Beautiful.
Fucking beautiful.
She was asleep when I crept out of bed and walked into the living room. I shut the door behind me, poured a glass of scotch, and got the fire going again. When I glanced at the clock on her wall, it said it was three in the morning.
Normally, I could sleep like a rock with Vanessa. Her soft skin, feminine smell, and the way her hair touched my skin when she turned over were all comforting to me. Her hands were always on me, feeling me in the dark to make sure I was still there. Even when she was dead asleep, my presence was important to her. I kept her warm throughout the night so she didn’t have to wear those baggy clothes that made her shapeless, and I protected her from all the things that terrified her.
I was her rock.
But tonight, sleep eluded me. I kept thinking about that painting she’d made. It haunted me so much that I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the colors, how the scenery looked exactly as it had on that night. She didn’t have a picture to work off like she usually did—it was all from memory.
How the fuck did she do that?
I sat on the couch and lifted the painting onto my lap. It wasn’t a small canvas, but a medium size, something that could be placed on a living room wall. I leaned back and stared at it, studying the black hoodie I wore and the part of the skull tattoo that rose up the back of my neck.
She knew my tattoos as well as I did.
The jeans were the same ones I’d been wearing that night, even the shoes. There was never a time when I actually stopped to look at the water, but I’d done it before. I’d stood there and looked across the frozen lake countless times, thinking about all the dead bodies I’d sunk to the bottom.
The snow was the perfect texture, a mixture of powder and slush. The trees were the exact type that stood there, tall with a path that led directly to the water. The leaves were gone because winter had been too unforgiving that year. She captured a vista I’d been looking at for a decade—but she only saw it one time.
My image was the most striking. It didn’t show my face, but it showed my outline perfectly. Even the way I stood was correct, the way I slid my hands into my front pockets when I was the least hostile.
This woman knew me.
Now that I could see how she stared at me, I felt like I saw something else, something more meaningful. She’d spared my life once before, saved my life another, and even though I said I continued to want to kill her family…she was still there.
And I was still there.
I’d never been with one woman for so long. This was a marathon compared to all the others, but I wasn’t eager to finish the race. I loved it when she got jealous. I loved it when she asked me to be all hers.
I loved it when she felt safe when I was there.
I loved it when she got jealous just from wondering what I did while she was gone.
I loved how she hated it when I left.
I loved how she tried so hard to cut me out of her life but couldn’t do it.
I loved it all.
What did that say about me?
I went to my place down the road. It’d been cleaned up after Joe tried to kill me, and even though I thought about that night every time I stepped out of the elevator, it didn’t bother me enough to seriously consider moving.
I refused to let an asshole fuck with me—especially after he was dead.
I made myself a cup of coffee and then went into my office. I had paperwork to go over, shit that came with the business when we were researching potential hits.
An hour later, Vanessa called me.
I leaned back in my chair and answered. “Hey, baby.”
“Where are you?” She blurted out the question like she had every right to ask it.
I couldn’t keep the grin off my face. “Home.”
“I didn’t know you were leaving…”
I’d left in the morning long before she woke up. I didn’t say goodbye or leave a note. Staring at the painting all night excited me and terrified me. I enjoyed fucking her so much that I didn’t really think about what we were doing.
I should have killed her a long time ago—but I never did.
She should have killed me—had several chances.
She ruined my plans, and I ruined hers.
When I took a step back and thought about all of it, I realized we were both in deep shit.
“I have stuff to take care of.”
“Oh…”
I’d never just left like that. Most of the time, I didn’t leave unless I took her with me. But I didn’t want to be there any longer, not when I was confused like this.