Let It Snow (75 page)

She leaned onto the windowsill and sighed. “Yeah, right.”

She knew the truth. She’d always worry about him, whether she was with him or not. In fact,
not
being with him made her feel at times like his wellbeing was a thing far beyond her control. When she detached herself like this, she couldn’t prop him up and make him whole. Couldn’t fix him when he needed it…not that she could fix a bullet hole. She could sit by his bedside as he mended, though. She’d done that plenty.

Lying to herself by saying that he wasn’t her problem was just her immature way of guarding her heart, but it really hadn’t mattered. With him, without him—made no difference. Her heart shattered every time he went away, and maybe that wasn’t his fault.

It wasn’t hers, either.

Sighing, she picked up the empty mug and carried it to the sink. Usually, she would have left it for later, but she took her time washing it out and buffing it dry. She turned the old thing around in her hands and stared at the vignette painted on the creamy ceramic. It featured an old cook on the porch of a stately antebellum house with a bowl on her lap, looking out to the fields. Giselle didn’t know who she’d inherited the mug from, but she couldn’t remember not being its owner.

Although the cook’s face wasn’t much more than a dark swipe of paint, Giselle had always thought there was a serenity about it. Like she was at peace with her station and found joy in it. Perhaps that was why Giselle would prefer to be in the kitchen herself. She wouldn’t just be serving, but making. Even if she endured the same repetitive tasks—washing, peeling, trimming—she’d take pride in being part of the creation process. Not just the delivery. The beginning, not the end.

But, damn, the
money
.

Maybe she could make it work, though. She rubbed her thumb over the old cook’s bowl on the mug and ran the numbers in her head.
If I just…

Giselle came to at the sound of pelting against the living room window.
Shit
.
How long was I out this time?
The stove’s clock said just a couple of minutes.

That pelting noise happened again.
Hail?
Not a frequent occurrence in New Orleans. She set the mug in the rack and padded to the window.

No hail, but the rain endured.

She jumped back when several small objects hit the glass in front of her, and clutched her chest. It took a moment for her brain to work out that they were pebbles. Who the hell was throwing pebbles?

She squinted through the rain streaking down the glass and saw a dark figure down in the neighboring courtyard.

“Max?”

She lifted the window and leaned out, hissing, “What are you doing?”

“I called. You didn’t answer. Can you open the back door?” Without waiting for her response, he vaulted over the fence and disappeared under the back door’s awning.

“Dammit.”

The defiant part of her wanted to keep him out there in cold rain, but the logical part of her wondered,
Why
? Just stubbornness? She’d conceded that she wanted him even if he ended up breaking her heart, but knowing that and letting it happen seemed to be two things with no bridge between them.

“God.” She slipped her feet into her ratty slippers and walked to the door. Had she really thought he wouldn’t follow? It was a wonder he hadn’t done it sooner.

He was standing with his arms crossed and hair dripping all over his motorcycle jacket when she turned at the last stair landing. He’d changed his clothes. Boots. Jeans. This was about as normal as he ever was.

Approachable.

So why was there a catch in her throat? Why was her stomach a lead weight in her gut?

“Why do you have a phone if you’re never going to answer it?” he asked. He took off his jacket and shook the water off of it.

She didn’t respond, just started up the stairs. She didn’t need the entire building seeing her in her hand-me-down bathrobe. It had more holes than a wheel of Swiss cheese.

More holes than her brain at times.

He hooked his coat at the door, stepped out of his boots, and walked straight to the bathroom.

She followed and leaned in the doorway, watching him twist rain from his hair.

“I never asked you why you keep it so long,” she said. Anything to avoid a serious conversation.

“Yours is longer.”

“For good reason. I’m a woman.”

“Yes, you are all woman, G.” He grabbed one of the decorative towels off the rack, started drying his hair, and winked at her when she growled. He knew she hated when he used those things, and was fairly sure he did it just to get a reaction from her.

She sighed.
Max.

“Mostly, I keep it long because it makes me look less like a cop.”

