Page 30 of Culmination
There’s no question. No hesitation. It’s the truth. It’smytruth. I know what Rafe must be thinking. And I can’t exactly blame him. But there’s nothing Adrian could say or do to change the way I feel. Our ship has sailed. Hell, more like it sank. And it’ll stay at the bottom of the ocean where it belongs. Rafe’s my lifeboat. All I’ll ever need.
Rafe’s eyes close for a brief moment. I know he believes me when they reopen and his expression’s transformed. Gone is the desperation, the distress. It’s been replaced with soft, relaxed eyes, and an easy-going smile that I haven’t seen in far too long.
“Good.”
I could tease him for not saying it back, but something tells me this isn’t the time or the place. Rafe beats me to the punch anyway.
“We need to talk, baby. I just don’t want to do this here.”
We’re agreed on that point.
“Oh… Okay.”
As much as I want to know what he’s thinking, I get it. We’re in Adrian’s apartment. He could return any time and I can’t imagine how awkward that would be. The sooner we’re out of here, the better. So I allow Rafe to lead me down to the sidewalk, where we blend into the crowd.
We walk in silence, hand in hand, as if we’re any other couple meandering around Chicago and taking in the sights. Except I’m not bursting with excitement. Instead, I’m trying to ward off the irritation emanating from the man beside me. Each time I go to speak, he gives me a look that immediately shuts me up. It’s apparent Rafe has nothing to say to me, at least not out here in public. I suppose I should be grateful for that, but the more time we spend in silence, the more my anxiety grows.
As soon as we’re safely secured in our room, Rafe pushes me up against a wall, surprising me with the force of it. His hand comes up to my neck, where his thumb travels over the curve of jaw. His forehead dips and rests on mine, his blue eyes intense.
“Never run away from me again,” he rasps.
My heart leaps into my throat. “Rafe, I—”
He cuts me off with a desperate, devastating kiss that threatens to knock me off my feet. When he tears his mouth away from me, his eyes are wild. “Promise me. Never again.”
“I…I promise, Rafe. I understand the depths of the danger now. I will never run from you again. I will only ever run towards you. I promise.”
His eyes close and I feel him exhale. “Thank Christ.” His eyes open. “You scared the shit out of me. I will not apologize for trying to protect you. You still haven’t even explained what happened to your head. You’re driving me absolutely crazy, you know that?” he asks, his voice practically a growl.
It’s hot as hell, and my hormones must be going wild because I have an urge to put off this conversation and ask him to take me to bed.
As much as my libido wishes for him to be inside me, I know that this has to be discussed first.
“I’ll tell you everything about that, but first, you need to know that Adrian accepts that I’m with you now. He accepts that we’re over and he’s no harm to me anymore. This isn’t about him.”
“I heard everything, Gabriella. And he was wrong. You know everything. I’ve told you everything.”
I nod. “I know. I believe you.” Then I frown. “How…how’d you hear everything?”
“I slipped inside just as he began talking about his mother.” Something flashes in his eyes, but he pushes it away.
“You knew I was in there with Adrian and you kept your cool? You didn’t come barreling in?” I ask, almost shocked at the restraint he showed.
He lets out a small laugh. “Oh, trust me, I wanted to.” He sobers up. “I trust you, Brie. It’s what you needed. I wanted to give you that.”
“Wow.”
“And now, Brie, it’s time you tell me everything I’ve missed,” he says, scooping me and taking me to the bed where, for the next hour, we do nothing but talk.
What Rafe tells me as we lay in the darkness is the most shocking of all.
My future,ourfuture, will never be the same.
After finding Brie’s cell phone and mentally detailing what I wanted to do to her as punishment so she’d never defy me again, I got Agent Howard on the phone. He listened to me rant, demanding that every agent within five hundred miles of Chicago descend on the city and scour every corner and alleyway until she was found. Fortunately, it didn’t come to that. Unbeknownst to me, the agency had been tracking Adrian and knew exactly where his apartment was.
And it didn’t escape me that if the agency knew where he was, Theo Morningstar probably did, too. I couldn’t get across town fast enough.
I have no fucking idea how I kept my cool. Some invisible reins were keeping me from barreling in like the white knight I wanted to be. Something told me I had to give Brie this. Hell, she’d walked out because of my baseless accusation, and if I was going to prove I trusted her, what better way could I do it than letting her deal with Adrian as he needed to?
