“I…” I flicked my gaze to the bed and saw several of my things scattered about. Someone had set my room up. They’d been through my things and decided what I’d needed to make the place feel like home. “I could sleep,” I told Ford and slipped my tennis shoes off.
“Want me to sit with you?”
I pulled the covers back and slipped beneath them but held them open for him. It was a small bed, but I couldn’t imagine sleeping without him next to me. We hadn’t so much as kissed since Friday morning, and just the thought of his lips pressed against mine sent a thrill through me.
It wasn’t right that I was thinking about him naked after what had happened, but maybe my brain was trying to protect me from the evil that had surrounded me.
“Belle…”
“Get into bed with me,” I demanded, my voice coming out breathy, and at my words, his eyes flashed. He knew what I wanted. He knew what I needed. The question was whether he was going to give it to me or not.
Ford stared down at me, his nostrils flaring, an obvious war waging through him. But eventually, he shucked his boots off, flicked the lock on the door, and slid into bed with me. His hand gripped my waist as he maneuvered me half on top of him and half on the bed.
“Make me forget,” I whispered, so close to his lips, all it would take was a tiny movement to touch them.
“Sweetheart—”
“I don’t need to talk,” I told him, reaching for his jeans and undoing the button and zipper. “I just need this. You. I need you to show me how you feel.”
He groaned as I slipped my hand beneath his jeans and boxer briefs, and one touch of his cock was all he needed to slam his lips down onto mine and roll me over so he was on top. He took control of the kiss. He dominated the position of my body. And within seconds, we were both naked, and he was pushing inside me, making me forget everything that had happened and promising to make it all better again.
Only he couldn’t.
He couldn’t bring them back.
He couldn’t change the past.
But he could make the future better. And I clung on to that thought in the same way I clung on to Ford as he surrounded every inch of me and reminded me exactly why it would always be him.
Chapter Sixteen
FORD
Her breath fanned across my face as she slept. The morning sunlight streamed through the window, showcasing the dust floating in the air. She seemed peaceful as she slept, but I knew it wouldn’t last. As soon as she opened her eyes, she’d remember what had happened, and she’d slip into the darkness of her mind.
I cataloged each one of her features and committed them to memory. I relished in the way her body felt against mine and tried to store the feeling away. I watched her. I stared at her. I tried to make an excuse as to why I had to stay. But there wasn’t one.
Belle was safe now—at least, as safe as she could be. And I had to go home. I had to go back to my life and try and forget what had happened between us.
I’d spent one last night with her. One night where I showed her exactly what she meant to me, but in the grand scheme of things, it was nothing. It didn’t matter that I’d kissed her for hours. It didn’t matter that I was tender in the way I touched her. None of it mattered because I was leaving.
I was leaving her.
I was leaving us.
I closed my eyes and inhaled a breath, trying to prepare myself for what I was about to do. If I could slip out quietly, she’d never know, but I couldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye.
Belle stirred in my arms, and I used that as motivation to push up out of the bed and get dressed. I wasn’t looking at her, but I could feel the burn of her eyes on my skin. Her silence spoke volumes, but I had a feeling she had no idea what was about to happen.
I swallowed and pushed my shoulders back, then spun around to face her. Her dark-blue eyes focused on my face, and her smile told me she was still in the happy bubble we’d created.
“Morning,” she whispered.
I needed to say something back. I needed to ease her into it, but what came out of my mouth was, “I have to go.”
She frowned. “Go? Go where?”
I pushed my hand through my hair and gripped on to it. “Home.”
She blinked several times, and then finally her face dropped as she understood what I was saying. Belle sat up and reached for her T-shirt on the floor. “You’re leaving?” she asked, her voice sounding so different from how it normally sounded.
“I…” I dipped my head back and groaned. “I have to. Your dad wants me back at the office.”
“But…” She paused and glanced around the room. “What about…what about us?”
I wasn’t sure how to word it. I didn’t know how to tell her that there couldn’t be an us. She was the last person in this world that I wanted to hurt, but we couldn’t be together. There were too many barriers in our way. My boss was her dad. She was twenty-two years younger than me. And she’d always be in danger. You couldn’t have a weakness when you worked undercover, and that was what Belle was. She was the weakness people would target, and I wouldn’t allow that to happen.
“There is no us,” I ground out, trying to put on a front, and from the way she grabbed her stomach, I knew she felt it in her gut. “There can never be an us, Belle. Look at what’s happened. Look at what we caused.”
“But that wasn’t our fault. We didn’t—”
“No.” I stepped toward her door. “We’re better off ending it now before it gets too complicated.” My back was to her as I placed my palm on the door handle, and the breath whooshed out of me as she slammed her body against mine and wrapped her arms around me.
“Please don’t, Ford.” Her voice cracked on each word. “Please don’t leave me.”
A lump formed in my throat, one I wasn’t sure would ever disappear. She was causing cracks in the mask I’d slipped on. “Let go, Belle.”
“No.” She held on tighter. “This isn’t how this ends. It can’t be, not after everything.”
