Answers.
“I need to talk,” I say.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“What about?”
“Feelings.” Rain suddenly falls from the sky, matching my melancholy mood in some ways.
“Where are you?” he asks.
“In the park.”
He sighs and walks, familiar feet hitting cold, marble floors. “Come up then. I’ll pour some brandy. Could be a long night.”
The phone cuts off and I make the short journey over there, finally reaching the door almost drenched from the downpour. Doesn’t matter. Can’t really feel it let alone care about it. I’m lost in countless emotions that seem out of reach, or perhaps undiscovered. I don’t know why, but the sound of her words did it to me. They were falling from her lips as if designed to be heard by me alone. And now I find myself wondering if she meant them, or if she just needs me to help her. Again.
The door opens and I walk in, bypassing him and heading for the lounge area. He stands in the corner of the room after giving me a brandy, watching me rather than talking.
“She’s confusing me,” I say.
“You rescued her then.”
“Of course I did.”
He sits on the far couch. “And so you’re confused because?”
“I need to kill another person.”
“Another?”
“I had to kill Temple Greene because he threatened her in front of me, after he’d raped her. I took his balls after. I’ve never cut balls off before.”
“How chivalrous of you.”
I frown and look at him. “It was severe, Gray. More than one of them.” He drinks and looks out the window, probably indifferent to her being raped or hurt. Callous bastard. “She killed someone when she was younger, and the Greene family has been hunting her ever since. I feel compelled to help.”
He laughs. Chuckles away to himself for a while. “Only you would choose a rogue to bed down with.”
“She isn’t a rogue. She’s a victim.”
“Of what?”
“Being hunted her whole life.”
He laughs again. “Forgive me, but weren’t you the one who kidnapped her?”
I sink the entire glass of brandy. “Different.”
“How?”
“I was never going to kill or rape her.” He cocks an eyebrow at me, probably inferring that’s exactly what I might have done at first. I rub my chest, then strip the soaked sweater over my head to fling it to the floor. “I feel things. Like I did back there, but this time, and because of you, I don’t know how to process them. I’ve been so busy rescuing her that I haven’t thought about me.”
He stands and goes to fetch the brandy bottle. “What are you asking me?”
“I’m not asking you anything.”
