It wasn’t news to me that he killed. I wouldn’t be shocked.
It wasn’t some foreign concept for me that he did illegal things. I wouldn’t be arresting him. I couldn’t since I’d been fired. And it was in this moment in the darkness of the night that I didn’t need to wonder so much anymore.
I was on his side.
Even if I hadn’t been fired, I would’ve chosen him. I couldn’t claim that with accuracy because I had lost my job and that was out of my control. Yet, in this private bubble with him like this, growing closer and connecting again, I accepted the blunt truth that this man was mine.
Aligning with him was just what I was meant to do.
It seemed that he knew it too, acknowledging that I couldn’t take what he said as a testimony to use against him. He saw me as a source of comfort, and I wouldn’t ever betray the gift that it was.
All night long, I listened and held him. This nurturing side of me felt too natural with him, but this wasn’t my norm. I wasn’t usually a cuddly, sappy woman. But this was Emil. The father of my baby. The strong man who kept me safe. Sympathy wasn’t enough. I wanted to erase his pain. I wished for him to know I cared. Maybe it was the pregnancy and all the hormones making me this nurturing, but when I worried that I was lowering my guard too far, too soon, I dismissed the concern that helping him feel better and comforting him was a show of weakness on my part.
I cared.
But I wasn’t rushing to coo platitudes about loving him.
Sympathy was the right thing for this moment.
Not love.
Because I didn’t want him to suffer, I had yet to get over the ache and hurt that he’d filled me with when he left me before.
“What did I ever do to deserve you in my life?” he asked after a long while of quiet.
Hugging me closer, he kissed my cheek. Then the other. Tender and sweet.
“Well, you killed a bunch of people and got on the wanted list. That’s what set us up to cross paths.”
He chuckled lightly, not offended by my snark and dry humor. “Hmm.” As he skated his hand lower until he could tease my clit with his thumb, already lifting my leg so he could rub his growing erection against my wet entrance, he kissed me soundly, sucking on my tongue. “What did I ever do to deserve you like this?” he clarified.
I gasped at the familiar but always potent zero-to-sixty hit of lust under his masterful touch. “Like what?”
“Like you were made just for me.” He kissed me again, picking up the pace with his fingers and thumb as he pleasured me.
Made for you?
I had a hard time arguing with that.
But for how long?
How long can this last with the dangers we face?
21
EMIL
Waking up to a nightmare should’ve made me feel vulnerable.
It didn’t.
Because this was Sadie, the one woman who saw me as a man, not just a monster who killed, I was comforted and soothed. Supported. She didn’t do anything but hold me and listen, and that was what I’d been missing for so long.
Missing her was an acute pain.
But it was her understanding. Her lack of judgment.
That was what had me watching her sleep in the next morning. Marveling at how she could accept me for the dark soul I was, I sighed and wondered how I could make sure she stayed safe, no matter what.