I placed my hand over hers, giving myself one second to remember the way her skin felt against my palm, and then I pried her hands off me. I turned around and stepped her back a couple of feet. “It is,” I told her. “This is the end for us.” Her beautiful face contorted into something I couldn’t look at. I wouldn’t stand here while she broke apart, because I didn’t have the energy to walk away when all I wanted to do was fix her.
“It’s for the best.”
I pulled open the door, intent on walking out, but paused as she shouted, “I love you!” My body jerked, my entire being floating outside of my skin. “I love you, Ford. I love you. I love you. Please don’t leave. Not yet. Please.”
I turned my head to look at her and gave her a sad smile. “I have to leave now, Baby Belle. Because if I don’t, I never will.”
“Please,” she begged, and I almost gave in. I almost spun back around and reached for her.
But I couldn’t.
I was protecting her. She wouldn’t understand that right now, but she would eventually. She’d soon realize that with me around, she’d never be safe. She’d always be in danger. I stared at her for another second, then walked out of her room and shut the door behind me.
I leaned my back against the flimsy wood, hearing her cries coming from the other side, and whispered, “I love you, too.”
BELLE
It was said that if you acted normal, eventually you’d become it. That if you pretended you were fine, you’d feel it after a while. But it had been three days, and I still felt just as broken as I had when Ford walked out of my door.
Logically, I knew he couldn’t stay. He had a job to do, and he hadn’t been home for over a year. But he wasn’t just going home. He was leaving me. The moment I’d stared into his eyes, I knew there was no going back to how we’d been. I knew that. But it didn’t mean I had to accept it.
I’d spent the entire day curled up on my bed, thinking about
the losses I’d had in such a short amount of time. I was trying to process it all. I was trying to be an adult and not let it all get to me.
But it was getting to me.
I hadn’t been able to keep anything down. I was sick several times a day, and I was so tired, yet I couldn’t sleep. My body was refusing to work because my brain was broken. But nothing compared to the way my heart was bleeding out. It had been torn apart, ripped to shreds. And I had no idea how to fix it.
So I did what every other student on my floor did. I went to class. I did my work. I came home. I ordered takeout. I ate. I threw up. I lay on my bed. And then I repeated it. For three days, I’d been doing the same thing, walking around campus like a zombie and not talking to a single person.
My cell rang off the hook with calls from my mom and dad, but I didn’t answer a single one of them. I ignored everyone and anyone, simply because I didn’t have the energy to take anything else.
I walked with the fray of students down the hallway after my last class of the day. As soon as I was outside, I halted, taking in the sun as it beamed down on me. Spring was turning into summer, and usually, I’d have been excited to go to the pool with Stella or sit on the grass in the quad as we waited between classes.
But it was all gone now. Every good memory I had was destroyed with the image of that night.
Someone knocked into me, and I stumbled to the left. They turned and threw an apology over their shoulder, but I didn’t take any notice of it. I needed to get back into my dorm room and wait until I had to come outside again.
I wrapped my hands around the straps of my backpack and held my head up high, intent on putting up a front as I made the five-minute walk to the dorm building. I was halfway there when someone called my name, but I didn’t turn around. I had to keep my eye on the prize, and my attention focused on the task at hand.
“Belle!” The voice was closer now, and it was breaking through the wall I’d built. “Belle.” A hand touched my shoulder, and I gasped at the contact. “Belle? You okay?” The person moved in front of me, blocking my way, and I stared up at him.
“I…”
“I’ve been trying to call you,” he said, and I remembered the last time I’d spoken to him. I’d told him about Stella and Justin.
“I’m sorry, Curtis.” I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for. “I…I have to go.”
I moved to the left and walked past him, gripping my bag tighter and clenching my jaw. I couldn’t look at him and not see Stella and Justin. The four of us came as a package, but now there were only two left. Two people didn’t sit at a table of four. Two people didn’t fill a small booth.
“Wait up!” he called, and I heard his footsteps behind me, so I walked faster. I couldn’t face him. Not today. Not while I was still trying to process everything.
I didn’t stop at the road outside the dorm building. I just ran right across it, not caring if any cars were coming.
“Belle!” he shouted, but I continued to ignore him and ran into my building and to the elevator. The numbers above the doors told me it was on the third floor, and I looked behind me, spotting Curtis jogging into the building. A look of concern was etched onto his features, and sadness shadowed his eyes. I couldn’t bear seeing it, not when I was sure my own face looked the same.
The doors whooshed open as his gaze connected with mine, and I stepped in, pressing the button to close the doors and urging them to go faster as he ran toward me. He was only a few steps away when they closed, and I let my body sag against the back wall. My heart raced out of my chest, my pulse thrumming, but I had no regret. He probably wanted answers. Answers I didn’t and couldn’t give him.
The doors opened, and I shuffled down the hallway, taking no notice of the girls roaming to each other’s rooms or the open doors. All I needed was to get into my own room and not come back out until tomorrow.
I unlocked my door just as my stomach gurgled, and then slammed it behind me and rushed to my bathroom. My knees clashed with the tiled floor, and I made it just in time to puke what little I’d eaten down the toilet.
