Fracture (24 page)

     I get up and fumble my way out of the room, biting on my lip until it bleeds to keep the sobs inside. Sheer luck steers me toward the bathroom. I sink to the floor and let the rest of it come. Hands fisted. Hot saline on my cheeks. A brutal, brutal ache in my throat. Nose so clogged I can’t breathe. The tile magnifies everything and throws it back at me.

     Minutes bleed together, and the hysterical crying fit slows, then stops. My entire face feels swollen. I blow my nose and splash cold water on my face, but it doesn’t help. I’m a mess. In more ways than one.

     Declan wants a miracle. The woman in those pictures is gone, possibly never to be seen or heard from again. Whatever it was that kept me alive after Ryan’s death is gone or buried so deep I’ll never find it. Not without help.

     Declan’s staring at the screen when I return, and rather than take my seat I stay near the door. “I don’t know who she is,” I say quietly, “but I don’t think I’m her anymore.”

     He sighs. “Come here, lass.” He spins the chair around and pushes it against the desk, holding it in place. He props his foot up on a nearby crate and holds out a hand.

     Here’s the comfort I wanted. Late, but I’ll take it. He surprises an “oomph” out of me when he tugs me down to his lap, chair sliding. I cling to his neck as he puts his good foot on the floor to stop the movement.

     We sit for long, long minutes, his hands holding me to him, one on my thigh, the other at my hip, and I turn my face into his neck. His warmth and scent push away the anvil on my chest and the numbness in my brain, and I hate the moment of lucidity I get from his touch.

     I’m not ready to move, not when I’m so tired. Not right now.

     “I don’t want you to be the reason I get better,” I whisper. “I don’t want to need you. Or want you. I don’t want you to hang around to look after me. I don’t want you to resent me. I’m getting in your way.”

     “Shut up,” he says wearily. He shifts me closer. “Just shut up for a minute.”

* * *

     Things are…different, after the day in the editing suite. Not hugely different. Just that the two of us seem to realize touch and affection have previously unknown healing properties, and Declan isn’t as stingy. I’m not as gun–shy. Still no sex. My libido has been less than nil.

     He rolls his shoulders and winces as he sits at the kitchen table, almost a week after my epic breakdown. The weight is mostly gone from my chest, but the numb feeling is relentless. The tears still threaten, though at least now Declan doesn’t ignore them or stare at me like I’m an alien.

     “Problem?” I put a cup of tea in front of him, and turn back to get a spoon.

     “Slept wrong.”

     I set my own mug on the table and step behind him, the move ingrained from years of coaxing Ryan away from his desk when he’d slumped over it for too long. Declan’s low groan of appreciation as I dig my knuckles into his neck is oddly gratifying. “How’d you pull that one off?”

     “Couldn’t sleep last night, didn’t want to wake you. No, no, don’t stop, it was good,” he protests.

     I come around to face him anyway. “Why didn’t you say something?” If I’m going to put myself back together, he has to let me go at some point. Might as well start with sleep. “You don’t have to hold me every fucking night. I’m not a child.”

     “It’s my choice.” The impatience in his voice cracks out like a whip. “Now will you go back to what you were doing?”

     “We need to talk about this.”

     “No.”

     “Declan—”

     He holds up a hand. “When I don’t, you start twitching. Whimpering. Makes it harder for me to get any sleep at all.”

     I blow out a breath and glare at him. Of course he’d say something like that. It’s a little sick that I gain comfort from it. I step behind him and resume the massage. “Then I’ll sleep on the couch.”

     He reaches up and captures one of my hands. “You’ll stay in the damn bed.” On a growl, he nips into a fingertip and releases my hand. The tiny sting crashes through my lethargy like a camera flash, there and gone. “I’m not going to kick you out of it.” He hisses as my thumb punches down on a knot at the curve of his neck. “Doctor wants to see how my leg’s doing. Think you can drive me in this afternoon?”

     “Yes.” He sips his tea in between grunts, and I smooth my hands along his neck, threading them into his hair. “I think I should talk to someone. About…all this.” I need to. The numbness is troubling, the meltdown more so. And I won’t use Declan as a crutch.

     “I’ve the name of a solicitor in my study. I’ll get it for you.”

