Page 26

Chapter

Nine

Florence yawned and stretched, surprised when her arms hit a warm, hard body.

Blinking the sleep from her eyes, she turned her head and looked up to see Eli smiling down at her.

Had he spent the night?

The last thing she remembered was him feeding her soup—which was not only cute and sweet but surprisingly attractive—as they talked about his nephew.

She remembered him getting into bed beside her and holding her in his arms, then exhaustion must have taken hold because that was where her memories ended.

“Morning, princess, how are you feeling?” he asked when he saw that she was awake.

“Better,” she replied. It was true, her head still ached, but it was now more like a distant throbbing than the knifing jackhammer that had been there yesterday.

This wasn't her first concussion, and she knew she’d be in pain and a little shaky for the next couple of days, but she was definitely ready to go back to work today.

She wanted to know what Jake had found on both her attacker and the Dumpster Killer.

“Soup and sleep, the cure for everything,” he said with a grin as he leaned down to capture her lips in a soft kiss.

Florence was getting used to the feeling she got whenever they kissed, the idea of her and Eli as a couple was starting to sink in, feel more natural. “You stayed the night.”

Eli frowned at her. “Of course I did. I told you I was staying. You think I'm the kind of guy who would leave an injured woman alone?”

Right.

He’d stayed because he felt obligated.

“Whoa, what was that?” He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger and wouldn’t let her turn her face away. “I said something wrong then, but you're going to have to help me out because I have no idea what.”

“It’s just,” she started, averting her gaze since she couldn’t turn her head, “did you just stay because you felt obligated?”

“Obligated?” His dark eyes grew round. “You really think that I would spend the night here just because I felt obligated?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. He’d spent the whole night sleeping in her bed, and yet he hadn't pressured her for sex. In her history, sex was all men cared about.

“What's running through your pretty head, princess?” Eli asked, his voice was tender, and his hand that swept across her cheek was gentle.

He was breaking every preconceived stereotype she had of men like him. Boring men were meant to make her feel safe, not wealthy playboys, and yet here she was, in Eli’s arms, feeling more secure than she ever had in her life.

“I want to understand, sweetheart. Tell me, tell me what’s scaring you.”

Eli sounded so sincere that she found that words started tumbling from her mouth.

“You know that my childhood wasn't great.

My mom always had a new man in her life— our lives—most didn't last more than a few months.

They weren't the kind of guys to take an interest in a couple of kids with trust issues and emotional problems. A couple beat my brother up before he got too big and could fight back.” She paused to drag in a breath because what was coming next wasn't easy to talk about.

“I’m right here,” Eli said as he settled her against him, snuggling her head under his chin, he rubbed circles on her back.

“One of the men my mom picked up in a bar was a serial killer. Little girls under the age of ten. I was eight. He was called the Coffin Killer because after he assaulted them, he would sedate them then put them in a coffin, leaving them to asphyxiate.”

Instead of asking questions like she thought he was going to, Eli picked up her right arm and pushed the sleeve of her sweatshirt up, revealing a tattoo of a branch of cherry blossoms. “You survived.”

She curled her fingers around his and clung to them.

“He didn't put the needle in properly, when he put the drugs in my system it didn't knock me out like it was supposed to. I was woozy but not out, he put me in a coffin, left to do something, and I ripped out the IV and ran. The house he’d taken me to was right in the middle of town, I ran out onto the street where a passing car stopped. By the time cops arrived on the scene he had fled. There was a scar on my arm from the ripped IV, when I turned eighteen and got out of River’s End I wanted to do something to cover it up.”

Eli’s arms tightened around her until his grip was almost painful, but she welcomed it. She’d never been held like this before like she mattered, like someone cared that she was hurting. “Did they find him? Arrest him?”

“No. His name was just an alias, no one knows his real identity. I'm his only living victim, he’s been killing for nearly thirty years now, over fifty known victims. He still contacts me, I think he might have been the one who broke in here.”

