“I hate how much you’ve lost to get to me.”
“I feel the same way about you.” He kissed her head as she kissed his chest.
“The funeral is on Saturday, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re going to think of her that day, there’s no way you can’t.” She looked up at him. “And I’m going to love you even more for it. You hide behind your structured life, a three-piece suit, and the plaques on your office wall, but your heart is so damn big. Everyone who really knows you loves you, it’s impossible not to.”
“Don’t ever leave me,” he whispered.
“I have to work tomorrow.”
He chuckled. She called his sense of humor dry, but hers was just as dry.
“Oh you meant it more like a stalker, didn’t you? Like ‘Don’t ever leave me … because I’d find you.’”
“Yes, but not really in that voice.”
“Were you good at hide-and-seek? I sucked at it. Jude would talk stupid gibberish while looking for me. Stuff that would make me giggle and give away my hiding spot. He’d say things like, ‘I ran out of dental floss so I cut the strings off your tampons. Is that going to be a problem?’ or, ‘I masturbate in the shower. Don’t you think it’s odd that you never run out of conditioner?’”
He laughed with her. It was easy to imagine Jessica and Jude as kids because they still sucked at being adults, especially when they were in the same room.
“I dominated hide-and-seek. Especially the seeking part. So yes, I would find you in the most creepy, no-other-man-will-ever-have-you kind of way.”
“I should be disturbed by your confession. I should report it to Dr. Jones, but I love to think about you finding me. You’ve saved me from so much, I can’t image a life where you’re not there to make it worth living.”
He walked to the kitchen, holding her to his chest like a slow dance. After setting down his glass, he lifted her onto the counter. She wrapped her naked legs around his waist, her arms around his neck.
“Hold onto me, Luke. Never let me go.”
He slid his hands under the hoodie, feathering his fingers along her abs and up her ribs.
“I’ve got you. I’ll always have you.”
She pressed her palm to his chest, over his heart. He closed his eyes because that’s exactly where he kept her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Knight
Jillian’s stomach roiled in pain. She didn’t have a fat reserve for unexpected kidnappings. Stupid her. After being in the same basement with Claire, that lesson should have been learned. Gandhi went twenty-one days without food and survived. Drifting in and out of sleep and consciousness left Jillian unsure of how many days she’d been in that dungeon, but not twenty-one. Yet.
“You need to eat?”
Knox must have heard her stomach.
“I’ve been offered maggot-infested dog food. I’m good.” She looked down at the IV still in her hand. “She’s keeping me hydrated. I’ve been pissing myself quite regularly, which I’m sure you can smell. I’m so fucking constipated, if I make it out of here alive I’ll die trying to shit the redwood-sized cement turd that’s backed up in my colon.”
Knox chuckled. “Always such a lady.”
“Funny, coming from the guy who preached his training facility had to be gender neutral because the enemy killed indiscriminately. I act like a lady in the presence of a true gentleman.”
“Let me guess. I’m not a true gentleman?”
“You raped me.”
“You let me.”
She glared at him. All those years she knew he didn’t look at it as rape. It’s the same reason she didn’t—until working with rape victims. Until Luke.
“You had me pinned naked to the ground.”
“You could have escaped. I didn’t hold you down. Your fear did.”
“Two hundred pounds of fear.”
He shrugged. “I saved your life that day and you know it.”
“Is that how you sleep at night? Is that how you justified yourself worthy of my mother?”
“You killed Edwin Harvey and Matthew Green because I took away your fear that day. You weren’t a victim. I gave you power that day.”
“I beat the shit out of you. I had power, dumb fuck. Just ask the paramedics that hauled your ass out of the building.”
“You had skills, a gun of sorts, but you never would have pulled the trigger. I showed you how to shut off your mind and pull the trigger. You’re no longer a victim. Even now, look at you. You’re a starving bloody mess. I see the anger in your eyes. I bet Edwin saw it too, but he didn’t believe it. You hated him but if it weren’t for me, you never would have killed him, not with forty-four slashes to his body.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know you better than anyone. You like the taste of blood and the control that comes with it. That’s a part of who you are now. A wedding dress, a fancy apartment in the city, and a big-ass dog won’t change that.”