Page 64 of Fall Into Me

I would do whatever I saw on TV and fight until I couldn’t fight any more. The reality was my eyes clamped so tight I thought they’d never open again, and my hands came up protectively on either side of my head.

My entire body was aching. I’d never run that far for that long at a sprint before. My knees were aching, my head was pounding, and I couldn’t breathe.

Someone was gripping my upper arms, and all I could think was that Declan had beat me home. He’d taken a shortcut, and I’d be late to dinner. My mom would be so pissed, my dad would be concerned about her blood pressure, and Fane would come back and find me missing or dead, and Jerry—

Rough, strong hands wrapped around my arms and hauled me up. It was a single second between thinking I was going to die and knowing I’d never been safer in my life the moment Fane pulled me to him, that clean woodsy scent I would know anywhere washing over me.

“Fucking hell, Calista—” He sounded mad and scared and worried all at the same time, which didn’t reconcile with the new version of him I knew. Right then I didn’t care, not as I gripped his shirt in both my fists and whipped my head around. To warn him that there was…no one there.

There was no one there, and I wondered for one terrifying moment if I’d made the entire thing up. There wasn’t a trace of him. Not one.

My house was halfway down the street, which was empty, quiet, and peaceful in the dim light of the early evening.

“He’s…he’s…” I wanted to stand on my own two legs, but they weren’t working.

“He? He who?”

“He’s…” My brain was broken. Well, it wasn’t connecting to my mouth, but as small tremors started to turn into violent shaking, I was almost certain I was going into shock.

“Fuck,” Fane grunted and lifted me up into his arms. I didn’t take my eyes off the corner I’d flown around like a bat out of hell until we were in the house and the door was closed behind us.

I was both aware and completely lost in time while Fane worked, acting like he’d done this thousands of times before. My hands were still clamped on his shirt, and when he pulled the covers back on the bed and set me down, he tried to lift himself up to leave, but my hands wouldn’t fucking work.

“S-s-so—” My voice cracked.

“Jesus Christ.” The look on his face was the same as it had been outside, but there was a wildness to his eyes I didn’t think I’d ever seen before.

I knew he was being as gentle as possible trying to remove my hands from his shirt, but there was just no moving them.

“Fine. Keep the shirt.” If I hadn’t been sure my heart was about to explode and questioning the state of my own sanity, it might have been the sexiest thing I’d ever seen the way Fane reached for the back of his shirt and pulled it over his head. He turned so fast I didn’t see any of his decorated golden skin except for his back, where the same tattoos I’d always known stared back at me.

It didn’t make any sense, but it reassured me. The reaper, a hand of bone extended out from its heavy cloak. Beckoning.

To most it was probably ominous. You wouldn’t voluntarily take that hand unless you had a death wish.

Whenever I looked at it though, I’d always thought that if I did take it, how safe and sheltered I would be in the shadowed folds of his robes. Just before he reached for his bag that still sat in the corner of the room, I finally took a breath that felt like it filled my lungs.

Fane was back in an instant, grabbing pillows and putting them under my legs before heading back into the living room and coming back with an extra blanket that he layered on top of me.

“Jer-Jerry.” Panic laced my voice.

“He’s fine, baby.” He sounded far away, focused on what he was doing. And then he started to take off his shoes…and then his pants.

This man and his obsession with taking off his damn pants.

“N-no. I don’t w-want—”

“I’m going to look after you, and you’re going to let me.” His voice was calm and gentle, but the way his chest was rising and falling betrayed that facade. “I know you don’t want me here, but Iamhere. So, please.Please, let me. Tomorrow you can remember that you hate me, and I’ll remember everything I did to deserve it, but for right now, let me.”

I was shivering so much my teeth were vibrating against each other, and I decided to give into him, just this once. As soon as I nodded my head, he spurred into action.

“You’re in shock, Calista. I need to calm you down and keep you warm.” He spoke the words like he was reading them right from a pamphlet. He shucked his pants all the way off and got into bed beside me, pulling me against him. My hands discarded the shirt I hadn’t been able to let go of in favor of the one he hadreplaced it with. I didn’t reprimand myself either when I pressed my cheek over the warm cotton just above his heart and counted every heartbeat. That’s when he started to speak.

“I managed to hide my country mix playlist from Ashton until three months ago. The one that Spotify made for you when you were using my account? I listen to it all the time, and I picked him up from the gym and didn’t change it fast enough. He bought me a cowboy hat for my birthday last month.”

A laugh bubbled out of me, surprising us both. It was shaky, but it was real.

“I got drunk and finally tried asparagus,” he murmured, lips pressed to my hair.

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