     I shake my head before I remember he can’t see me. “Not an attorney. I’m not ready for that. No, I mean like a shrink. Psychiatrist. Counselor.” I sit across from him and pick up my mug. “I’m not getting better. Not really. Sitting here, drinking tea, trying to pretend I
do
feel better…it’s exhausting. I’m tired. So fucking tired. And every day it’s an effort to stay out of bed.” His eyes widen in alarm. “Couldn’t you tell?”

     “No. Yes. Fuck. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know what to do with you. You’re fragile. I can see that. One wrong move and you’ll break.” He passes a hand over his face, and for the first time I see the lines of fatigue and worry, the shadows of it in his eyes.

     It’s gone in the next heartbeat, and he pushes back from the table. “I’m going to take a shower. Appointment’s in two hours.” He hesitates, then comes around the table and stops next to my chair. He draws me out of the chair and tips up my chin. “That woman in the photos. Is she still in there?”

     He searches my face for an answer I don’t have, and I shut my eyes so I can’t see the disappointment in his. They fly open again as his lips brush over my forehead, something he hasn’t done in weeks. I missed it, missed the sweetness of it, missed the Declan it represented.

     My heart sputters once, twice, three times as he eases away and limps out of the room.

     We talk more now. We have actual conversations lasting longer than a few sentences. We usually have them in bed, strangely enough. The story comes out fragmented, how I ended up in Sarajevo, what happened after Ryan’s death. The shrink said talking about it would be good for me. I’m not convinced, but Declan’s a willing audience, so I’ve been trying.

     “My brother stayed in touch.” I prop my head up on my hand. “That first year, we’d exchange emails. It was pretty sporadic, given how poor the internet connections could be. I spoke to him a few times, but that stopped after the cell towers were blown. I didn’t have a landline number for him to call.”

     Declan covers my free hand with his own, lacing our fingers together. “They didn’t cut all communications out of the city.”

     “No,” I admit. “After I snuck out of the embassy, I called my parents. That conversation did not go well. Our relationship was always very civil. We’re not close. It’s not filled with animosity and drama, but I always got the impression my parents had kids because that was what was expected. And they really didn’t like the idea of me going off with Ryan for a year.

     “So I limited contact to Tim after that. When the cell towers went out for the first time, I stopped emailing, too. Stopped trying to get in touch with anyone, really. I don’t know anything about these terrorist watch lists. Tim could be on one, too, for collusion or some such crap. I’ve been out of touch with just about everyone for so long it wouldn’t surprise me if they believed I’d died there. Not to mention I stole pretty much everything I needed after Ryan died.” Including the flat I’d been living in when I found Declan.

     “I doubt they’ll hold you for larceny,” Declan says dryly. “Why did you leave the first flat?”

     To escape the memories. I keep my gaze trained on our hands. “I didn’t right away. It hurt too much to stay there. We’d been happy. Ecstatic. All I saw were memories of what I didn’t have any more. I got caught stealing by one of the government soldiers once. He got it in his head I’d make a good spy, and all I wanted was to be left alone. He made me paranoid I was being followed every time I went out because he had this creepy ability to find me when I wasn’t expecting him. I broke into the flat I ended up living in on a whim. Used a credit card on the lock.” I grinned. “I wasn’t going to take anything or stay, but it looked like no one had been there for some time. I took a chance and made it my new home and started covering my tracks every time I went out.”

     His thumb drifts back and forth, back and forth, over the back of my hand. “Have you called the solicitor yet?”

     “Trying to get rid of me?” The question comes out lightly, belying my sinking stomach.

     His smile is quiet and small. “You don’t belong here.” He withdraws his hand. “You can stay as long as you need. I don’t want you leaving until you’re stronger. I do think this will take a while though, and talking to a solicitor wouldn’t do any harm.”

     I flop onto my back, swallowing the lump in my throat. “They’ll be able to find out I entered with my fiancé, Declan. Then I leave the country married to another man? This won’t work. I need more of a paper trail to fool the US government.”

     “The marriage certificate will be enough.”

     I snort. “No, it won’t. Some analyst with too much time on their hands will put two and two together and figure out that Nora Eddington married Declan Moran in an attempt to save her ass from prosecution.”

