by Naomi West
“We talked to this Gunner; he insisted that you did it,” the detective said, then sat back in his chair, looking relaxed. But his black eyes watched Pierce like a hawk.
Pierce sat stock still in his chair, his mouth pulling down at the corners. This was going badly; what could he do to make them believe him? Their hard faces insisted they didn’t believe him, and no matter what he said, they wouldn’t change their minds. Sighing, he started over from the beginning, telling everything that happened that night, hoping they would be able to find a kernel of truth in his story that would break those hardened expressions. He told them how Gunner had called him out to that warehouse. How they had gone shooting together at the shooting range the day before. How Gunner had used gloves to keep his prints off it, and keep Pierce’s intact. How Pierce had run, knowing this would have been the reaction of the police.
Not a single face softened during his speech. Ice formed in his stomach as he watched them, every single one of him having already determined his guilt without a jury.
“You were wrong, Felice. I wanted you to be right, but you were very wrong …”
“I’m not a hit man, anyway. If I really wanted someone knocked off, which I don’t, why would I do it myself when I have people I can order around?” he asked, flippantly, trying to dislodge the hopelessness spreading like freezer burn. It burned with cold, filling his veins with ice and pain. His heart burned with it.
But nothing he said seemed to get through to any of them. Feeling deflated, he stopped trying. They already had evidence piled against him, and nothing Pierce could say could alter that.
“Forgive me, Felice.”
With a heavy heart, he closed his mouth and didn’t open it again.
A man in a police uniform entered the room, whispered to the two detectives interviewing him, and then left abruptly. The detectives followed him out, leaving Pierce alone in the room for what seemed like an eternity. A young looking woman in a brand new uniform was sent to look after him, and she stood by the door and pretended Pierce didn’t exist. Even when he asked for water, his request fell on deaf ears. “Did something happen?” he asked the woman, trying to squash the tiny flame of hope that was growing in his chest. Maybe they found something to liberate him? But no, there was no way. Right? They weren’t even looking.
The young officer ignored him, staying at stoic attention against the wall by the door. She must have been ex-military to be able to stand so still for so long. All those drills seemed to be carved into her muscles, holding her as motionless as a person can be.
Pierce quickly tired of watching her to see if she would move, so he started counting tiles on the ceiling, then tiles on the floor. Then the number of times his jailer blinked.
After a lifetime, Pierce’s two detectives walked back into the room, looking bewildered. “Well, Mr. Normandy. You have some influential friends, don’t you?”
Pierce blinked at them, unsure of what they meant.
“Someone named Kenneth Vanderbilt brought in some evidence that we still have to verify, but it looks like you just might just be getting out of this one.” The detective was frowning as he threw the case files he was carrying down on the table between them. “We’ll review it; if we find what we think we will, you just might have slipped out of the noose.” The officer looked unhappy about it, but he seemed determined to find out the truth at least. “For now, anyway.”
Pierce felt hot, then cold, his mouth going dry. “What has Felice done?” He knew if Kenneth was involved, it had something to do with her. His heart jump started and came back to life, melting the ice in his chest.
Perhaps this will work out after all.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Felice
The moment the police released Pierce from the building, Felice nearly fainted from relief. Although his clothes were dirty and his boots dragged behind him, leaving lines in the gravel he walked, Pierce was free, and that was all that mattered.
Running from the car, Felice slammed into him with nearly enough force to topple him over. As it was, he swayed under her weight, his eyes reddened and puffy. But Felice didn’t care. He was out, he was free. She had freed him.
“Felice, why did you — ”
Her eyebrows furrowing, Felice looked up into those eyes that set her heart on fire. “Because I couldn’t leave you in there to rot in jail. You don’t deserve to.”
His gaze sliding to her shoulder, Pierce made a face that shook her to the core. “Perhaps I do belong in jail, Felice. Perhaps I belong there — ”
She interrupted him, “Shut up and get in the car. And no more talk like that.”
They drove back to Felice’s hotel room in silence, each lost in dark thoughts. After they arrived, Pierce blinked into the sunlight like he’d never seen it before. Here, the air was different, wetter and heavier, than it was in desert. Felice missed home and her little white mansion in the desert like a knife to the heart. This town was cold and ugly, and Felice wanted nothing more than to fly home right this instant. But she wasn’t going anywhere without Pierce.
