Page 67 of The Kiss of Deception

With a frustrated huff, I slap away the same stray strand from my face. “It’s not your responsibility to protect me. Not five hours ago, not now.”

“You are my girl. I shouldn’t have let anything happen to you.” He shakes his head like I can’t possibly understand. “I most definitely am not going to leave my girlfriend on her own after she was attacked. An attack that was my fault, by the way.”

I ignore the critical portion of his speech to address the only part I can. “Was it your hand holding the gun?”

At the hard clamp of his teeth on his lip, I know he tastes blood, but I don’t know whose—mine or his. “I brought her into your life. I put you in the spotlight, I put you in harm’s way.”

“Was it your hand holding the gun?” I repeat.

“And then I wasn’t there to protect you.”

“Was it your hand holding the gun?” I repeat again.

He nods, but it’s not in agreement. It means acceptance that I won’t let him evade the question.

So he replies, “It wasn’t my hand. Bu—”

“Then it wasn’t your fault. You bear zero responsibility for this, and therefore, you shouldn’t feel obligated to take care of me in any way.”

“Are you listening to yourself, Zoe?” He shakes his head with vigor, pulling at the straight ends of his hair. His knuckles whiten against his ash-brown hair in tandem to the tick of his jaw. “You’ll stay with me, at my place, until I find a safe home for us.”

“That seems excessive. I’m fine.” I inspect the fading burgundy polish on my nails, wincing when a sting reminds me of the stabbing needle in my hand.

“You’re lying in a hospital bed. Because of me.” My retort is stolen from my open mouth by his haunted confession. “I thought you were dead. Dead.”

He points his glossy gaze to the floor as though he sees something in the worn tiles that I can’t. An open grave and a polished casket.

My mouth dries. I clamp it shut, and swallow aggressively trying to unknot the tangle in my throat.

I’ve barely begun to process what happened, let alone have the time to consider what it was like for him. To come home to find me bleeding out on the floor.

I’m not the only one who lived infernal, unthinkable things today.

Unsure of what to say, what to do, I start to pull my hair into a ponytail, hissing when my hand complains again. Black curls rain down on the white pillow like raven feathers in the desert, a eulogy to death.

Miles stares at them, all around me, seeing what I saw. He comes closer again, hovering before he perches on the bed, relieving some of his weight.

He removes every hair strand from the adhesive on my head with careful patience. When all the strands are in his fist, he combs them with tender fingers, trailing his nails through my scalp. My lashes are heavy but refuse to fall.

Finally, Miles slides off one of my scrunchies from his wrist and ties the ponytail deftly. At his almost imperceptible tug, I meet his gaze.

The sharp ridges of his cheekbones push punishingly against ashen skin, stark in contrast to the shadows under his thick eyelashes—and inside his irises.

“I know you hate me. Trust me, I know. But I would like you alive and well to hate me for a very long time. The hell you personally raise for me is heaven to me, more than the quiet of your absence could ever be.” The monitor might be faulty after all, because it doesn’t translate the small stutter of my beating heart. “Forgive me, but your life is not something that I’m willing to negotiate with, and that goddamned woman is still out there somewhere. I’m not jeopardizing your safety ever again.”

I’m unsure if his adamance is overcompensation fueled by the need to ease misplaced guilt or if it sprouts from some sense of debt and obligation. I’m unsure if this is simply his way of doing what he deems as right. One thing I know for sure is that it has nothing to do with pretense or image or reputation.

I’m unsure about my motives, too. For all the reasons my instinctive answer is no, a part of me wants to say yes. I justify it with a current of dread at the simple thought of going home, reliving what happened, and with my need for more time before I’m ready to return and revisit the crime scene.

My concession comes in a whisper. “Okay.”

“Yeah?” Miles whispers, too.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. Good.”

My head hurts too much to even begin unraveling all the things his sigh is laced with.

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