“You think?” Eli demanded.

“I didn't spend much time around my mom’s boyfriends, I didn't know that man, I couldn’t identify him, he drugged me and most of what happened is hazy. He’s never made contact with me like that before, he just writes me letters.

I'm the one who got away, and it’s his way of making sure I never forget him.

But I won't,” she said softly. “I can never forget them.”

“Them?”

Realizing her mistake too late she tried to tug herself free from his hold. “Him, I meant him,” she mumbled.

“Uh-uh, sweetheart. Another of your mother’s boyfriends hurt you, didn't he?”

What did she have to lose? She’d gone this far, she may as well go the whole way.

“I was sixteen, my brother was off at college. My mom was passed out drunk, her boyfriend wanted sex, he couldn’t have her so he took me instead.

Fletcher doesn’t know, if he did he would have blamed himself, and I was worried about what he would do.

But it wasn't his fault, he looked after me as best he could when we were kids. He’d joined the military, he was happy, he had broken away from that life, and I didn't want to drag him back into it. You’re the first person I've told.”

“That was very selfless of you, but what about you, Florence?” Despite Eli’s calm voice, she could feel his body vibrating with anger beneath hers.

“What about me?”

“You needed someone to be there for you, so you didn't have to go through it alone.”

“I made the best of things, I worked hard in school, got out, went to college, and now I have a job where I save lives, where I stop things like what happened to me happening to other people. And if I can't, then I at least get the person who hurt them off the streets.”

Lips pressed to the top of her head. “Thank you for trusting me. This is why you think that I'm just interested in sleeping with you? Because in your experience, men only have one thing on the brain; sex.”

Florence nodded.

“That’s not me, honey. If I wanted sex, I know where to go to get it.

What I want from you goes so much deeper.

You’re amazing, you know that? Beautiful, compassionate, smart, strong, I admire you, and I'm attracted to you.

I want you, Florence. All of you. Your heart, your soul, and yeah your body, but only when you're ready to give it to me. You know what?” He tipped her face up so she was looking at him.

“What?” she whispered, mesmerized by the affection she saw shining from his eyes.

“You are worth every ounce of effort I'm putting into winning you, and worth every ounce of effort I’ll put into our relationship, into you. I can see in those pretty baby blues of yours that you don’t think you're worth it, but you're wrong. You’re worth everything I have and more. What those men did to you was despicable, detestable, it makes me want to do things I didn't even think I was capable of. But it doesn’t affect the way I see you, it doesn’t change anything, you're everything I've been searching for, and I want you more than I've ever wanted anything in my life. I wish you could see yourself as I do. You’re like a warrior, ever since you were a little girl with blonde braids, blue eyes, and freckles.” His thumb traced across the smattering of freckles on her nose and cheeks. “A warrior who’s conquered more in her life than most people ever have to. A warrior who isn’t fighting a war on her own anymore.

I'm here, princess, all you have to do is believe it. Let me fight with you.”

Eli had been honest with her from the beginning, he’d told her he was interested, and despite her many attempts to push him away, he hadn't budged.

He had fought for her, supported her, spoiled her, and he was still sitting here in her bed, holding her in his arms after learning every sordid, dirty detail of her life.

Ever since she was eight years old she’d felt dirty. The kind of dirty that nothing could wash away.

At least that’s what she’d thought.

“Kiss me,” she said, taking Eli’s face between her hands and drawing it down to meet hers. Each time he kissed her he wiped away a little of the dirt that marred her soul.

10:34 A.M.

Eli kept see-sawing between soaring to the heights of the heavens because Florence had finally opened up to him, stopped fighting what was between them and let him in, then plunging to the depths of Hell as he thought about what had been done to her.

Knowing that she had been hurt made him want to rage, scream, beat his fists against the wall, rip something to shreds, and destroy something so that his feelings didn't consume and then destroy him.

How had Florence lived with this for almost two decades?