Chapter Thirty-Eight
SLOAN MET ME outside the sociology building and fell into step beside me as I crossed the courtyard.
“How was the final?” he asked.
“I’ve discovered the secret to knowing the material like the back of my hand,” I joked. “Just take every class twice.”
His expression was sympathetic. “I’m sure you would have aced it then too.”
“Thanks,” I said, grateful. “It wasn’t bad though. Templeton is a good professor. I was thinking of applying to him for my undergraduate research class.”
“What topic?” he asked.
I cleared my throat. “Well, there are a few that I’m considering. But maybe…analyzing rehabilitation effectiveness at incarceration facilities.”
“Oh,” he said, knowing firsthand how close I had come to the criminal world. He had watched me walked out of our dorm at gunpoint. And he had been the first one to come visit me at my parent’s house when he heard I was returned, a bouquet of daisies clenched in his hand and a heartfelt apology. He thought he should have fought against Philip, but I set him straight, glad that he hadn’t. We had been surrounded by armed men. He would only have gotten himself killed.
“What did Professor Roswell say about your paper?” I asked.
He had already taken his undergraduate research course this semester while I was busy retaking my entire class load. A flush crept up his neck, which told me her reaction had been good. “She said it was better than half the drivel that gets published these days.”
“Whoa, high praise.”
He laughed, looking pleased. “You helped a lot, so part of that praise goes to you.”
I had given him an anonymous interview about the effects of captivity and trauma. His area of interest was the victims of human trafficking, which probably accounted for more of his interest in me than he would want to admit. But I supported his research—victims needed an advocate as gentle as him.
And as for me, I wasn’t fascinated with the victims. I was fascinated with the criminals.
Which was why he and I would never work. I nodded toward the street. “I’m this way.”
He studied the dark street, long shadows falling in late afternoon. “I can walk you home.”
Home was now an apartment off campus. I had moved out of the dorm, because if I wasn’t safe there—and the situation had proved that, if nothing else—I may as well have my privacy. And it felt too hard to pretend I was a regular college student, interested in dorm parties and campus gossip. I still loved my classes, still wanted my degree, but I was irrevocably changed from what had happened.
“No, thank you,” I told him, gently but firmly.
He studied me for a moment and nodded. “See you next week.”
I smiled, more grateful for this quiet trust than his concern over what had happened. The world was a scary place, filled with dangerous people. More than most people, I knew that there was no place safe. But I couldn’t spend my life cowering in corners, using other people as shields.
At least that was what I told myself when I walked home and saw someone hiding in every shadow.
It’s just stress, I told myself. It would remain with me for some time, but everything was fine.
I passed dark alleys, trying to keep my gaze focused straight ahead, the way other people did, but inevitably I would glance to the side, studying the corners, looking for threats.
It was a relief when I reached the modest apartment building where I lived. It was close enough to campus that a number of students lived here, often grad students.
I climbed the outside steps, to be greeted by Misty. She was a gray-brown tabby who had hung around looking pitiful until I agreed to feed her. Sometimes I got her to come inside my apartment, and we had watched a few episodes of Agents of SHEILD together with her on my lap. But she was wild at heart, and she wanted to be free to wander the world while I was in class.
She meowed up at me plaintively and twined her slender body between my ankles.
I frowned at her bowl, which was half-full with dry food. Our routine was for me to put food out at night, usually just enough for her to eat. Which meant the bowl should be empty. “Are you feeling okay?” I murmured. “You didn’t eat your food.”
She just meowed in response.
I unlocked the door, and the cat rushed into the dark apartment. Strange.
I followed more slowly, dropping my tote bag with my notebook and tablet by the door. I headed to the kitchen and opened the fridge, thinking of grabbing an apple to tide me over until I could figure out a proper dinner.
Then I stopped, the air-conditioned air dry against my skin.
Something was different in the space. And Misty was not tripping me up.
“Misty?” I called, already feeling shy and a little scared.
There was a rustle from somewhere, and I tensed up. My gaze snapped to the pepper spray that I kept in my bag, which was now by the door. Too far away. I could run out of the door. I could scream.
“Hello, Ella,” came a voice from across the room.
*
MY EYES WIDENED. I had searched the corners of every dark alley, but not my own apartment. Slowly his silhouette formed—seated in the chair by the far wall. Philip.
The thunder of my pulse was almost as loud as my voice. “How did you get in?”
A soft laugh. “Is that all you want to ask me?”
God, I had so many questions. So many demands. So many things I would say if I let myself. I missed you. I want you. Don’t leave again. “What did you do to my cat?”
“I fed her.”
I blinked, not quite imagining Philip in a three-piece suit pouring cat food into a bowl. “Why?”
