Page 78 of Healing Conviction
Their family had been in limbo for years, but this felt like the breaking point. Like if she told him everything, she’d be admitting her awful flaws that had hurt so many over the years. She believed him when he said he’d love her through it, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to see that love tested yet.
“I want to tell you. But tomorrow. Right now I want to lie here in this moment with you before I have to drive back to work. Let me be your gal, just a little while longer.”
He kissed her head again and squeezed her. “Why settle for a little while if I’m promising forever?”
Her cheeks raised on his chest when she smiled. “I’d do anything for a moment with you, darling.”
CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE
Nora watched Drake with interest from her perch on the log as he stoked the fire with a stick, bringing it back to a steady flame. His dark shirt was tight, and the glow on his face and beard highlighted the sharp lines of his nose and cheekbones. His mouth opened, reminding her they were mid-conversation, and she tuned back in.
“Listen, I don’t care that you haven’t been in the service. You can’t convince me that MREs are ‘delish,’ Pix. It’s not about eating them so much that they lose all taste, they’re literally precooked food in a bag.”
She took a final bite of said delish dinner before tapping her chin in thought as she chewed over his reply. When she swallowed, she lifted her finger as a point. “Chips are in a bag.”
He gave her a wary look before rolling back on his heels to lounge on the blanketed ground next to her. “Yeah… and?”
“Cheetos are in a bag. Popcorn’s in a bag. Tater tots come in a bag.” His pointed look made her shrug. “Hey, don’t give me the stink eye, mister. It’s not my fault your criterion is flawed. Just admit I’ve got this argument… in the bag.Ba dum tss.” She played the air like a snare drum and cymbal and waited for him to look at her.
Waiting for him to look at me, hm? Like he wanted me to last night? Ironic. Way to stumble right into his point of view.
Thankfully not a mind reader, he flashed his wide grin at her before returning his gaze to the fire. Her heart literally skipped like a freakin’ double Dutch champion.
That smile.
It’d been a long day of trap-checking, exercises, and absolutely no smiles. Something had happened last night when they’d had sex. Everything had been great from her standpoint, but as soon as they began to talk afterward, the glow faded quicker than an ember. She couldn’t recall what she’d said, only that it’d been about Matt. Whatever was bugging Draco had plagued him all day, and she’d been trying to cheer him up. The guy always did like a good pun.
The first time she’d ever seen him, it was over a video conference with his teammates. He’d laughed at something corny she’d said and everyone had reacted like seeing his smile was such a big deal. It’d made her feel… special. She’d decided then that she was going to have her way with him. Nothing like a casual fling to get a girl’s self-esteem up. She’d even fantasized about kissing him, never once considering that he would be too dangerous for that kind of intimacy.
But then he’d almost died for her. He fell into a coma, and now—kiss or no kiss—she’d gone and fallen in lo—
No.
All that feeling-that-must-not-be-named had ever done for her was get her hurt, and she wasn’t prepared to lose herself to a man again.
“Hate to break it to you.” His voice brought her back to the moment. “But none of those bagged foods should be considered ‘delicious’. A lot of people might not even consider it food.” He chuckled and shook his head. “You’ve been all over the world and yet you still eat like a five-year-old.”
She scoffed and threw her hand to her chest as if she was offended. “Rude. It’s not like I was slurping escargot while rocking a fur coat as a teenage runaway.”
A dark look flickered over his face and his fist clenched on his knee as he stared into the fire. “I hate that you had to do that.”
Nora began to clean up their trash to put in the designated trash bag. “Do what?”
“Run away. Save yourself. All of it.” He grabbed her forearm on her way to return to her seat on the log. His gentle tug pulled her down to sit next to him on the blanket.
She felt the tone shift and tried to redirect it with a swat of her hand. “Handsome, that’s what boss ass bitches like myself do, we save ourselves.”
“You shouldn’t have to.” He gave a heavy sigh. “I let you down, Nora, the night you were taken. I’m sorry.”
Nora scrambled to straddle him and held his face in her hands. “No. ‘Cause what we’renotgonna do is let you blame yourself for getting shot.Capisce? We did the best we could that night, and it all worked out in the end. Peachy keen.” She smiled but his face grew grimmer in the dimming light.
“In no world is getting kidnapped fucking ‘peachy keen.’ Why do you do that? Downplay everything? Are you truly not affected by it at all or is there more in here” —he covered her heart with his large hand, and a soft fluttering began low in her core— “than you’re willing to show everyone? To showme?” He tugged her black hair. “Everyone thinks you’re ‘peachy keen’. But I remember when you were purple. You’ve been through so much already in your life. So what happened that night that turned everything black for you?”
His question made her heart beat painfully in her chest and his eyes captured hers. The words inside hurt to keep in, like they were punching through the walls around her heart.
“I-I guess I try not to think about it. So much happened. The man who grabbed me reminded me of…” She shook her head. “My scrappy fighting kicked in, and I fought back. Then you were shot, and I… I froze again. Got drugged, kidnapped.” She huffed a laugh. “One of the men who kidnapped me, he knew Jules. He apparently got a conscience in the end and gave me a syringe of some knockout drug. I used that to inject one of the kidnappers to try to get away and then all hell broke loose.” She sighed and began to play with the collar of his shirt as a memory that she’d pushed down for the past year came resurfacing.
“Your team came. Devil helped me back into the van because it turned out that was the safest place at the time. I-I remember… I pointed to Jason’s sister Ellie, she was in the van with me. And then both of them checked on her. They literally climbed over me to get to her. I didn’t know them from Adam. I shouldn’t have expected more. But with the drugs in my system, I just remember thinking… Drake would’ve stopped for me if I hadn’t gotten him killed.”