Page 38 of A Shot in the Dark
“We’re a popular place and—between you and me? We don’t often have rooms blocked off for more than a couple hours. I currently only have your room and one other available for an…extended stay. So whatever you’re gonna do, make it fast.”
“Card,” I murmur. “I have a card.”
The deal done, I try to keep my sense of growing anxiety at bay. I straighten the room, fluff the pillows, make the bed, hungry to regain some sense of control. No matter how I rearrange things, nothing feels right about this except the feeling of Boots wrapped around me, Boots’ breath in my ears, Boots between my legs—the physical reassurance of the metaphysical bond we now share.
Watching the door, I realize I’m chewing my fingernails—and I never chew my fingernails. They cost too much to maintain. With a sigh, I decide to go in search of Boots. The bond lets me know he’s still near, but I can’t quite place him exactly. How near is near?
I find him on the walkway outside our room, smoking, his hand trembling. “Shhh,” I soothe, moving into his hesitant embrace to take the cigarette and crush it underfoot.
“I…”
“Shhh.” I lead him back inside, seat him on the bed and take off his glasses to wipe at the tears I’m startled to find glinting on his lashes.
“If it hadn’t been for your kick and the bond….” He shakes his head, looks away, and I feel his pain like it’s my own. “I could have really hurt you.”
A sigh slips out of me. “You would never hurt me—not intentionally,” I whisper. “You didn’t mean it. I know that. I can feel the truth of you. Here.” I set his hand to my heart. “The bond… I know the truth that’s in your heart, too.”
“Then you know that?—”
“—you hate yourself right now.”
His gaze drops in agreement, in admission.
“Then you can feel this in me…” I shift his hand, lifting it higher so it rests at the base of my throat.
For a second I think I glimpse fear in his eyes—then I feel it. “It’s okay,” I press my hand more firmly against his, and to my chest. “Feel my heart. I know you hate yourself right now. Now,” I squeeze his hand, “trust that you shouldn’t.”
He closes those unnaturally beautiful eyes of his and focuses a moment as if he’s listening for something in the distance. The muscle in his jaw jumps, and when he opens his eyes again there’s such a sense of wonder in them it’s as if I feel something beautiful and wild blooming in me.
Blooming between us.
But this is only temporary.
And yet, for the next few hours he keeps his distance, painfully careful around me. Tender and soft. A shadow of the powerhouse I know him to be. I feel every sad beat of his heart as if it’s my own, and I try to soothe him with sweet words and kind kisses, letting him know I understand him without saying the words he seems not to want to hear. He returns my affection with slow and tenuous touches of his own, steadily allowing me to help him rebuild the trust I feel which barely faltered for him—a trust I wish he had for himself.
“Maybe this is part of it,” he murmurs, staring at me, his silver eyes filled with emotion, “the reason my kind want to keep yours so firmly leashed—your willingness to forgive us sofucking easily, even if we doubt we deserve it… But that’s just a shot in the dark…”
I merely nuzzle my face along his wrist and palm and soothe him to sleep, thinking that as much as Boots believes I require a protector, maybe the kick I delivered proves that, in time, I can protect myself...
The room is impossibly dark, the strobing flicker of the dying street light outside our window which made our most recent round so glaringly cinematic having finally given up. No moon illuminates the sky and inside our room everything exists wrapped in black velvet. The rhythmic ebb and flow of Boots’ breathing warms my bare shoulders and I roll over to face him, only to find eyes bright as twin moons watching me—eyes the unmistakable and luminous color of Boots’…not the shape…not the size…
Everything about them is just the smallest bit wrong and yet, so strangely right…
Dreaming. I’m only dreaming…
I reach out to dispel my wild midnight imaginings, the back of my hand stroking across a strange and softly furry cheek. With a gasp, I scramble back, out of the bed and across the room, stumbling, flailing, fear thrusting a knot in my throat as my fingers skitter across the wall searching for the lights?—
The glare is nearly blinding and as my eyes focus, I hear a surprised groan erupt from Boots.
Boots.
Lying in the bed, naked and squinting at me as if I’ve lost my mind.
Maybe I have.
“What the ever-loving-fuck are you doing, princess? Turn off the lights and come back to bed.”
It’s only Boots—and something inside me hums and challenges that it’s been Boots all along.