He stood, and the cat jumped off his lap—clearly not thrilled with the fact that he had decided to move. She must enjoy his lap more than mine, and I couldn’t really blame her. His lap was a pretty great place to be.
I felt silly and vulnerable with the fridge open, revealing a handful of fruits and a half gallon of milk—not much else. So I shut the door and immediately realized my mistake. That faint light had been the only thing letting me see. Now I was in the dark.
And yet I could see him approach me, feel him approach me.
He stood in front of me for a long moment, and I soaked up his presence, the masculine scent of him, his heat. Two fingers lifted my chin, and I stared up into the shadow of him. I searched out corners in alleyways, and I searched out corners in him now—looking for threats.
“Did you get my postcards?”
They were stacked up beside my bed, and I would touch their edges, imagining I felt his imprint there. “You’ve been traveling.”
Every postcard had come from Chicago before. Now they came from all over the country. All over the world. Europe first. Then South America. Japan. I could hardly imagine him flying to all those places with the speed that he did.
“I’ve been studying,” he said softly.
“Studying what?”
“People. Like you.”
My heart caught in my throat. “And what did you learn?”
The hand lifting my head curved until he cupped the back of my neck. His head dipped until our breaths mingled. We breathed the same air; we occupied the same space and time, merged.
“I learned that connection is the only damn thing that matters in this cold world,” he murmured before pressing his lips to mine. He kissed me as if to prove his words, a research paper written with his tongue and his teeth, an argument he made, an invasion of my mouth.
“What else?” I whispered when he pulled back.
I felt him smile against me, and then he kissed me again, this time nibbling on my lip until I felt an answering clench lower in my body. “I learned that I could be surrounded by people, more people than I’d ever seen, but I could be completely alone.”
“Yes,” I whispered urgently, because that was my entire life, my whole life crowded but empty.
Alone.
My arms curled around his neck, and I pulled him down to me, hands clenched in the silky wool of his suit jacket. He answered immediately, one hand on my hip holding me close. Not alone right now.
And then I realized his neck was bare. “Your mother’s ring. It’s gone.”
“I don’t need it anymore,” he said. “I’ll never forget her. She’s already here.” He put his hand over his heart, and I couldn’t help it—I put my hand over his, feeling the intense heat of him. No gentle warmth with Philip. His love was pure lava, hot and thick.
Between our bodies I felt him—hot and thick, indeed. “What else?”
He bent until his lips were against my forehead. “I learned that you were with me, wherever I went. I couldn’t get away from you.”
My breath caught. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Bad?” he murmured, his hands lowering to my hips. He pushed me against him. “It’s the worst, kitten. I’m weak like this. Ruined. I need you too much.”
It was my turn to smile, though there were tears too. Happiness and sadness. Hope and despair, they came hand in hand. Light and dark. “What will you do about it?”
“Something I wouldn’t have done before. Couldn’t.”
That surprised me. And appealed to me in a dark way. Was there anything Philip couldn’t do? “What’s that?”
“Ask permission.”
A breath shuddered out of me. “For what?”
“To touch you. To keep you.” His hand reached for me and then clenched. “To love you.”
All the loneliness, all the fear that kept me isolated. All of it had led me to him. “God, Philip. You never needed my permission to love me.”
“Didn’t I?” He looked almost haunted. “What has my love done for you?”
That question was why he had pushed away every person he cared about. It was why he had left me. “Love isn’t a means to an end. It isn’t money or a gun. Love is the goal, the beginning and the end. And I love you, Philip Murphy.”
He didn’t look pleased or even proud. Instead he looked devastated by my admission. Maybe I had ruined him, but I didn’t think so. He was a glittering diamond, a flash on the surface and startling depth. I could look at him forever and never see every part of him.
“And to keep you,” he breathed.
“I was always yours,” I said, tears stinging my eyes. “I thought you knew that.”
Then he didn’t hold back anymore. His hand reached for me, clenched in my hair. Held me, kept me. I could give him my body, my heart, but I would demand his in return. And he needed it as much as I did.
His eyes were bottomless, deep. And I could see all the way inside him.
He was dark and beautiful and mine.
“To touch you?” he said, voice hoarse.
I couldn’t hold back anymore. The tears burned tracks down my cheek, blurred my vision. I couldn’t see anymore, but that didn’t matter. I could feel him, his hand in my hair, his breath on my cheek. I could almost taste him.
“Never stop touching me,” I whispered.
And then his mouth was on mine, his hands on my body, my clothes falling away. A cat twined between our ankles until he pulled me into the bedroom and shut the door. He mapped my body with his mouth; he conquered my heart with the look in his eyes. A promise.
My reward.