“El?”
“I’m scared.”Where didthatcome from?Frustrated with myself, I plopped onto the bed face-first.“And now I’m mortified.Leave.”My words were muffled by the soft comforter.
I heard more than felt Ringo sit on the mattress opposite me.When I lifted my head, he didn’t pretend he wasn’t watching me.
“What?”My voice was slightly hoarse.I propped up on my elbows to study him.
He hesitated.“Remember Venice?”
“What part?The abduction, the trauma, or the murder?”I hadn’t realized it at the time, but he’d slit my attacker’s throat.I fainted at the first splash of blood.
His jaw shifted.“After.”
The hotel.A dozen memories, not all of them bad, but almost all of them highly uncomfortable, flashed through my mind.I’d exposed my Achilles Heel to him, then begged him not to leave me alone for fear I’d have nightmares.And he hadn’t.
“I’m a big girl.”
This time when his eyes dipped to the gap of the bathrobe, it was sexual.“No nightmares?”
There would be at least a dozen unless I was so exhausted I didn’t dream.Defeated, I patted the bed.“When I wake you up, don’t pull your gun, or your knife.”
He stared through me.“I can’t promise that.But you do know they won’t be aimed at you, right?”
Yup.That was one line he hadn’t crossed.Yet.
Casey was right, Ringo was a wolf.All teeth and cunning, but also the epitome of what my body craved to cuddle.Like that human touch could ever tame him enough to drive the killer instinct away?I knew better than that.
Then again, if Johnny came after me, I wanted a man like Ringo at my side to scare the piss out of him.Maybe even eat him like those creatures in old fairy tales did.One big bite and voila!Problem not only solved, but eliminated from existence.
As if it were that easy?
I stared at the sculptural vase that perched on my side’s nightstand.The flowers in it were just as fresh as the ones in the lobby.That meant someone was employed to come in and change them.Perhaps they cleaned the place as well?This maintenance would happen every day for the length of Ringo’s stay.What kind of money afforded that?
Even winning the lottery didn’t give me that kind of perk.
Ringo was a wolf.One that solved problems.Rich, connected people hired him to eliminate their complications.Permanently.
That’s what hit me hardest.The permanence of it all.His whole adopted family had done this same trade for well over a thousand generations.The family business was not going to go away no matter how much I wished for it to disappear.As long as there were people with problems there would be people like Ringo who’d solve them.
Could I accept that?I thought I couldn’t.And before that, I naively thought I could.
Now, I didn’t know.
I must have stared at the flowers for longer than I should have.Ringo walked around the bed to my side.Gently, he offered an arm for me to lean on as he pulled me up and tore the covers down so I wasn’t on top of them.I let the robe fall to the floor and climbed in, handing him the duty of tucking me in.
He did without complaint.
Then he circled the bed, removed his clothes and crawled in next to me.
I’d barely registered his body wrapping around mine before nodding out.
Hours later, I woke with a start.My breathing was too fast and my skin clammy with sweat that had broken out.
In my dreams I’d been running.The backyard of the house I grew up in was too long.It became a dark forest.The men pursuing me called out all sorts of promissory comforts.“Come home, Ellie.It’s too cold out here.You’re not safe.Come on, little girl, you can’t stay in the woods all night.There are wild animals out here, Ellie Jacobs.Come back.”
I feared them more than the dark, more than the cold, and certainly more than the animals.
I couldn’t breathe.
