Page 81 of Colt
“Was it serious?” I asked, before I could stop myself.
“No.” The corner of her mouth curved. “An accountant. We dated for about eight months a few years back. Very stable.”
“Great.”
“It wasn’t.” She held my gaze. “That’s why it ended.”
“This room’s only ever had me in it,” I said. “And now you.”
She stood up. “I didn’t come here to look at a room,” she said. She crossed the space between us and put her hand flat on my chest. “I’ve been waiting for my memory to give me permission to feel what I already feel. I’m done waiting.” Her eyes held mine. “I know who you are. I know what I want.”
I didn’t move.
“Kiss me,” she said. “Like I’m yours.”
“Always have been.” I kissed her. Not the careful kind—not the way I’d been kissing her for weeks, measured and restrained. Everything I’d been holding back since the grocery store. She kissed me back with equal force, her fingers twisting into my shirt, her body pressing into mine.
When we broke apart, both of us breathing hard, she was smiling.
“I remember that,” she whispered.
“Remember what?”
“How you kiss.” She pressed her forehead to mine. “Like I’m everything. Like nothing else exists.”
“Nothing else does. Not when I’m with you.”
We stood there for a long moment. The bass from the main room moved through the walls. Her hands were still in my shirt.
“I’m not ready for more,” she said finally. “Not yet. But I’m getting there.”
“I’ll wait as long as you need.”
“I know.” She looked up at me. “That’s why I trust you.”
I held her a little tighter and didn’t say anything.
She left around ten.
I walked her out and watched her taillights disappear, then went back to my room and sat on the edge of the bed in the dark.
The wedding photo was on the mirror. Front and center. She’d moved it from the dresser and put it there herself, and I hadn’t noticed until now.
She’d held it in her hands. Told me she remembered kissing me. Then we had kissed like teenagers. Which, like a teenager, meant I needed another cold shower to get my head back in the game.
Dutch and I had been planning the Death’s Head operation for three weeks. We had everything we needed—Graham’s intelligence, the financial records Glitch had pulled, thetimeline. We were waiting on one more confirmation from a contact, and then we’d move. Days away. Maybe less.
I’d been telling myself it was the right sequence. Finish what needed finishing. Then build what needed building. One thing at a time.
But sitting in the dark, listening to the club noise through the walls, I understood for the first time that those two things were not as separate as I’d been making them.
She’d said she trusted me.
I sat with that for a long time.
Then I picked up my phone and texted Dutch:We need to talk timeline.
His response came back in under a minute:Tomorrow. Early.
