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I only have a second to take this in before Thomas appears out of the night. His eyes are on me, wide with naked relief. There’s a wound on his right temple, still oozing blood down the side of his face and staining some of his messy golden hair. A red-soaked bandage on his right arm doesn’t cover the bullet graze from the party, so he was injured again in almost the same place. He’s dressed in a rumpled t-shirt and baggy pants, looking so unlike himself it’s almost as upsetting as his injuries.
What’s happened in the three days since I left him?
The tears that have been stinging my eyes finally fall. “Thomas?” I say again, horrified and so happy I can’t even inhale.
Then Thomas scoops me up in his arms, his mouth crushes mine, and I don’t have to worry about breathing anymore.
CHAPTER 38
Thomas
I don’t take my arm from around Clara’s waist until we’re in my car, and then I grip her hand like she’ll slip away if I don’t. It doesn’t matter that she’s on my right side, and flexing my hand around hers feels like being shot in the arm all over again.
I’m not letting go of her for the rest of our lives.
As I start driving us home, I expect Clara to just pass out. She seems tired enough. Besides that, there are layers of bruises on her right cheekbone and temple, her lips are chapped to the point of cracking, and I can hear her stomach growling every thirty seconds like clockwork.
But instead of dropping into sleep, she opens her mouth and tells me… everything. Her plan to turn her uncle’s enforcer against him, copying my intimidation tactics on Morgan, the endless days and nights in her cell, wondering if her warning got to me in time. Paul, murdering her uncle inches away from her according to her influence. And finally, sending a house that had newly come into her possession straight to hell.
As horrified as I am at what she’s gone through, I feel no small amount of… pride.
Then she says words I can’t even comprehend right now. “There’s a ‘boss’ in London,” she murmurs. “Before he died, Uncle told me. That’s why he turned on your father. Uncle thought they’d make better money if they cut ties, but your father didn’t want to.”
It’s too much to consider right now. A main branch in the UK? How could my father have never mentioned this? Did he end up breaking contact after the schism? And if so, why did this ‘boss’ never come around to figure out what happened? The entire thing bodes ill, and after the night I’ve had, I don’t have the energy to deliberate what it means for me and everything I know- knew- to be true.
Instead I focus on the road. My priority is getting Clara home, making sure she’s not too badly injured, and loving her until every one of her tears has dried up forever.
I take Clara straight to my room, and she seems surprised but also too tired to argue. As much as I want to pull her straight into the bed, I guide her into the bathroom instead. She lets out a little squeak when I grab her around the waist and lift her onto the edge of the counter. I turn away from her only long enough to get the bath started.
In the warm bright light of the bathroom, I can better see the damage done to her face, and the redness in her left eye. Clara meets my gaze, and it’s enough of a distraction that I gently turn her face away from mine, ostensibly allowing me to study her injuries straight on.
“Paul already checked for fractures,” she says.
“Did he now,” I muse without pulling away, and the edge of her mouth quirks in a smile before she winces.
“What happened to your head?” she asks, maybe to distract herself from her own pain.
“A bullet graze,” I murmur, prodding the bones of her face as gently as possible. “I almost wish it was a more direct hit, so I didn’t have to listen to Derrick Lindman gloat over nothing.”
She sucks in a breath, and at first I think I hurt her, but when she turns her face to me, she looks horrified, not agonized. “He captured you?”
“For all of five minutes,” I assure her.
“Did you…” she swallows. “Did you kill him?”
“Not quite.” I stroke her uninjured cheek. I don’t want to talk about Derrick. I don’t want to talk at all.
When I kiss her, she hisses in pain. Immediately, she tries to hide it, tries to kiss me back, but I pull away and focus my mouth and teeth on the left side of her jaw instead. Clara whimpers, attempting to turn her face toward me, but I hold her firmly.
I’m not causing her more pain than she’s already been through.
My fingers dance over the buttons of her shirt- the same shirt I took off of her three days ago. I lavish her cheek, her ear, her neck. The buttons are taking too long, so I tear the rest open and listen to them ricochet off the tile. As soon as she is bared to me, I kiss one of her soft white breasts and squeeze the other in my hand until Clara moans. She arches into me, her exhausted body desperate for some pleasure. Well, I intend to give it to her.
The bath is full now. I check the temperature of the water, then gently pull Clara off the counter and set her feet on the floor. With a quick tug, her shorts and underwear fall to the floor, and I lift her into the tub. She moans at the warmth, and sinks immediately into the water, all the way up to her chin. I let her soak for several minutes, cupping water into my hands and pouring it over her hair to properly wet it. Then I lather a bar of herbal soap in my hands and scrub her gently down.
She leans into my touch, her eyes drooping closed until I almost think she’s fallen asleep. I stroke my fingers through her wet hair, happy to stay right here with her. But eventually the water becomes tepid. I stand, and Clara murmurs a complaint but rouses with me, standing so I can wrap her up in a towel and lift her back out of the tub.
Holding her soft, wet body in my arms, my chest aches. I came so, so close to losing this woman.
