Page 95 of Hard Hitter
It would be hours before O’Doul could finally shut the door to his apartment on the last visitor. Friends, cops and members of the Bruisers organization had buzzed around all evening, asking questions. The police had an investigation to carry out, and Nate’s team was preparing to handle the mess in Ari’s house. And as soon as the police had finished their investigation, Nate’s people would hire a company to clean away any evidence of struggle or death. They’d secure the place, fixing broken windows and doors.
Now that everyone was finally gone, it was up to him to do what he could for Ari. She still hadn’t said much. After ushering out the last visitor, he locked the door and made up a bowl of soup for her. Someone—probably Becca—had had the presence of mind to order takeout and leave it there for the two of them.
He brought her a tray on the sofa. She thanked him at a whisper and then began to eat the soup. But the look in her eyes was glassy. He had the impression that the slightest breeze could knock her over. As soon as she’d finished the bowl, he took the tray away. When he returned, she sat hugging her knees to her chest, curled in on herself.
He stopped himself from asking,are you okay?Therewas no point. Of course she wasn’t okay. She was grieving the man with whom she’d spent her twenties. And she was traumatized by the way it had all gone down.
If he weren’t so busy taking care of her, he might be traumatized, too.
Sitting down close to her now, he pulled her into his lap, which was more for his benefit than hers. All afternoon his gut kept clenching at the memory of two men entering Ari’s front door—one with a gun drawn. Nothing hadeverscared him so much as those assholes disappearing into her house, shutting the door behind them.
Panicked, he’d sprinted toward the door. As he reached it, he heard the sound of the deadbolt clicking into place.
Dread had clawed at his insides as he snuck around the outside of the building, looking for another way in. The whole thing had been like a nightmare brought to life. All he could do was call out a warning at the top of his lungs and hope they didn’t point the gun out the window and shoot him for it.
“Why were you there?” she asked suddenly, as if she’d been listening to his thoughts. “How did you know something was wrong?”
He cleared his throat. “When Nate’s people gave you that panic button, they also programmed your phone to pick up anything suspicious from Vince. I was just leaving the rink when I got a call from security saying you’d had two phone conversations with him, and an email with a threatening subject. They could see that I was only a block and a half away, and they asked me to check on you.”
“Oh. Wow.”
He gave her a squeeze. Their gazes connected for the first time in an hour. And he felt the same thing he always felt when she looked at him—hope. Only this time, the hope wasn’t for sex, or even that she’d somehow agree that they should be a couple. The hope was that she’d be okay.
“I should never have let him in,” she said, her voice flat. “He might still be alive if I didn’t open that door.”
“That wasnotyour fault. It was never going to end well for him. I heard the police say the Pryzyk brothers had been hunting for Vince and that gun. He stole it from them for some kind of leverage, I think. That wasn’t ever gonna end well.”
“I’m sorry you got dragged into it. Wish I could make it up to you.”
He wrapped her into a hug and sighed against her shoulder. “Christ, Ari,” he whispered. “You don’t have to do anything but keep breathing, okay?”
She put her arms around him, too. He’d never felt anything better. “You got me out of there. I can’t even believe...” He heard her swallow hard, the sentence sticking in her throat.
“Shhh.” He hadn’t meant to scare her all over again. “You would have been okay either way.”
She shivered in his arms. “It’s finally done, right? It’s over. That guy got away, though.”
Unfortunately one of them had. Just one Pryzyk had been apprehended under the Manhattan Bridge while trying to dispose of the gun that had killed Vince, and the other one was still on the loose.
But nobody believed Ari was still in danger.
“It’s over, sweetheart,” he said. “You’ve got nowhere to go but up.” He held the woman he loved a little more tightly. Christ. He’d never used that word on anybody, even in his head. On any other day he’d probably have found it terrifying. But today he’d known really terror. Admitting to himself he loved Ari was suddenly as easy as breathing.
She pressed her face into his neck, and he closed his eyes. He brought himself fully into the moment and focused on the way her soft lips felt against his skin. With his whole body, he measured all the places of their connection. The weight of her curves in his lap, and against his chest. The texture of her soft sweater against his forearms. He rubbed her back and took it all in.
He’d always been terrible at meditating in yoga class, but that’s because he hadn’t been meditating on this.
“I’m cold,” she said, curling closer.
Poor baby. “You haven’t eaten much today, and your body is off-kilter. Shock is tricky. We could tuck you into bed under a pile of blankets. Or you could have a bath.” He smoothed down her hair with one hand.
“That sounds nice.”
He kissed her forehead, then deposited her on the sofa. “I’ll run it for you. Be right back.”
The giant tub in his killer bathroom could fix her right up. It always helped him after an especially brutal game. He started the tap—it was a big slot in the tiled wall, so that there’d be no pointing faucet to get in the bathers’ way. Then he found some big fluffy towels in his linen closet and turned the heat up, so she wouldn’t be cold when she got out.
But when he returned to tell Ari that all was ready, he realized the bandages on her hands could be an issue. “You’ll have to keep your hands out of the water.”
