby as a threat, I held him closer.
His eyes were wide open with horror. His bare chest heaved so hard and fast as he panted. At last, as he locked his terrified gaze on me and seemed to register that I was here, he forced a swallow and clutched me like I was his lifeline.
What the hell?
This man, this killer, was so strong and confident that it seemed like a joke for him to be this worked up. This scared. Everyone had their fears and issues, but this was Emil Dubinin.
“It’s okay.” I rubbed his back, urging him to lie back down with me as I cuddled him close. My baby bump wasn’t so big that it impeded us from hugging fully, but still, I could tell he was being careful not to squeeze me.
He nodded slightly, still so shaken.
“It’s okay,” I repeated, not sure if that was the truth or a lie.
Another tremble shook through him, and he exhaled a deep push of a breath. He might have nodded again, but I couldn’t really tell.
Holding him and rubbing his back calmed him down, but I wasn’t expecting him to explain it.
We all had our bad days. And bad nights.
“I can’t erase the memories. Sometimes, the hits come back like that.”
All right. Maybe your bad nights are worse than mine.I furrowed my brow, hating the raw pain in his voice.
“Come back how?” I asked.
“Nightmares. Reliving it all. The times I almost didn’t get away. The ones who screamed and tormented my mind.”
I sighed, stroking my hand up and down his back as he continued to let it all out. I was no shrink. I wasn’t an expert at this kind of PTSD assistance. As he talked well into the night about how it dragged on his soul, how all the horrible monsters would try to mess with his head before he’d kill them. Past jobs and difficult kills remained in his memories, and he never released the pressure of their being there at all. Sordid details weren’t necessary for me to understand how it all accumulated and affected him, but I didn’t flinch once, no matter what. Listening to him until he yawned, I hoped that he could understand that he was safe with me.
Safe withme.
