CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I nursed a glass of water in shaky hands, a thick blanket draped over my equally shaky shoulders, and thanked the paramedics who’d rushed to me as soon as the police had swarmed into the room.
Diana had been about to shoot.
She had shot, and if it hadn’t been for the unexpected arrival of Derrek and the police, she might not have missed.
Across the room, the insane fire in Diana’s eyes burned dangerously even as she knelt handcuffed before a trio of police officers. Brent, her bodyguard and accomplice, was pinned to the ground near the door, where the officer whose knee was pushed into his back pulled the man’s wrists into another set of handcuffs.
The door frame splintered where it had been forced open, and a nervous glance beyond revealed flashing red and blue lights that pierced a sea of darkness.
We were far out of the city.
Derrek sat cross-legged on the floor beside me where I slouched forward, elbows resting on my knees. I pressed the glass against my lips, watching the haze of my breath appear and vanish as I breathed heavily into it.
He watched me in stony silence, his dark eyes darting every few seconds to rest on Diana, who was being read her rights as the officers behind her jostled her up from her kneel and began to march her out of the house, Brent following soon after.
I hadn’t said a word since the door had burst open. Uniformed officers had flooded the scene so quickly, Diana had practically dropped her gun in surprise, and then Derrek was at my side.
He found me.
My lips trembled as my eyes met Derrek’s.
He leaned closer, the severity of his face softening as I set my glass down and slumped onto my side, resting my head in his lap. His fingers brushed my hair back, the gentle back and forth of his touch helping steady my breath. I moved to grasp at his other arm, pulling it forward and close to my chest, where I clasped his hand with both of mine before closing my eyes again.
“I don’t know what to say,” Derrek whispered above me.
I squeezed his arm gently, stroking the back of his hand with my thumb as steadily as I could. His muscles tensed in my hands, the heat rising from Derrek’s body in thick, vicious waves. I turned to lay on my back, Derrek’s hand flat against my chest as I kept a loose grip on his arm, my legs fanned out like dead weight.
“How?” I said hoarsely, and he untangled his fingers from my hair to reach into a pocket of his jacket, producing a phone.
My phone.
My jaw went slack, and Derrek held the small screen in front of me.
I moved to quickly punch in my passcode with a clumsy finger before Derrek turned the screen back toward him, made some swift clicks with his thumb, and turned it back to me to show our text messages—including messages sent earlier in the day, before Brent had ambushed me after I’d closed the store.
Messages I couldn’t have sent.
If Diana and Brent must have been able to figure out my passcode.
“What…where did you find it?” I asked.
“I didn’t. Steven, the social media guy, gave it to me.”
I remembered Steven. He was the only person on Derrek’s team who showed me any kindness the first time I’d visited Motorsport Park. He found me after I’d bolted from the viewing box to return my phone the first time I’d lost it. If he had my phone after it went missing, that meant…
“She stole my phone?” I said.
“Brent did. I told you the store was robbed,” he said before his body tensed again. “Shit, sorry, that came out wrong,” he babbled, and a weak smile spread across my face.
Derrek was hot, but even hotter when his tense bravado dropped. I scratched the back of his hand gently and he returned the gesture, his fingers tickling my chest through my damp t-shirt.
“Steven was there when Diana and I had our blowout in the welcome center,” he continued, glancing hastily at the door before turning his eyes down toward me again.
The angry heat behind them had dimmed, but his jaw clenched between words. It was easy to see his brain working furiously to stay calm. I plucked the phone from his hand and rested it beside me.
“He heard the whole thing from the stairwell and came to me when he couldn’t find Diana or Brent anywhere while I was still doing laps,” Derrek continued. “He knew, Aiden. He told me everything. He found your phone with Brent’s stuff in a locker at the track. Said there was something different about you. That he couldn’t let Diana get away with it anymore. Turned himself in to the police before they tracked your phone here.”
My heart sank.
There wasn’t a single person on Derrek’s team he could trust. He put up a good front, but Derrek was one of the purest people I’d ever met. He was hot, he was rich, he was famous, and I didn’t care about any of that.
He was soft. He was kind.
His heart was full—and he was alone.
I wouldn’t let him be alone anymore.
He had to know the truth.
“I’m not the first one,” I said, and Derrek’s stance lost its rigid form as he slouched and let out a long breath. “She…she told me this wasn’t the first time.”
He pulled his hand from my chest and leaned back with a slow nod, planting his hands firmly as he took in the room. His eyes scanned the walls slowly, took in the accolades and awards and relationships he had built that Diana used to justify herself.
