"I love you, too," I say.
"Come with me. I need you."
My heart feels too big for my chest and I am panting.
He kisses me again, he overwhelms me, consumes me, and I feel his hands running up my back, just as mine run up his. I feel every familiar, hard muscle under his shirt, I smell his scent, I lose myself in him.
Ryker, I want you. I want to be a part of your life. More than anything.
My heart is racing with the possibilities. Thinking about waking up in his arms, about seeing him every morning, about falling asleep with my head on his chest.
I'm the most excited I've been in months.
I'm smiling so much, it's hard to kiss him.
A car pulls into the parking lot, disturbing our solitude. Bright headlights illuminate us in the dark and I hear the sound of a car door opening and closing. We separate.
"Jess?" a familiar voice calls. It's Connor.
I fall back down to earth.
I get up from the bench, I try not to look at Ryker, at his questioning eyes, at the confused expression on his face.
"Jessica?" he says.
"I have to go," I say, simply, and start towards the car.
I can feel the tears welling inside me. I know it'll be months before the pain in my heart goes away. I should have known better than to open myself up again, to allow myself to think that I could just leave. My family and my friends need me here. I have a job, I have a life. Leaving is just crazy.
I get to the car and Connor instantly senses that something is wrong.
He looks from Ryker back to me. "Did he hurt you?" he asks.
I shake my head. "No. Just drive, ok?"
"Jess, what's wrong?"
I hug my brother and I turn into a mess, crying into his shoulder. How can I be expected to go months more, keeping my pain to myself, until I finally get numb enough that I can call my fucked-up situation 'normal'?
I just can't do it.
I tell him.
I tell him everything I've held back from him. It spills out of me, like some cathartic waterfall of fears and doubts and every little vulnerability that I've kept to myself for all these months.
I tell him about how I came to know and love the man who took me; I tell him how much I've been broken since the night Ryker left me. I tell him how much I hurt every day.
And I tell him why there's no way I can go with the man that I love. It kills me even opening myself up to that stupid hope.
Connor listens through all of it. Every weeping word.
Then, he looks at me, right in my glossy tear-filled eyes.
"Jessica, go back to him."
"What? I can't, Connor. Haven't you listened to a word that I've said?"
He shakes his head. "Jessica, you've spent your whole life taking care of me. But I don't need that now. You need to take care of yourself. You need to live for yourself. Go to him. Be happy."
I hesitate, and he lets out an exasperated sigh.
"Jessica Amelia Roan, go!"
"I love you, Connor."
"Yeah, yeah, just don't forget to visit, ok?"
I hug him. Tighter than I've ever hugged him before. A smile is breaking out on my face, it's so wide that it hurts, and when I let him go, I can see he's smiling too.
"Thank you."
It's hard to explain, but I feel like he's just released me. I feel like, after all these years, I'm finally set free. For so much of my life, I've looked out for my brother because he's the only one I've had. I had to hear him say it — that he would be ok — before I could even allow myself to feel like I can go after what I truly want.
I get out of the car.
The night is bright with possibilities. The air smells fresh and clean and the moon in the sky seems to shine just for me.
Ryker is still on the bench, staring of towards the Bay.
With each step closer to him, I feel my heart grow lighter in my chest.
With each step, my smile grows larger.
I feel like I'm flying.
I sit next to him.
Without saying a word, he pulls out two cigars and holds them out. I reach out and take one. He lights it.
I pop it into my mouth and take his hand, giving it a tight squeeze.
He's smiling at me around the lit cigar in his mouth.
“Are you ready?”
I nod. I'm feeling so good that I almost doubt this is actually happening. But, he's real, and I'm real, and I'm really doing this. I'm going after what I want.
I'm free.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
RYKER
“But there's one more thing you need to do,” she says, looking up at me with a smile on her face.
“Oh, and what's that?” I say.
Right now, I'm so elated, so alive that she could damn well ask me anything. It's taken me months to get to this point, and now that I have it, it feels like my whole life is ahead of me.
“I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get to hear you sing back there. I mean, you might have the fancy car, and the looks, but if you're going to sweep a girl off her feet and take her all the way across the country, it's going to take a little more than that.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Is that it? I need to serenade you?”
She laughs. “Kind of. And, also, you need to learn that it just isn't right for you to bail on a karaoke song.”
