Page 89 of Her Name in Red
I can't help the smile that tugs at my lips. There's something refreshing about his self-awareness.
“You done?” he asks, nodding at my empty plate.
I push it toward him. “Yeah.”
Riggs stands, collecting both our plates and carrying them to the sink. It should feel strange considering what we just did an hour ago. But it doesn’t. It feels like the most natural thing in the world now.
Water runs as he rinses the plates, squirting dish soap onto a sponge. His back muscles flex with each movement, the dim kitchen light casting shadows that highlight every ridge and valley.
“What would you want?” he asks suddenly, not turning around. “If you weren't...here or doing this.”
The question catches me off guard. I pull my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them. I open my mouth to give a flippant answer, but something in the set of his shoulders stops me. He's not looking at me, giving me space to think, to answer honestly.
“Something small,” I say finally, my voice quieter than I intended. “Quiet. Somewhere, no one says my name like a curse.”
The confession hangs in the air between us, more vulnerable than I meant it to be. I wait for him to laugh, to make a joke, to break the tension.
Instead, he keeps washing, his movements methodical. “I love you,” he says, like he's commenting on the weather. Like it's the most natural thing in the world to say while elbow-deep in soapy water.
My heart does a weird stutter-step. “What?”
He glances over his shoulder, expression unreadable. “You heard me.”
“Say it again.” The demand comes out before I can stop it.
Riggs turns fully now, suds dripping from his hands onto the floor. “I love you,” he repeats, slower this time. “Not because of what you've done. Not in spite of it either. Just...you. All of it. Every beautiful, broken, jagged piece of you. You’re a mosaic of all these things, and if you can’t see how you belong in chapels to be worshipped at, then just know you’re my place of worship, Maren Marino.”
I freeze.
His words hang in the air between us. I wait for the panic to set in, for my instinct to run, to deflect with some smart-ass comment.
It doesn’t come.
The world stops spinning, and the air in my lungs turns solid.
I love you. Every beautiful, broken, jagged piece of you.
Riggs showing up at my door with takeout and watching trash TV with me. Riggs texting me stupid memes at three in the morning because he knew I'd be awake. Riggs having food delivered when I was avoiding him. All of these things, and I’m not even factoring in the way he’s helped me with bodies.
How he’s kept my secrets. As if he locked them up in a box and threw away the key. And the box is right in his chest.
Love. That's what it was. That's what it's always been.
I uncurl myself from the barstool and cross to the sink where he stands waiting, his eyes never leaving mine. Water drips from his hands onto the linoleum floor, leaving small puddles at his feet. His face is open, vulnerable in a way that terrifies me more than any violence ever could.
I reach for him, my hands finding his jaw, turning his face fully to mine. His stubble is rough against my palms, his skin still warm from the shower. For a minute, I just look at him—really look—at the flecks of gold in his hazel eyes, at the small scar above his eyebrow, at the mouth that has whispered both threats and tenderness against my skin.
Then I kiss him. Hard. Like it's the only language I know. Like I'm drowning, and his mouth is air.
His hands are still wet when they grip my waist, leaving damp prints on my t-shirt. He makes a sound in the back of his throat—half growl, half surrender—as he backs me against the counter, lifting me onto it in one fluid motion.
I wrap my legs around him, pulling him closer, my fingers tangling in his still-damp hair. Everything else falls away—the night's violence, the blood, the death. There's only this. Only us.
Chapter 30
Riggs
We finally break apart. We're both breathing hard, and I rest my forehead against hers. My thumbs trace slow circles on her hip bones, feeling the soft skin there, memorizing the contours of her body.