I watched his head turn slowly from the walls to the kitchen island, to the officer who knelt to pick up Diana’s gun and place it carefully into a clear little bag.
I raised my arm to poke at Derrek’s chin, bringing his attention back to me. His eyes, big and dark and beautiful, were the heaviest I’d ever seen them. He met my hand with his own and wrapped his fingers around mine, and as I pushed myself up out of his lap, he met me half way with a kiss.
His lips felt different, nervous in a way his touch had never felt on my body, and I broke our kiss to sit upright in front of him.
“I thought I was going to lose you,” Derrek said, moving to kneel, his hands planted on my shoulders to pin me where I sat.
His chest was heaving, his muscular arms shaking almost imperceptibly as he tried his best not to unravel in front of me. His words were broken by the barest tremble, and I shifted in his grip until I was kneeling too, throwing my arms around his shoulders until our faces were buried in each other’s necks.
“I told her I’d find my way back to you,” I mumbled into his neck, my body vibrating under his touch. “I had to find my way back to you. You have to know something, Derrek,” I said, picking my head up and pushing Derrek from my shoulder to lock eyes with him.
His eyes were soft and misty as they burned into me, my cheeks suddenly slick with tears again.
“I tried to tell you at the track before I left, but it felt like a weird place to say it,” I continued. “I ditched work that morning just to find you because you just…you need to know—”
“I love you, Aiden.”
My breath turned to fire in my lungs as I lunged forward again, forgetting where we were, what had just happened, whatever else was going on around us, and I kissed him.
Derrek and I crashed onto the massive rug beside us, our lips meeting and parting and meeting again, his breath hot in my mouth, his full, gentle lips the only feeling I cared about as we gripped and grabbed at each other, the familiar storm that seemed to circle around us defeated by our embrace.
I broke our kiss, my cheeks streaked with tears that burned where Diana had scratched me, the pain of it vanishing the longer Derrek held my eyes with his.
“I love you, too,” I said before my arms folded under me and I fell onto his chest. We collapsed into a flurry of breathy laughter, both mine and his. “I’ve loved you since you kissed me on the roof. I didn’t know how to say it. It still feels so…new,” I panted.
“I know what you mean,” he replied, a low growl in his voice. “I think I’ve loved you from the moment you took a chance on me.”
He laughed harder then, and I cocked an eyebrow.
“Good thing you gave up on my bookstore ban, huh? Oliver told me,” he said, a comfortable, devilish grin taking over his face as I matched it with one of my own.
“Good thing,” I said.
A curt knock on the table beside us brought us back into the house. One of the officers who’d led Diana out crouched beside the table, his knuckles still resting where he’d knocked to get our attention. Derrek and I sat up when he pulled a small black notepad and pen from his pocket.
“Sorry to interrupt your reunion,” he said earnestly. “But we need some information from you before we can wrap up here.”
“Does it have to be now?” Derrek interjected.
“It’s okay,” I cut in. “I’d rather do this now and just put it all behind me.”
The officer, a young man with dark hair who looked like he was in his late twenties, gestured toward the love seat by the wall, but I shook my head and linked my arm around Derrek’s beside me, shifting on the floor until I could rest my head comfortably on his shoulder.
I took a deep breath in, and the cold air that clung to Derrek’s black leather jacket burned gently in my nose. The officer remained crouched beside the table, pen hovering above a small, blank page.
“Your boyfriend told us everything he could about the people who did this, but we need a statement from you about what happened. I understand it was stressful. Whatever you can manage is fine.” He tapped his pen to the page twice and gave me a nod to signal he was ready.
“Brent, the man you arrested, broke into my bookstore. I own Bay Window Books, in the city. He knocked me out in the back alley after I’d locked up for the night.” I pointed toward the glass of water I’d abandoned, and Derrek stood to pick it up and refill it.
I leaned in closer to the officer, swallowing the bubble in my throat as I thought about how quickly I could tell him everything before Derrek was back in earshot, but he was back at my side before I could finish chewing on my lower lip. I took his hand in mine as he sat back down and felt him squeeze gently.
“I came to in the back seat of a car,” I said, fighting my throat trying to close at the thought. “He covered my head and started driving and…and that triggered a panic attack so bad I passed out again. I think that’s what they wanted. Diana planned it. She must have been watching me that first day at the track. I think she knows about my panic attacks, or she must have made the connection to cars pretty fast, I don’t know.”
