Page 102 of Craving Sin

“I’m going to go home with Cillian. Ashford is closer. Give us fifteen minutes, then call the police. Once they’re here, call me.” Then at least I can be with him, arrive in a vehicle after they’re there. If I didn’t need to do that, I’d be the one to stay here and watch him.

Abbott nods, and I kiss him one more time before we walk out.

“You really do love him, don’t you?” Cillian asks.

“Yes.”

“He loves you too. I can tell…he’ll be fine, okay?”

I nod, believing it a little more when Cillian says it. “Okay.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Abbott

It’s after five in the morning when we get home. The night was a whirlwind of the same questions over and over, from different and sometimes the same investigators.

I sat in the same room with the dead body of my father, covered in a white sheet, while pretending not to have the conflicting emotions that I had.

I hate him. I’ve always hated him. He tried to have me killed, and he would have killed me tonight if Rian hadn’t saved me, but he was my father, and now he’s gone. I’m an orphan with no family left, and that’s stranger than I would have thought.

“The guy who’s alive…where is he?” I ask Rian as we go into the house.

“We have him. Conan and Finan will question him tonight, and then we’ll take it from there.”

Question him…hurt him…torture and then kill him. But then, that man would have killed me tonight too. That’s what I have to remember.

“I’m going to call our doctor to make sure you’re okay,” Rian says.

“What? Why?”

“You were drugged tonight.”

“Hours ago. I’m fine.”

“I just…”

“I’m fine, Rian. I’m a doctor, remember.”

He nods but doesn’t look convinced, so I change the subject. “Do you think they believed us?” I ask Rian as we go into the house. At first, the police hadn’t wanted to let him in at my father’s house, but Rian has a way of making anything possible if he wants it enough. That’s what I keep telling myself about this whole situation. It is all convoluted as hell to me, and somehow, I feel like something is going to go wrong…but I trust him.

“It’ll be okay,” he says.

“What if you coming tonight makes them look into you for some reason and…”

“And they won’t find anything. I didn’t kill your father. I don’t know who did. We’ll be fine, pretty thing. Come upstairs with me.”

I follow Rian. There’s nowhere I won’t follow him. When we get upstairs, he goes into the en suite and runs a bath.

I lean against the bathroom counter as he begins stripping me out of my clothes, kneeling to take my shoes and socks off, just…taking care of me, in this way no one has ever done for me before.

“Will you get in with me?” I ask. The tub is huge. It might be a slightly tight fit with both of us, but we can make it work.

“Couldn’t keep me out if you tried.”

My muscles immediately relax. I’m not sure why. It’s not as if I expected him to say no, I just…need to be close to him. Need to feel him. There’s this pull inside of me to Rian that I’ve never been able to describe, and all it does is get stronger and stronger.

He removes his own clothes before the two of us climb into the tub. He sits behind me, with me between his legs, my back against his chest. The press of the cross necklace he always wears and the dusting of chest hair feel just right against my skin, and all I want to do is burrow in deeper, get as close to him as I can.