The hotel was some sort of mid-range place with scratchy pillows and the kind of service she’d expect at a McDonalds, but at least no one recognized her here. And that was for the best. The last thing she needed was to have cameras following her around to add to the stress of these insane last couple of days.
Pierce continued to follow her like a duckling, a cloud of unbreakable silence hovering around him like a storm cloud. Felice tried to start up a conversation, but whatever words she might have used shriveled up on her tongue and blew away, leaving her empty. So she said nothing instead, letting the silence grow between them until it took up the whole room. In spite of everything Felice had done, Pierce didn’t even relax when she brought him back to the hotel room.
She gave him clothes to change into, towels, and soap, and pushed him into the bathroom, closing the door behind him with a shove. She ordered too much food from the lackluster room service and waited for it to arrive as Pierce stood in the shower. After about twenty minutes, the food arrived, and Pierce had been standing so long in the water that Felice was tempted to check on him. But the water turned off eventually, leaving the hotel room in near silence.
By the time Pierce stepped out of the shower, Felice had the little hotel feeling homier: a warm meal on the kitchen table, the scent of cheap coffee filling the space, and a tiny fire in the fireplace. But a gas fireplace was better than no fireplace at all, and she wasn’t planning on complaining.
Pierce looked dully around the ugly little room, his eyes running first over the 1980s, glow-in-the-dark patterned couch, then the two queen sized beds wrapped in warm, flannel bed coverings. The balcony door was open a little, letting in a cool breeze of freedom into the space, filling it with the scent of freshly mowed grass. Then Pierce’s eyes slid over the feast Felice had gathered for him. Then, his tired eyes settled on her.
Those eyes were incredibly haunted, shaking Felice to her foundations. His face twisted until he was almost unrecognizable, his eyes swimming with tangled emotions she couldn’t even begin to unravel. “Felice, you — ” He swallowed hard then started again. “You saved me; I don’t — I can’t even begin to …” Settling down on the floor in front of her, Pierce bowed his head over her lap, dripping water from his hair onto her pants.
She stared down at him, unsure of what to say. Her heart was cracking, looking down at this beautiful, broken creature before her. She’d never seen anyone look so vulnerable before, and it filled her chest with an ache that echoed in her very bones.
Without needing him to say a thing, Felice placed her hands over his head, that gentle brush relaxing some of the tension in his shoulders.
And Felice could feel her heart stitching itself back together, filling the void that had become her world since the Gala.
# # #
Pierce
How could he even begin to explain her what it mean that she came for him? Pressing his forehead
against the warm fabric of her jeans, Pierce closed his eyes, focusing solely on the feel of her heat radiating out of her and into his skin. There was something incredibly solid about her, even though the whole rest of the world seemed to be off-kilter and a little wobbly around the edges. Being out of jail didn’t quite feel real yet, and Pierce was having a hard time remembering, when his eyes were closed, that he was free.
Felice had saved him. The thought still haunted his every breath, stealing it away until there was nothing left in him but a kind of disbelieving hope. It seemed unreal; it all seemed unreal. No one had ever done anything like this for him before. No one ever stood up for him, a poor little boy without a father. No one stood up for tattooed tough guys who broke the law for a living. It wasn’t done.
Except Felice had. She had gone out of her way to save him. She had flown 3,000 miles with Kenneth to find out how to set him free
Looking up into her face, Pierce saw confusion there and a tentative smile. But there was something else in her. It was a glowing thing that seemed to shine out of her eyes like a beacon, drawing him in. She ran her fingers through his hair, the scrape of her nails against his scalp sending wonderful little shivers through every inch of his body.
“Thank you, Felice,” he said, his throat closing over anything else he might have said. But it didn’t seem like enough. Nothing he could have said was enough. Felice made him feel like he was worth something. Made him feel like anything was possible. And a simple thanks didn’t feel like enough.
“You would do the same for me, Pierce. Now come on,” she said gently, prodding him with her gentle hands. “Let’s eat before this gets any colder.” Pierce winced as he stood, his whole body sore and unhappy from the lack of sleep and his rough travel. After pushing himself to his feet, he took the seat opposite Felice and glanced down at the food. It looked amazing, and he dug in, his stomach suddenly twisting with hunger.
They didn’t speak much while they ate. Pierce occasionally glanced up from his food. He was afraid she would disappear if he didn’t keep her in his line of sight. That all of this would turn out to be a fever dream and he’d wake up in a jail cell, alone and broken.
