“Nothing,” she says tightly. “Nothing, I’m just worried about you. You’re doing too much—you’re dealing with too much—”
Relief releases me once more, returning me to my body.
I exhale heavily.
“I’m fine,” I say, pressing another kiss to her jaw, then her shoulder. “I can deal with anything as long as I get to come home to you.”
Her responding affection is both wild and tender. It’s like being bound in warm light.
Out loud she only sighs, her head tilting back. “Aaron.”
“Yes, love?”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
I draw my hand down her arm, our fingers threading around her belly. My eyes feel permanently closed. My limbs are molten. My body is heating, sinking. “Why are you sorry?”
“I couldn’t bring myself to wake you up.”
“Wake me up?”
“You were so tired,” she says, her worry undercut by a note of pain. “You slept through your alarm this morning and I just couldn’t—You were so exhausted last night it was beginning to scare me. I didn’t want to wake you up. I told Kenji you might be late, but—”
Now I stiffen.
My eyes fly open, my heart picking up dangerously. I try to lift my head, searching for a window, but I’m somewhere between sleep and panic, and I’m processing facts too slowly. Only then do I realize bands of golden light are strugglingbeyond the heavy shades, stealing into the room.
“Ella.” I’m trying to stay calm. “Love.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers again.
“Sweetheart, what time is it?”
She squeezes my hand. “Don’t panic, okay?”
“Okay,” I lie.
“It’s about an hour after sunrise.”
I nearly fall out of bed.
4
James
I stare into the distance, studying the eroding cliffs hollowed out along the shore. A sudden gust of wind buffets my body, unsettling my hair. I shove the bag of gummy bears into my pocket without a word, feeling suddenly, deeply uncomfortable.
No one knows I was eating gummy bears when Rosabelle slit my throat. It was a weird detail; it felt weird to mention. I didn’t include the part of the story where she looked at me and whisperedYou smell like appleand I felt the heat of her gaze on me like a shot to the heart. It didn’t feel like the right note to hit when sharing first impressions of a mercenary. But there was just something about the way she’d looked at me then—something so intense and vulnerable and emotional in her gaze—
Jesus.
I hear it—I hear the way I sound when I think about her and I soundderanged.
I press the heels of my hands to my eyes.
If anyone else tried to feed me this kind of bullshit—like, yeah, wow, you should’ve seen how gorgeous that girl was right before she fucking killed me—I’d think they were unhinged.
It’s possible I’m unhinged.