“Oh.” She moved away from the door. So much for keeping the conversation light.

“G—” His hands landed on her shoulders and stilled her. “Don’t walk away. Talk to me.”

“It seems like almost every conversation I have with you ends in panic of some sort.”

He pulled her against his body and tucked his chin over her shoulder. “Maybe it’s because we never really resolve anything. It just carries over to the next time, right? And you’re always angry at me, and it just simmers and bubbles over sometimes.”

“You want me to just go ahead and snap? Like I did earlier? We’re pretty short on ice dicks at the moment.”

He chuckled and held her tighter. “No, I don’t want you to snap. I want you to tell me what’s keeping you from me. If you want to yell at me, fine. Blame me for some things? Okay. I’m sure there are a lot of things I’m overdue to take the heat on. Just don’t push me away.”

“Pushing’s easier than talking,” she confessed.

He chuckled. “I know. My jeans are wet. I’m going to take them off.”

He eased away from her. She walked to the sofa and sat, watching him step out of his faded jeans and drape them over a high-backed chair. He took off his shirt next, which was soaked around the collar. It’d probably been very uncomfortable, so she held her snarky retort about him getting naked at the first possible opportunity in check. She’d be lying if she told herself she didn’t feel a special thrill in knowing she was the only woman he took his clothes off for.

“I didn’t know how to tell you this, but, I got a call tonight, G,” he said. He shook out his shirt and looked around.

A call. Great.
She didn’t need to know what kind. She pointed to the bedroom door. “Drape the shirt over the ironing board.”

“Okay. I’ve got your work uniform in my truck, by the way. I’ll bring it up later.”

“I probably won’t need it for a while,” she said to his retreating back. “We only wear white for Winterball.”

“That’s a shame. You look so good in it.”

“You’re full of shit, Max.” She leaned her head against the backrest and closed her eyes.

“G, I don’t compliment you because I think doing so will earn me anything.” He settled next to her onto the sofa and slipped his arm around her waist. “I do it because it’s the truth and I want you to know it.”

She couldn’t bring herself to just say
thank you
. Accepting compliments had never been easy, not even when they came from Max.

He gave her waist an insistent pull, and she put her head on his lap.

“What’d you do with the dress?” he asked.

“It’s hanging in the closet. Who do I need to send it back to?”

“It’s yours to keep.”

“Thank you,” she ground out, though she doubted she’d ever wear it again. She’d never be able to wear it without thinking of Max. But, was that such a bad thing?

“Like I was saying before, I got a call before I came over here,” he said. He began stroking her hair. “It came in when I was walking out of Henri’s office.”

She exhaled and pulled in a deep, calming breath. Didn’t help. If anything, she’d frayed her nerves even more. She couldn’t run from this, though. She couldn’t plug her fingers into her ears and act like not hearing the words would keep the future from happening.

“I didn’t think I’d have to go undercover again anytime soon,” he said. “I’ve been working behind a desk for a while and didn’t expect there to be any new leads on the cases I’ve been tracking.”

“That changed?”

He grunted. “Yeah. I guess you can’t really predict these things. I’m supposed to fly out to the Midwest the day after tomorrow.”

“Can—”

“No, honey, I can’t tell you anything about it. At least nothing that will make you feel any better. All I can tell you is that I’ll be vigilant and that I’m experienced in this sort of scenario.”

“And I won’t hear from you.”

He traced her hairline gently and swirled his fingertip around her earlobe. “I’m not going to lie to you. I’m going in deep. I don’t know when I’ll be able to get in touch.”

“All those times when I didn’t hear from you for months…were you…”

“Yeah. But only in the past few years. I don’t have a good excuse for why you never heard from me when I was in college. All I can say was that I was a punk, and I’m sorry for making you think I didn’t care. Damn, girl, I was so scared of you.”

“Scared of me?” She sat up. “Why?”

“You’re a lot of woman, G. Always have been. The fact that I have to wear a mask and leather and talk to you in my Dom voice to have any control over a situation should tell you just how much you affect me.”

“Bullshit. You don’t have to do any of that. I play along because I want to.”

