Page 84 of Wait for Him

I tighten one arm around her and lift her, wrapping her legs around my waist when she doesn't have enough strength left to stand. Her face buries itself against my neck immediately, both arms hooking around me while she shakes.

I grab her bag with my free hand.

We're done here. No more questions tonight. No trying to get the story out of her while she's drowning in it. Whatever the fuck broke loose tonight can wait until she's somewhere safe and breathing like a human being again.

I carry her out of my office and hit the elevator button with my elbow.

Her fingers twist into the back of my shirt.

“Don't leave me.”

The words are so quiet I almost miss them.

I press my mouth to her temple. “I'm not, baby.”

The building is empty except for security, and nobody asks questions when I carry her through the lobby. They know both of us well enough to recognize when curiosity needs to mind its own fucking business. Rose cries into my neck the entire way, quieter now but no less wrecked, her fingers twisted into my shirt while I reach into the back pocket of her jeans for the card key I know she keeps there and let us into her apartment.

I don't stop until I get her into the bathroom.

I set her on the counter and turn on the shower, testing the water with my hand while she sits where I put her. The crying has mostly stopped, but she hasn't come back to me yet. Her eyes are open without really seeing anything, her face slack in a way that scares me more than the screaming did because at least the screaming meant she was still fighting.

Wherever she's gone, I'm not dragging her back before she's ready.

I stay close instead. One hand on her knee, then her shoulder, enough contact that she knows exactly where I am even if she can't answer me yet.

When the water is warm, I pull her blazer carefully over her shoulders.

"Arms up for me, baby." She lifts them, slow, automatic, and I pull her shirt carefully over her head and start to get the rest of her clothes off without making any more of it than I have to. There isn't a sexual thought in my head. Not one.

I don't bother taking off my own clothes before I step beneath the spray with her.

The water soaks through my shirt and pants almost immediately while I guide her beneath it, one arm around her waist and the other hand supporting the back of her head. I tip her face carefully into the warmth and hold her there while it runs over her hair and shoulders.

For a while, that's all I do.

Hold her up.

My fingers move slowly through her scalp, working through the tangles while her forehead rests against my chest. She isn't crying anymore, but every so often a tremor moves through her hard enough that I feel it against my ribs.

“I'm here,” I murmur, not because I expect an answer but because I need her to keep hearing my voice. “You don't have to do anything. Just stay right here with me.”

It takes a few minutes.

Maybe longer.

Eventually her eyes close, and she drags in one deep, ragged breath that sounds like the first full one she's managed since she walked into my office. My fingers keep moving through her hair, and when she lets out a small sigh and some of the tension finally leaves her shoulders, I know she's close enough to hear me now.

I lean down until my mouth is near her ear, speaking over the rush of the water.

“You exist, Rose. You exist to me right now, in this room, more than anyone alive. Whatever that darkness is telling you, that you don't matter, that everyone's gone, that there isn't anything left for you here, it's fucking lying to you.”

Her fingers move against my shirt.

I tighten my arm around her.

“I need you to stay with me. I'm not going anywhere, and I mean that. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. You're not doing this alone.” I swallow around the pressure gathering in my throat, because there are some truths a man can spend nearly a decade avoiding right up until the woman he loves tells him she doesn't know why she's alive. “You haven't been alone since the moment I laid eyes on you in that bar, even when you thought you were.”

Her head lifts slightly.