“What?”
Jace tried to get his anger under control, but it was impossible. “He chased her down the skywalk and kicked her off the edge. She almostdied.” Fuck, it hurt even more saying it out loud than it had in his head.
“I’m leaving the station now.”
His gaze shifted to the gate beside the tree, already spotting signs that the lock had been tampered with. Boyd had planned this. The asshole had planned to push her off the fucking edge. And Jace wanted to kill him for that.
CHAPTER 23
Jace watched the slow rise and fall of Elle’s chest. The way the morning light hit her skin so softly and the locks of her hair spread over the pillow.
He’d almost lost her yesterday. For a few agonizing seconds, he’d thought he had. It was the only reason his bullet into Boyd’s shoulder hadn’t been a kill shot. Henevermissed. But yesterday he had, because for a moment he’d thought the woman he loved had been taken from him.
It didn’t feel real. He didn’t know a world without Elle in it, and he didn’t want to. Even when he’d been in the military, so far from her and so disconnected, he’d still been able to function because he’d known that she was okay. That she was alive and safe, here in Misty Peak.
If he had to wake up and know she was no longer within reach…
No. He couldn’t do it. The idea hurt so much, he almost wanted to keel over.
He grazed a swath of hair from her cheek, slipping it behind her ear. Her soft hum slipped into his chest. The sound was everything.Shewas everything. How he’d stayed away for so long, he had no idea.
Never again. Never again would he deny that she was his. That by her side wasn’t exactly where he was meant to be.
Her eyes tightened before fluttering open. The air punched from his chest. Because those eyes…so gray they reminded him of the sky during a storm…they were his kryptonite.
“Hey.” Her single quiet word barely crossed the distance to him. “How long have you been watching me?”
“Not long enough.” But then, no amount of time would ever be enough.
The hint of a smile slipped from her lips. “Are you okay?”
She was askinghimthat? “I’m not the one who almost died yesterday.”
“But Ididn’tdie. And you didn’t answer my question.”
“No. I’m not okay.”
Her brows flickered and she rolled to her side, placing a hand on his chest. “Why?”
“I almost lost you yesterday.”
“But you didn’t.”
The memory of her going over that edge was so alive in his head, it replayed again and again.
He placed a hand over hers. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Running from this for so long. Costing us so much time.”
She shook her head. “You didn’t cost us time. You gave us each a chance to grow into the people we needed to become to be what the other needed.”
He smiled slightly. “Thatdoessound better.”
Although, if he’d stopped fighting his feelings a long time ago, he could have saved them both a lot of unnecessary torment. She was being kind, because that was Elle. And he wouldn’t take her kindness for granted.
He lowered his mouth, hovered it over hers. “That’s why I need you in my life. You makeeverythingbetter.”
