Poison

But he didn’t do any of it.

“I’ll get your shopping,” he said, and got to his feet.

I watched him follow the blonde angel to an aisle with my beetroot and chocolate in tow, and watched her flash me a smile over her shoulder. It was weird as all fuck. She’d seen my knickers around his cock, for fuck’s sake.

It was just a minute or two before he returned, coming back to me with a bag of shopping and an extended hand.

“Can you walk? My truck is right outside.”

I nodded, grabbed hold of his fingers, and he pulled me to my feet. It felt the most natural thing in the world to lean into his side and let him hold me tight on our way out of the supermarket.

“I’ll be alright,” I told him once he’d helped me into the passenger seat and dropped into the driver’s side. “I can go home now.”

It was at that suggestion he pulled a face and buckled himself in. “And who is going to be at home?”

I shrugged. “Vicky, I think.”

“Vicky? Vicky Mason do you mean?”

I gave him another nod, shocked to remember just how associated our social circles used to be. “Vicky Mason is my housemate.”

“And she’s definitely home?”

My stomach lurched at the thought of her horror at me coming through the door fresh from a seizure with Lucas on my arm. She’d be onto Mum and Nicola in a heartbeat, and then I’d have a whole mountain more exhaustion to contend with.

“No,” I told Lucas. “I’m not sure she’s home.”

He turned the key in the ignition. “Fine. In that case you’re coming back to mine.”

I didn’t have the energy to protest.

At least that’s what I told myself as he drove us away.Chapter FourteenLucasShe was barely with me on the way home, drifting in and out as I headed away from the city. I kept looking at her, a wash of relief flooding over me that she was safe in my care.

I’d been petrified when I’d first seen her there, slumped in that booth by the customer service aisle. Her eyes had struggled to focus as I knelt in front of her, anything but herself as she battled with conversation. She seemed to be so tired now that it was hard to know just how back to herself she really was.

I took the journey as steadily as I could, but my foot was firmly on the accelerator as I headed out onto the Lydney back roads. She was quiet all the way, head leaning towards the passenger window and her hands clasped in her lap. She was moonlight pale and her hair was ragged, but it was well and truly my beautiful minx Anna resting beside me.

My whole body was twisting with need. The need to hold her tight and make it ok. The need to understand. The need to run my fingers down her fear and promise her I was there.

But I could only drive.

She barely came to her senses when I pulled up on the drive and climbed out of the truck. She stirred, and her eyes opened with a flutter when I arrived at her side, but she was so exhausted she barely murmured a word as I lifted her from her seat and helped her inside the house.

“Almost there,” I said, and headed straight through to the living room with her held tight at my side.

I eased her down into the big comfy armchair and kept the dogs away, then went back out to grab her shopping bags from the backseat. I dropped them on the kitchen counter, casting her a glance en route, and then I went back to her, stocked up with juice and chocolate.

She looked even more captivating than usual in that chair in the lamplight.

She’d gathered her legs up in the seat, and she was sleeping soundly, breaths steady. Hell, she looked so tiny against the leather like that. My little magpie with her thorny barbs all hidden deep.

I did my best to make her more comfortable. I slipped off her heels and pulled one of the fluffy woollen throws Maya had left behind down from the back of the sofa. I wrapped her up and she snuggled down on instinct, murmuring so softly as she settled.

I guess it was at that moment I realised all over again just how much I loved that woman.

I sat down on the floor in front of that chair, resting back against the base with my hand squeezing her knee, and I waited.

Waited and thought.

Waited and wished.

Waited and remembered everything we used to be.

She woke with a jolt when she finally came back to me. Her eyes were wide, flitting around the room before they landed on mine.

“You were sleeping,” I told her. “I got you from the supermarket and brought you home.”