Page 112 of Danger Close
Changing my clothes out took over an hour. My fucking hands ached so badly. The skin burned, and the stitches kept tugging. Sometimes, the pain was downright blinding.
Pulling up my jeans took so much time. I had to try to pull them up my thighs without touching the outside of my hands. The only thing I could use was my four fingers—not my thumb—and I had to do it without bending my palms.
I wasn’t going to have Charlotte or Trinity help me dress. That would be one humiliation too many.
I finger combed my hair because I could not hold a hairbrush. In the end… I still looked like a wreck.
I also made the bed. I’m sure she’d strip it and wash the sheets, and I couldn’t do that right now, otherwise I would have.
Dressed in what I’d worn the last time I was in Philadelphia, I was ready to go.
“The bus doesn’t leave for another two hours,” Charlotte said, knocking gently on the door jamb. “We don’t have to go right now.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. “But I have imposed too much already. I think some time alone may do me some good.”
I ran my fingertips over the duvet. I ran my hand over the black leather jacket I had lovingly placed on the bed. Cobra’s jacket. The soft black leather had become so familiar to me now. The smell of the leather, and his own specific fragrance of coffee, and musk. The scent of his hair and skin…
I was loath to part with it. But it wasn’t mine. After everything he saw, and everything he’d learned, it wasn’t fair to expect him to stay, or to hold him to old promises made before he had the complete picture.
Tomorrow, he might be someone else’s Joe. But for a moment, he’d been mine. I was grateful for that.
“Goodbye, Joe.” I whispered, picking it up gently in my fingers and giving it a final kiss.
I let him go, letting him turn into Cobra in my mind and my heart. Farewell to my sweet Joe.
“Where’re you going?” I jumped, dropping the jacket. It fell to the floor as I spun around.
Joe reached up to hold the top of the door’s frame, his shoulders, biceps and beautiful pectorals in perfect display. His sharp eyes looked at me, his face completely neutral.
“You frightened me!” My bandaged hands rested on my heart from habit.
I winced when I accidentally scraped the bandages on the rough fabric of my sweater.
He let go of the door, and prowled inside. He tilted his head, then bent down to pick up the jacket. The whole time, he didn’t take his eyes off me.
I was caught in his stare. A pitiful mouse in the hypnotic gaze of a Cobra, ready to strike.
“Answer the question, Princess.” He shook out the jacket.
What question? I had to shake myself to be able to think. His presence was too much. I loved him too much. It fogged my brain too much.
“I’m going back to Philadelphia,” I said weakly.
His eyes were so intense, his lips were in a neutral line, but I still felt the undercurrent of fury just below the surface, crackling in the air between us. He had a right to be angry.
“Okay.” The word rolled off his lips easily, but it made me tense, braced for what was to come.
Far from telling me not to hit my ass on the door on the way out, he put his jacket around my shoulders, and nodded. “Alright. Let’s go. We’ll take my car.”
“What?” My eyes were wide as I stared at him in disbelief.
“Let’s go. We can hit lunch on the way.”
“I—I—” I shook my head. “You cant… you shouldn’t…”
“As far as I understand,” he interrupted my useless stammering. “The only reason you’re going is to close up your apartment, break your lease, and come right back.”
He lifted his hand, touching his index finger and thumb to my chin, his eyes full of quiet fire. He was daring me to defy him.