Tears streamed down my face at the force of my heaves, and I didn’t move for several minutes. Not until my cell vibrated against my hip from inside my jeans pocket. I didn’t look at who it was, because it didn’t matter. Not in the grand scheme of things. So I pushed up, rinsed my mouth out, and then slumped back into my room and curled up in my bed.
Another vibration reverberated against me, so I pulled my cell out, seeing a notification for a voicemail. My thumb hovered over it, debating whether I should play it or not. I knew it would be from Mom or Dad. I hadn’t spoken to either of them for over a week.
This time last week, Stella had been alive with only hours left to live.
My thumb slipped over the screen of my cell, and the voicemail started to play: “Belle? Answer your phone!” There was a pause, and I stared at the screen. “I need to talk to you. It’s important. Call me back, okay?”
The message stopped abruptly, leaving me in complete silence. I closed my eyes, wondering if this was what the rest of my life would entail. Would I always be thinking about Stella and Justin? Would I always wonder if Ford and I could have been together?
Would I always be this sad?
FORD
Brody had given me the rest of the weekend to adjust to being back home. He said I needed a break because once Monday came, we were going full force on our next case.
So that was what I’d done. I’d spent time at my house, Lottie and me. The place was too big for just the two of us, but because no one had been staying here for over a year, I had plenty to do to freshen it up. When I wasn’t deep cleaning my house, I was working in the yard with Lottie running rings around the edge of the fence. And when I wasn’t doing that, I’d remember.
Remember the way Belle looked at me.
Remember the way her smile made me feel.
Remember the way her lips felt against mine.
And if the way Lottie looked at me was anything to go by, she was missing Belle too.
I’d taken her into the offices yesterday so one of our dog handlers could tell me what he thought of her. He’d put her through her paces and confirmed she was a trained dog veteran. He’d offered to take her under his wing, but I’d declined. She wasn’t there to be used for the task force. She was here to be a normal pet. Belle wouldn’t want her being put to work.
But now we were here, on a Friday evening, with nothing to do. This time last week, I’d been driving us back to her apartment and then…then we’d walked in to find Stella and Justin. My fingers itched to pick up my cell and call Belle, but I knew I couldn’t. I couldn’t give her false hope, not when I’d most likely be undercover again soon.
It was the way my life was. I was away more than I was at home. She knew that. We all knew that. But it didn’t make this any easier.
Lottie groaned and put her head on my knees, staring at me with those glossy brown eyes. “I know, girl,” I murmured, running my hand between her ears and pushing my fingers through her short fur. She’d successfully malted over my dark-brown sofa and left her mark in every corner of the yard. “I miss her too.” Lottie whined, a reply to what I’d said, but I didn’t know what I could do. I wasn’t sure there was anything I could do.
My cell rang from the arm of the sofa, and I stared down at the screen, seeing Brody’s name flash. I groaned, wondering what had happened now. He’d said he’d only call if it was an emergency which meant—fuck, had something happened with Belle?
I slammed my thumb on the answer call button and pressed the cell next to my ear. “Brody?”
“Need you to come to the office,” he grunted out.
I stood, already reaching for my keys on the coffee table. “Why? What’s happened?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here.” He paused. “Better bring your dog.”
My stomach sank, but part of me hoped he was sending me back to watch Belle. Garza was behind bars, and the
immediate threat was gone, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still in some kind of danger.
“I’m on my way.” I ended the call and whistled for Lottie, but she was already next to me, her ears low as if she knew we were about to go into some kind of battle.
I exited my house and locked it behind me, then ran to my car, letting Lottie jump into the passenger seat first, and then I was speeding out of there, ready to get my mind working and not wallowing in everything that had happened over the last twelve months.
Chapter Seventeen
BELLE
I’d survived the weekend without leaving my dorm room, but now it was Monday, and not only did I have class, but I also needed to get some supplies from the store. So as I made my way out of the building, I resolved that I’d try harder today.
I’d try to smile.
I’d try not to drag my feet.
I’d try to be more like the Belle I used to be.
But as soon as I walked out of the main doors and saw Curtis’ face as he leaned against the wall, I doubted whether I could do it. Too many questions were still floating around in my own head, so I was certain I didn’t have time or space for his questions.
“Belle,” he greeted as I walked past him.
“Hey,” I replied, doing my utmost to sound normal.
We walked side by side down the sidewalk and toward the main part of town, silence separating us. I kept flicking my gaze to him, wondering if he was going to say something or not, and finally, once we were walking into the store, he said, “So you ran away from me on Friday.”
I dipped down to get a handbasket and murmured, “I did.”
Curtis chuckled, the sound so easygoing that it made me smile. He held his hand out. “I’ll hold that for you.”
I swallowed and passed him the handbasket. “I’m sorry, Curtis.” A lump built in my throat, but I managed to push it down. “I just couldn’t face anyone.”
Bonded Duet: Ford & Belle: Torn Bond & Tied Bond (Easton Family Duet Boxsets Book 3) Page 20