Derrek’s soft squeeze of my hand grew stronger until his grip grew shaky in mine, and I squeezed as hard as I could to keep him calm as I swallowed some water and took a sniffly breath.
“She was on the phone with Brent, he told me she hoped I would enjoy the ride,” I rushed, and the further into my recollection I got, the more volcanic Derrek grew beside me. His eyes were dark as coals, steam practically rising in great hazy waves off his body.
I took big gulps of water, draining the rest of the large glass in one go before slamming it back onto the cold wood floor. The officer’s face lost its stoic edge as his features twisted into a dark scowl, though I doubted it was the worst thing he’d ever heard.
“I was here when I woke up again,” I said after a pause filled with the rhythmic inhale and exhale of Derrek’s sharp, angry breaths. “She…lost it. She told me I’m not the first guy she’s tried to pay off to keep Derrek alone and focused on his career to make her more money. The police got here soon after that.”
I shuffled uncomfortably, pulling the blanket off my shoulders and into a messy ball of fabric on my lap that I twisted with my hands when Derrek let go of me. Derrek’s hands were balled into white-knuckled fists beside me, and I jumped when he raised his arms and slammed both fists into the ground with incredible force.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I said, cupping Derrek’s clenched fist with my hand, the hard angles of his face jagged and threatening to me for the first time since I’d known him.
I was instantly glad the police had already escorted Diana out—I didn’t know what Derrek would do if she was still in the room with us. I turned back to the officer, who flipped his pad shut and pushed off the table to stand up.
“Can you tell me where we are?” I asked.
“Two hours east of the city. Looks like Ms. Alvarez has been maintaining this off-the-grid property for years,” he replied, gesturing for Derrek and me to stand and follow him outside.
I abandoned the blanket and rose on shaky legs, Derrek immediately taking my hand in his as we walked.
“Thank you. Sorry to have you relive that all so soon,” the officer said as we crossed the threshold out into the night.
Flashing red and blue lights still filled the darkness, and I could see a pair of officers turning the corner with a roll of caution tape. An ambulance stood with its back doors open next to a squad car, the same paramedics who had rushed toward me engaged in a hushed conversation.
Derrek slouched his jacket off and draped it over my shoulders as I looked out as far as the busy lights around us would allow. Nothing but dark, ominous trees that stretched out in seemingly infinite rows, flanking a wide path that would undoubtedly lead us back to whatever the nearest main road was.
I gulped, quickly realizing that we were too far from any sort of public transit.
I tapped the officer on the shoulder as we approached the ambulance, pulling Derrek closer to my side.
“I can’t be in a car without a sedative. I don’t want to have another panic attack.”
The man looked from me to the paramedics, who nodded briefly, and one of them climbed into the ambulance before emerging barely a minute later and giving us a thumbs up.
“I, um, I also want to go home with my boyfriend,” I wavered, squeezing Derrek’s hand.
“We can’t sedate you and leave you in someone else’s vehicle,” one of the paramedics, a young woman with short blonde hair, said as she pushed off the back of the ambulance and crossed her arms. “Sorry,” she added, as if to soften her response.
“Go with them, Aiden. I love you too much to think I could hurt you if the sedative wore off while I was driving. It will be okay.”
He turned his head toward the paramedics.
“Can you at least bring him to my apartment if he doesn’t need to be at the hospital?” The two women shook their heads in unison, explaining they’d have to take me to the nearest hospital and we could figure things out from there. I turned to Derrek as I fished a set of keys from the pocket of my jeans, pulling his jacket closer to my body as I shivered in the cold night wind.
“I feel bad asking you to tra—”
“Anything. Anywhere,” Derrek interjected.
“I have a triazolam prescription. There should be a small bottle with a few left somewhere in my bathroom at home. Meet me at the hospital with them?” I asked. Derrek planted a soft kiss on my forehead and nodded.
“I’ll be there before you wake up. I promise,” Derrek said before he hugged me from behind and planted a scratchy kiss on my neck. With a soft smile, I climbed into the ambulance as he ran to his car.
As I settled into the back of the ambulance, one of the paramedics busying herself beside me as the other walked around to the driver’s seat, I took a deep breath in and let it out with a loud rush.
Derrek loved me.
He felt the same way about me as I did about him.
I felt the gentle prick of a needle on my arm as the paramedic administered the sedative, the smile plastered across my tired features melting into slack-jawed slumber as it began to take effect.
“We’re in love,” I mumbled lazily as bright lights of the ambulance blurred in the corners of my eyes.
Derrek and I were in love.
I never wanted to be without him again.