Page 98 of Red Rabbit
“I got your email,” she said.
I chuckled. “North told me.”
“So you two talked?” She asked tentatively.
“If you mean did we talk about how he’s a psychopath who would try to kill me if I said I didn’t want to share you? Yeah, we talked.” She laughed, sounding relieved.
“That sounds like him.”
I put my pants on and then pulled her to me and kissed her again, my lips lingering. “You’re mine, just as much as you’re his.”
When she looked up at me, my heart ached when I saw the depth of feeling there. She smiled shyly.
“That makes me happy,” she said, smiling.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” I said. I pulled the vial of blood from my pocket, thankful it hadn’t broken in our fervor to undress. “Courtesy of your morally gray men, returning from a success hunt. Hope you don’t find it too morbid.”
Her eyes glittered with something dark and wild as she took the vial. She didn’t ask what it was but I knew she knew.
“So it’s done then.”
“It’s done.”
She looked down at the blood, rolling the vial between her fingers. I could see the war of emotions on her face and I knew what she was feeling because I went through the same thing. Just because your revenge is over, it doesn’t mean your grief, loss and healing journey is over. We would always carry those scars—physical and mental. Trauma is the memories of the mind frozen in the body and maybe there might be a time when she didn’t feel things as heavy as before but there would never be a time when it was gone for good.
“I thought I’d feel different,” she said finally, confirming what I thought.
“How do you feel?”
She didn’t answer right away, instead she put the blood near her paints and then turned to look at me.
“I think I’ll have to paint it,” she said, her lips pulling up a bit in a shy smile.
I nodded then looked at her pointedly. “Oh, another thing, care to explain why I’m no longer being charged with war crimes?”
“What do you mean?” She asked, trying to look innocent but she wasn’t fooling me.
I chuckled. “I thought so,” I said, grinning. I wrapped her up in my arms and when she tilted her head up to me with a smug grin on her face, I kissed her breathless.
EPILOGUE
KAELIN
We got back to my house and when I walked into the living room, there was Theron, sitting on the couch with a whiskey, tapping away on his phone. I cried out in surprise and rushed him—I hadn’t seen or heard from him all month. He barely had time to stand and put his glass down before I was in his arms. He pulled me hard against him, burying his face in my neck and giving my ass a squeeze as he growled in my ear.
“God, I missed you,” he breathed.
I pulled away slightly and took in his face then.
“Oh—” I gasped, tilting his chin towards me so I could see the halfway healed wound that ran down his face. It was thin and angry red still. It started at his temple and ran through the edge of his eyebrow—I paled slightly seeing how it barely missed his eye—to continue down his cheek and tapered at the jaw bone. Even though the skin was still a little swollen and raw, it didn’t diminish his good looks. If anything it made him look less like a businessman and more like the dark and dangerous crime lord he was.
“I—I hope the other guy looks worse,” I said finally, meeting his eyes. He laughed and I heard Graham chuckle behind me.
“He’s dead,” Theron said with a shrug. He didn’t look at all concerned about the scar or the vanity that could surround something like that on his face. He entwined his hand in my hair and brought my face back to his, kissing me thoroughly until I was breathless and my face flushed. He pulled away, his eyes darkened with desire but I saw him look over my shoulder and he smirked.
“I think your boy wants to make up for all that lost time,” he murmured, turning me around in his arms to look at Graham.
Graham was leaning his shoulder against the wall, watching us with a hungry look. Despite the two times at the studio, he was hard again, and his entire body was radiating an almost feral energy.
