Freed: Fifty Shades Freed as told by Christian (Fifty Shades 6)

I sense her smile. “If you insist, Mr. Grey.” She nuzzles my throat, once more. “You smell heavenly. I slept on your side of the bed because your pillow smells of you.”

Oh, Ana.

I kiss her hair. “Did you, now? I wondered why you were on this side. I’m still mad at you.”

“I know,” she whispers. My hand moves rhythmically down her back; touching her brings me solace and starts to ground me in the now. “And I’m mad at you,” she says.

I stop caressing her back. “And what, pray, have I done to deserve your ire?”

“I’ll tell you later when you’re no longer burning with rage.” She kisses my neck and I close my eyes and hold her.

Tight.

I never want to let her go.

I could have lost her. She could have been killed by that asshole. “When I think of what might have happened…” I squeeze the words past the knot of fury that’s still lodged in my throat.

“I’m okay.”

“Oh, Ana,” I choke out, and I want to cry.

“I’m okay. We’re all okay. A bit shaken. But Gail is fine. Ryan is fine. And Jack is gone.”

“No thanks to you,” I mutter.

She leans back and glares at me. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t want to argue about it right now, Ana.”

I think she’s weighing my words, and for whatever reason, she cuddles into me once more. She wouldn’t if she knew the truth.

She knows the truth.

She knows me.

The bad seed.

She’s seen the monster. “I want to punish you.” I whisper, like it’s a deep, dark confession, “really beat the shit out of you.”

She stills. “I know,” she whispers.

That’s not what I expect her to say. “Maybe I will.”

“I hope not,” she says, her voice quiet but unwavering.

I sigh. It’s never going to happen. This I know and I reconciled myself to that when she came back after leaving me.

But I want to.

Really fucking want to.

But she left the last time I did.

Now she’s my wife and here we are.

I hug her tighter. “Ana, Ana, Ana. You’d try the patience of a saint.”

“I could accuse you of many things, Mr. Grey, but being a saint isn’t one of them.”

And there she is.

My girl.

I chuckle, and though it sounds hollow, even to my ears, it’s cathartic. “Fair point well made as ever, Mrs. Grey.” I kiss her forehead. “Back to bed. You had a late night, too.” I pick her up and deposit her back on the bed.

“Lie down with me?” she says, her eyes imploring me to stay.

“No. I have things to do.” I reach for my empty glass. “Go back to sleep. I’ll wake you in a couple of hours.”

“Are you still mad at me?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll go back to sleep, then.”

“Good.” I tuck her in and kiss her forehead. “Sleep.”

I stride out of the room before I change my mind.

And I know that I’m running from her, because she has the power to wound me like no other. If Hyde had gotten to her…shit. Her absence from this world would hurt me more than anything I’ve experienced so far.

I wander into the kitchen, deposit the glass by the sink, and head into my study. I need an action plan. I scribble down everything that I need to do, then send Andrea an e-mail to cancel my meetings in Washington, DC. I tell her I’ve had to return to Seattle, but can still have the meetings via WebEx or phone. I press send, knowing that once the news cycle picks up on Hyde’s arrest, it will be self-explanatory.

I pull out Hyde’s file to have another look through the information Welch has provided, to see if there are any clues to Hyde’s insanity.

I keep coming back to one detail that’s been nagging at me since I read it the first time. I wonder if it’s a coincidence or material to this mess.

Jackson “Jack” Daniel Hyde.

DOB: Feb 26, 1979, Brightmoor, Detroit, MI

Hell. I’m so tired my brain is fried, but I know I won’t sleep. I need some fresh air to clear the fear and anxiety from my system.

Quietly, I sneak into the closet and change into my running gear, but before I go out, I check on Ana. She’s fast asleep. With my iPod strapped to my arm, I head down to the lobby in the elevator.

As the doors open, I note the two photographers outside. I slip through the rear doors to the utility area, then through a series of corridors and out into the passage behind the building. I hit the early morning streets of Seattle, The Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony” playing loud and proud through my earbuds.

I run and run and run, down Fifth Avenue to Vine. I run past Ana’s old apartment, where Kate Kavanagh should be sleeping off her hangover. I run along Western, veering off to go through Pike Place Market. It’s grueling. But I don’t stop until I’m back outside Escala. And then I do it all over again.