Page 9 of Girl Code
“You’re hurt!” He growled back at her and tried to resume his inspection but she only smacked his hands away again.
“Dante! Stop it! No!” She grabbed his wrists and held him in place, forcing him to meet her gaze, “The blood, it isn’t mine.”
“Isn’t yours?” His brain whirled as he tried to process what she was saying.
“It’s not me, you big idiot! It’s you! They shot you!” Mickey’s bottom lip trembled slightly and she let go of his wrists to press her own hands forward, sliding up his chest until he flinched, her fingers finding the hole in his shirt and forcing him to look down at his chest.
She was right. There was a small bullet size hole in his shirt just above his left pec. He tested moving his arm now that some of the adrenaline and panic was wearing off and winced at the pain that sliced through him. Real pain. He’d been feeling real pain because he’d been shot. Not emotional pain for Mickey and all she was going through.
“Fuck.” He said again, pulling at his neckline which was soaking through with blood now so he could get a look at the wound.
He’d been shot. That was obvious. But he’d been lucky.
The bullet seemed to have gone straight through, in and out. It hadn’t hit any major organs or arteries. He could probably stitch himself up if he needed to. Right now though, he needed to get pressure on the wound to staunch the bleeding and he needed to get himself and Mickey off the street and somewhere safe.
“Oh God. Dante.” Mickey’s voice broke on his name, pulling his attention back to her, to her hands which were now covered in his blood, and the red rimmed eyes that hinted tears were coming on quick.
He wrapped his good arm around her and pulled her close, “Mick, baby, I’m fine. Don’t break on me now. I need you to stay strong. We have to get out of here.”
“But… but they shot you! They tried to kill you!” She all but wailed and he forced a stern look on his face when in reality all he wanted to do was hug her close and bask in the fact that she cared enough to be upset about him taking a bullet.
“No, baby.” He shook his head, “They tried to kill you. I just got in their way.”
Mickey’s eyes widened as the truth of his words sank in and then she shook her head, “No. No! Why would they do that? I told them I didn’t have any copies!”
“My guess is, they’re tying up loose ends, making sure you don’t tell anyone about what you found.”
“But I haven’t found anything. I haven’t even decrypted it yet!”
“Exactly.” He met her eyes again, “Yet. We have to get you somewhere safe before they realize they missed and come back to finish the job. Help me up. We have to get off the street.”
Mickey stayed planted exactly where she was, “What?”
“We have to go Mick. Now.”
Slowly she started to nod her head, “Okay. Yeah. I should… I should take you to a hospital. I think I can…”
“No.” He shook his head firmly, “No hospitals. No doctors. That’s the first place they’ll look for you. We’re going to the safe house.”
“But your shoulder.”
“It’s fine. I’ll be fine. I’m not worried about my shoulder. I need to protect you.”
“But… why?”
She stared at him with such a look of utter confusion that it made him ache inside. She really didn’t understand. She didn’t know why he was here. She didn’t know that the first moment he’d seen that code of hers he’d known she was in danger and his only thought since was that he had to get to her and protect her because the world wouldn’t be the same without Mickey Hill in it, his certainly wasn’t.
He’d missed her. God how he’d missed her. Three years without her had only made him want her more. They’d been everything to each other once and to be forced to go cold turkey, go without her, had nearly destroyed him. He wouldn’t lose her again, not now, not when she was sitting inches from him looking at him like his next words had the power to change everything between them.
Instead of speaking, instead of telling her all the reasons he wanted, needed, her in his life, instead of telling her that he’d missed her and that keeping her safe was his only real reason for existing as far as he was concerned, he leaned forward and captured her mouth with his.
For a split second, his entire world froze and he waited. He waited to see if Mickey would pull away. He waited to find out if she would slap him or call him names, threaten him or tell him never to touch her again, that he’d lost that right a long time ago. He waited what felt like an eternity and then, just as suddenly as his world had frozen, it caught up to reality and he felt Mickey kiss him back.
Her small gasp against his lips was like magic, dragging him closer, threatening to drown him in the need he felt for this woman. Mickey’s hands came up and wrapped around his neck. Her lips met his again and again as he stroked his over hers, deepening the kiss by increments until she made the smallest whine of need, opening her mouth to him and letting him plunder.
She was sweet, as sweet as he’d always remembered. Sweet and demanding and sure as she kissed him back, met him inch for inch and all but climbed into his lap as he attempted to meld them together. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he’d worried that over the years, his night with Mickey had become nothing but warped memories. That he’d built up what had happened into the explosive connection he remembered but that it hadn’t been real. That in reality, what they’d shared hadn’t been the inevitably of two soulmates colliding. Here and now, with nothing but her mouth on his, the taste of her sweet velvet tongue and she sharp sting of her nails on his hair as she held him close, he knew that his memories hadn’t been false.
This thing between them was as natural as breathing, as explosive as a nuclear bomb and as impossible to deny as the fact that grass was green and the sky was blue.