     “You can’t hide from it forever.”

     “Can’t I?” He’s right, unfortunately. He has a life to get back to, and I have a new one to create. “Fine. I’ll call him in the morning.”

     Declan’s quiet long after I stop talking, and I’m about to roll onto my side, away from him, when he looms over me. He kisses me — a soft, hesitant kiss, a feather touch over my mouth — and I want more. “She’s coming back,” he whispers. “I see her. She’s still in there.”

     Before I can reach for him, he nudges me onto my side and wraps himself around me. Simple cuddling. We fit together like we were born for this, and his hand worms its way under my t-shirt and splays across my belly, our legs tangled together. Something’s different. I run my foot up his leg. His cast. His cast is finally gone. He must have taken it off earlier today. I’ve gotten so used to seeing it. 

     It reminds me of something he said weeks ago, how once he’d healed he’d leave again. “When are you leaving?” I ask, the question loud in the otherwise quiet room.

     He stops nuzzling my neck to answer. “Two days. Mexico. The borderlands.”

     The most dangerous part of the country. Cartels shooting at will, fighting for dominance. Bodies left in the street as a message, usually minus their heads. I don’t want to think about him in one of those streets, his hands behind his head as a pistol’s pointed at it, waiting for his executioner to take the shot.

     He shifts me onto my back and cups my jaw with a tenderness that shocks me into stillness, his mouth soft and gentle over mine. He does it again, a sweet, soft kiss, and my hands curl around his wrists.

     He comes back for more, and the kiss is deeper. Hotter. Potent. Sparks ignite and flame, the embers of desire flaring to life with nothing more than these few kisses. Our tongues thrust and parry, stroking, curling, dancing, chasing each other.

     I tear my mouth away from his to trail my lips along his jaw, reveling in his hisses as I scrape my teeth over his skin. Tonight. Tonight I want to touch him. I want to touch him the way he’s touched me. I want to drive him crazy. I want to watch him break apart under my hands.

     “Ah, Christ.” He takes my mouth again in a fury, the kiss so powerful it almost hurts. “Let me have you, Nora. Let me have you tonight.” He whispers the words into my ear, and the rough desperation in them has heat surging and spreading.

     I remember what it’s like to be had by him. Delirium. Glorious insanity. Losing myself in his touch, yearning for
more
.

     I want that
more
.

     “No,” I gasp, wrenching my mouth away from his. “Let me have
you
.”

     He tugs at my lower lip with his teeth. “Same thing.”

     Wriggling free of his hold, I put some distance between us and sit up. “No, it isn’t. Don’t,” I warn, holding up my hands. “Don’t come any closer unless you’re ready to give me what I want.”
Need
. I need this like burning. It’s insane, how badly this is spiraling through me.

     “You never let me touch you. Not enough. Not enough to know what turns you on, what you hate. You don’t need a map for my body anymore.
You
know me
. You haven’t given me that same luxury. I need to touch you, Declan,” I whisper. If he says no, if he backs away, I’ll know this will never be a two–way street.

     Wariness shadows his face. Slowly, painfully, achingly slow, he sits up. So cautious. Is he…scared? Scared of what will happen when I ask him to hold still? When was the last time a lover ran her hands over him? When was the last time he let her do it? Found every secret place on his body, lighting him up? The challenge of it races through my blood, and I mirror him, cupping his face and bringing our mouths back together. Where they belong.

     His hands clamp on my hips, and I force myself to ease off. The first shudder ripples through him as I nibble at his ear. The second one hits as I work my way down his throat. He’s all but vibrating when I stroke my hands over his chest, scratch my nails along his abdomen. That wariness won’t leave his face, the expression so close to panic I want to laugh. I press my lips to his, unable to stop my smile. “I’m not going to hurt you,” I murmur.

     I push at him, to get him to lie down.
Oh.
His chest is hot to the touch, hot and so different from Ryan’s. Mine. My playground. Mine for the night. He acquiesces and I kneel at his hip, licking my lips in anticipation. Where do I start?

     He chuckles softly. “You’re looking at me like a starving man at a buffet.” He sobers, face strained with lust. “Take off your shirt and come here, lass.” He grasps the hem and pulls it up, dragging it over my head.