“Got it.”
“I’ll be at the docks by ten. And I’m sending you a list of shite I want delivered here now.”
I hang up and drink the rest of my coffee. The cat appears in the kitchen doorway, sits and starts cleaning a paw.
“Aye, I see ye, mate.”
It completely ignores me.
I rinse my mug and set it upside down on the dish rack.
Then I feel it.
The air changes. I dinnae know how I can feel it from down here. I have no fucking idea. But the frequency of the house has changed, and somewhere two floors above me my woman has opened her eyes, and the Mad Scot’s whole nervous systemknows.
I grin at the kettle.
Right then.
She’s awake.
Eight
Lisa
I wake up alone. That’s the first thing I notice. The second thing I notice is that I am warm. Something small and grey is purring faintly, curled against my hip on top of the comforter, looking at me like I’m the houseguest.
“Oh,” I say out loud, laughing softly. “Hi, baby.”
The cat blinks.
“Traitor,” I whisper.
She does not deign to respond.
I sit up slow.
The bed is empty on his side but still faintly warm, the shape of his head still on the pillow.
Get yourself together, woman.
I try to put the rest of last night together.
It comes back in pieces. His mouth. The wall. His hand fisted in my hair. His head between my legs. His tongue. My thighs press together under the sheets, and I make a small sound, and Imelda flicks her tail at me.
I look down at myself. My dress, rumpled to hell. My panties, gone…the bastard tucked them in his pocket like a damn souvenir…and my whole body sore in places that have not been sore in… ever!
I get out of bed because if I lie in it one more second I am going to lose my mind. My bare feet hit the wood. I stand in the middle of the bedroom for one second and look at the nightstand on his side…the small armory cleared overnight. He took his weapons.
I walk to the bathroom and shut the door behind me, lean on it, and look at myself in the mirror over the sink.
My hair is half out of its bun and the wrong kind of half. My mouth is swollen… like a teenager who’s been kissed for the first time in her life by somebody who knew what he was doing. There’s a small bite-mark on the side of my neck just under my ear that I don’t remember. There’s another at my collarbone. The neckline of my dress has slipped sideways…
The woman in the mirror is smiling like a damn lunatic. I shake my head and make her stop. Splash cold water on my face, rinse my mouth, take out my bun and try to put my hair back together… and fail, ending up with a worse knot than I started with. Fuck my life.
Go put on a real bra, brush your teeth, and walk down the stairs like a grown woman.
I do one of those things. I brush my teeth. I do not go to the guest room for clean clothes because the guest room is at the other end of the hall and I do not want to delay anymore, the way you do not want to delay when you are about to jump off a high dive.
