Page 120 of Grace

My brows knit.

“Baby.” The word rolls off his tongue with distaste. His eyes are midnight-dark, his voice ice-cold. It makes me shiver.

I draw a deep breath and let it out, trembling.

“I still have to talk to him.”

I pace the small motel room with its moth-eaten furniture, nerves skittering under my skin. My burning, itching skin is red. Rashes have bloomed where the grass rubbed me raw and ants bit me.

“Do you think I’m normal?” I ask him.

He lifts one arched, brown eyebrow. His eyes soften.

“Does it matter?”

Everything about him—his face, his posture—radiates perfect calm. I want to grab the standing lamp and throw it at him. He’s stretched out on the bed with his arms crossed, one leg draped over the other in a languid, effortless pose.

“It matters to me,” I snap, stomping my foot.

“Would it change your mind if I said no?”

“You know what? Let’s just drop it.” I make a shooing motion with my hand. “Your opinion doesn’t count anyway.”

“You’re hurting my feelings,” he says with an evil grin. “Come here before you wear out the floor.”

Chase reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a small piece of paper. Curious, I walk over, trying to see what it is. He tugs me into his lap and kisses me. Our lips move in unison—slowly, sensually. My skin warms, my heart pounds. I feel like a teenage girl in love, someone who could spend the whole day kissing.

He slides the paper toward me. My eyes fly open, and I break the kiss. My gaze snaps to the dirty, yellowed page.

“You’ve kept it,” I whisper.

“What does that tell you?” He tucks my hair behind my ear, watching my reaction with quiet curiosity.

“It tells me I’m crazy.” I bury my face—burning with shame—in my palms.

“And wonderful. Who would’ve thought such an angelic, innocent body could hide such a little monster?”

“Don’t make me slap you, because I’d do it without hesitation,” I warn him, lifting my chin.

A wide, devilish grin spreads across his face. He tips his forehead against mine, and together we stare down at the note I left him when I “left him.”

I’m sorry

I lift my head and look deep into his eyes.

There are moments when you choose your path and stick to it—no matter what happens.

I lost something when I was a prisoner. Maybe my emotional maturity got stunted. But maybe now I’m ready to grow up—to not lay the blame for my sins on someone else, but to take responsibility for the consequences of my decisions. And no matter what happens, I need to stick with him. I need to bear every disapproving, acidic look I get—that’s the price of having him in real life, not just in my daydreams.

I melt against his shoulder, and we hold each other in the room’s quiet. Because sometimes silence is worth more than words. Right now, we speak with our bodies and our souls—because we don’t love with words, we love with our hearts. And there are some things in life that don’t come with explanations. Sometimes you just have to feel. And we do—we feel each other. There’s been an inexplicable connection between us for nine years. We breathe in each other’s scent—the one that hasn’t changed at all. And still, that familiar scent makes us feel at home every second. Just like we feel at home in the way we touch each other: gently, lovingly.

I jerk my head up in panic when someone knocks on the door. My heart leaps into my throat—terror floods me as adrenaline surges through my veins. Chase makes me slide off his lap and points to the corner of the room. The silence turns eerie. Even my steps are so soft they’re barely audible as I cross the room carefully. I stand in the corner like a coward and wring my hands while he moves to the door and cracks it open an inch. Nerve-racking seconds pass, then a woman’s voice slips into the silence. I’d been expecting a gunshot. A huge weight lifts off my shoulders.

“Will you let me in?” she doesn’t say hello or wait for an answer as she slips through the gap. She scans the room and spots me standing there, my stomach knotted tight.

“Nikky. How?” I breathe.

She looks at me with an evil grin. Her immaculate, bright-white teeth flash beneath blood-red lipstick. Her lush, feminine scent floods the room, smothering the characteristic must of old furniture. She’s dressed in an elegant, polished outfit, tiny pearl earrings lining her earlobes, matching the pearl necklace resting at the base of her sleek, swanlike throat—she looks like some heartthrob. Her soft blond hair is twisted into a delicate, trendy knot at the nape of her neck. Nikky looks like Mom—it’s like Mom’s living inside her.