He laughed. “Now who’s talking shit?”

“It’s true. A girl like me isn’t supposed to
like
that kind of thing.”

“So, you’d play with me for real? Be my only sub?” He looked way too damned jubilant, so she laughed, too.

“Let’s not get carried away.” She pulled her feet beneath her and fixed her gaze on the rain hitting the window. “I do like normal missionary sex in actual beds on occasion, too. Sometimes, I just want to lay there and let you do all the work.”

“I won’t judge you for that.” He rested his forearms atop his thighs and looked toward the window, too. “Is it all right if I stay over until I have to fly out?”

Her stomach flipped yet again. “Dammit, Max.”

“I’m sorry.”

“If something happens to you…
God
. I don’t want to get a call like my mother did. I don’t want to be that woman who can’t cope with her man being gone.”

He pulled her onto her lap. “Oh, honey. I didn’t know. I’m sorry. Listen, I can’t promise I won’t leave you scared sometimes. But isn’t hoping for the best and having all the good times ahead of us worth it?”

She couldn’t form any words. She just shook.

He held her tighter. “Come on baby, don’t cry. I don’t know what to do when you cry.”

“Tell me everything is going to be okay.”

“It will be.”

“You can’t possibly know that.”

“G…”

She sighed, sniffled, and wiped her eyes. “I’m a fucking mess.”

“That hasn’t changed in twelve years.” He tightened his grip on her bottom, and stood. “If you became reasonable all of a sudden, I wouldn’t recognize you.”

“Sometimes I can’t remember why we’re friends.”

“Because you love me.” He dropped her on the bed and laid her back. “Don’t you?”

“I should have never told you that.”

“Has it stopped being true in a day?” He crawled onto the bed between her legs and unfastened her robe’s ties.

“No.”

“You know I love you, right? Always have. Maybe I have a funny way of showing it sometimes.”

“Funny is an understatement.” He eased down his briefs and flung them over the side of the bed. In an instant, he was inside her, stretching her slowly and filling her completely.

His breath seeped out in a hiss as he lowered himself onto her and brought his lips to hers. “No one makes me feel as good as you,” he whispered against her lips, and eased out of her.

“It’s all in your head.”

“No. All in my heart. You keep forgetting that I have one.”

His thrusts were slow, but unyielding, designed to stoke her to a peak and keep her there. He brushed his thumbs across her taut nipples and kissed along her collarbone, diverting her attention from the fullness in her sex and her need to
let go
. Not just of her orgasm, but of everything.

She needed to let go of everything beyond her control and hold tight to the things she could.

She couldn’t control her pay at work, but she could control how she spent it. She could choose to be happy and ask for what she wanted. If she didn’t get it, she could
choose
to do something different at someplace else.

She couldn’t control her brain when she zoned out, or her body when it acted while she was in that state, but she could
choose
to seek treatment if there was one. She could
choose
to acknowledge that something wasn’t right and do all she could to mitigate it. She could choose self-care instead of ignoring the problem.

She couldn’t control what happened to Max while he was doing his job. He might get seriously injured. She might be left without him. But, she could choose to give him the full impact of her love anyway, because she’d regret not doing so far more than being an old woman who didn’t
try
to claim her one, great love.

And Max was it.

She dug her nails into his back and threw back her head. “Max?”

“Go ahead, honey.”

She let go. Of everything, except him.

Giselle put her hand in Max’s. He dropped a kiss onto the back and squeezed it.

They sat in his SUV for a few minutes, saying nothing, and just looking out the windshield at The Beaudelaire’s early-rising guests smoking out front.

Nicotine fiends.

She couldn’t really fault them for having a vice, though. Maybe she’d be calmer if she had one of her own.

After a while, she forced herself to look at the dashboard clock. Almost six a.m. She needed to start her shift soon. There’d likely be a backup of breakfast orders awaiting delivery.

“Did you give any thought to what I asked you yesterday?” Max asked, jostling her from her thoughts. “About moving into my place?”

“I thought about it. Yeah.”