“Fine, but I'm not doing this alone. You're joining me. And we're sure as hell not doing it here. Come on.”
She looks surprised.
“A duet?” she asks.
I nod.
“Come on.” I say, and I take her hand and it's a race back to the car. We're both light on our feet, running like we're a decade younger and we have our whole lives ahead of us.
“Where are we headed?” she asks as I start the car and set the tires screaming as I tear out of the parking lot.
“I've got a place in mind,” I say.
“A surprise, huh? Just how much of this did you have planned?” she says.
“None of it, other than I knew I wanted to find you, and I wanted to let you know how I feel.”
“So, what's the song?”
I take out my phone, dial up the lyrics, and hand it over to her. The Best is Yet to Come by Frank Sinatra.
She whistles.
“Just follow along with me and it'll go fine,” I tell her.
I take my eyes off the road for a second to look at her. She's fucking gorgeous; her eyes are as bright as the stars in the sky and she's smiling wider than the bay bridge.
I love this woman, with all that I am, and life finally feels right and whole with her in it.
We speed across the bridge and into San Francisco. The city is alive and pulsing with energy and we weave our way through the throngs of downtown traffic. We drive along the waterfront and I keep my eyes open for the right kind of place. San Francisco is full of old landmark hotels and I cruise the waterfront until I find the one with the right mix of heritage and luxury and the type that looks like it'll have a piano in its bar.
We pull into their entryway and I toss my car to the valet. Jessica and I both stride into the hotel.
The tinkling keys of the piano call to me from the far side of the lobby. We follow the sound across the lobby, into a small, dimly-lit bar filled with leather chairs, a few patrons with dark-liquor cocktails, and a bearded bartender. Jessica and I look at each other.
“Are you ready?” I ask.
“As ready as I'll ever be.”
I can hear in her voice that she's nervous, and I'm buzzing with the same kind of energy. It feels good, being at the point where I don't have to keep a lid on every single emotion.
I lead us over to the piano. We wait for guy at the bench to finish playing his song before I put a hand on his shoulder and a handful of bills in his palm. I tell him the song we want him to play, he nods, and we're off.
I keep my eyes on Jessica the whole time, watching the way her sensuous lip
s form the words, the way her eyes shine back at me, and the way she nearly cracks up from embarrassment three different times during our duet.
We finish the song to a round of applause from the maybe ten other people in the bar. Jessica's flushed and her chest and tits are glistening with a thin layer of perspiration.
And I have one more surprise in store.
“Come on, there's one more thing we need to do,” I tell her.
“What's that?” she says, still a bit breathless from the duet.
“Let me show you.”
I lead her to the bar and order us a round: scotch for me and a vodka-tonic for her, the same as we had the first time we met.
There's so much about her that drives me crazy. More than just how fierce she is, how strong she's been despite everything life's thrown her way, and how dedicated she's been to family – which, when I found out about my daughter, is something I learned to appreciate more than I ever thought possible.
More than all that, I'm wild for how mind-numbingly hot this woman is. While I was in hiding just seeing her pictures, even in National Geographic, was enough to get my blood pulsing and my cock harder than a rock. And now, being around her, where we're both free and have our lives ahead of us as a couple?
It's not enough to have her back in my life. I need to have her, here and now.
We sip our drinks and she watches me expectantly.
“I realize that when we first met, things weren't ideal.”
She rolls her eyes. “That's an understatement.”
“Hey, it was complicated, but it worked out alright in the end, despite everything we went through along the way. Thinking back on it, there's one thing that happened that I would not have any other way.”
I pause, I draw it out, and I look at her intently – pulling her focus to my eyes – while I slip my hand into my back pocket. I draw out a pair of handcuffs.
“I meant it when I said that you're the best hostage I've ever had.”
I slap the cuffs on her wrist. Right there in the bar. The gasp she makes when the cold steel clamps around her wrist is music to my ears.
“There's no way I'm letting you go again.”
Author's Note
Thank you so much for reading. As a native Seattleite, I'm proud to put a supernatural spin on the Pacific Northwest and bring you some of the beauty and magic of the area that I call home.
This is is a standalone Hitman romance, about a man and woman who help each other find happiness and redemption despite dark experiences. To keep up with my latest releases, check out my Amazon author's page here: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00SJF3X3Y
Best,
Zahra
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