But each time, she would smile at him, nibble on something from her plate. She was real, as real as the air around him.
As soon as Pierce was full, he could barely keep his eyes open. He laid down, his eyelids drooping. Felice settled down beside him, her fingers running through his short hair over and over again.
It was easy to relax with her there. Felice let him curl up against her body, where he slowly drifted off to sleep, his arms wrapped possessively around her hips.
She said, “Go to sleep, Pierce. You need a little rest. Everything will be better after you rest.”
Although he didn’t quite believe her, Pierce let himself drift off into sleep anyway, pushing his problems out of his mind for another time. Although he wasn’t out of hot water yet, Pierce knew that worrying about it today would get him nowhere. Felice’s body warmed him, her solid presence making it easy to forget his worries. She was, after all, all that mattered.
When he finally collapsed into the black arms of sleep, his dreams were filled with visions of Felice’s emerald eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Felice
Felice turned to her Pierce again, her eyes wandering over his face. There was considerably less strain in him now that he was sleeping properly, in a proper bed. The sun hadn’t even set yet by the time he’d curled against her and passed out, leaving her unwilling to move and not tired enough to sleep herself. She pulled her book off of the hotel’s side table and started to read, taking breaks by watching TV. She could have gotten up, could have found something to do, but the thought of being apart for Pierce for even that short amount of time made her stay put.
Bored as she was, Felice remained, watching Pierce’s face as he dreamed. He seemed to be grateful to her, but it was nearly impossible to get a read on how he was feeling while he slept. What would he do now with his newfound freedom? After they cleared him of all of his charges, if they cleared him of his charges, where would he go? Would he want to be with Felice, or would he want his life here back? What if he had to serve time for running from the police or something else?
Questions with no answers filled up her mind, making her wish Pierce would wake. Perhaps he could answer them for her. If she had the nerve to ask.
The next time she looked down at him, Felice noticed that Pierce’s eyes were open. He hadn’t moved or changed position or his breathing pattern, but he was definitely awake. She blinked down at him, her eyes searching his face for some hint of his thoughts.
“How long was I out?” he slurred, rubbing the sleep from his eyes like a child. Felice’s heart swelled in her breast at the sound of his voice.
“Not long; just an hour or two. You can go back to sleep if you would like.”
Pierce didn’t seem to hear her. “I’m surprised you’re still here. Don’t you have a store back in Nevada to run?”
“My mother is running the shop for us while Jennifer and I are here. She can handle it for a while.”
“Jennifer came with you?”
Felice nodded. “Moral support. She’s heading home tomorrow to get back to the store. Kenneth is flying back tonight to get back to his business after helping out. So it will be just the two of us for a while.”
“You want to stay here?”
Felice laughed as Pierce pulled her a little closer, his arms still wrapped around her hips. “Of course not; you’re hometown is awful. It’s rained twice since I got here. I don’t know how you deal with it. I want my desert back,” she said, then sighed, her face becoming serious. “But you are here, so I will remain as long as you want me to.”
Pierce sat up next to Felice, his hand coming to rest on her face. “I don’t want you to stay here if you hate it.”
Felice’s heart skipped a beat at the contact, and she kept her eyes locked with his. Every inch of that beautiful face was beloved, and she was having a hard time keeping her heart inside of her ribcage. It kept banging against her skin so hard, she had to put a hand over to it keep it contained. “Thank you, but no thanks. I’m sticking around.”
“Stubborn,” Pierce said, a smile on his beautiful mouth.
“Nothing like a pot calling a kettle black, Pierce.” She crossed her arms over her chest, trying to look severe, but her smile kept poking out around her serious expression.
Leaping forward like a hunter launching itself at prey, Pierce kissed her, hard and hungry. Lighting spilled through her veins, her whole body filling with electrical static that shook every inch of her. What was it about Pierce that filled her with longing so acute that it stung?
Running his hands over her body like it was new, Pierce slid his tongue between her teeth, electricity spilling from his mouth to her body. They curled closer to one another, their bodies tangling up like vines. It was there as she kissed him, as she ran her fingers over his skin again that Felice realized what she must have known all along.
She was in love with him.
Tears pricked the edges of her green eyes, threatening to spill over as Pierce rolled on top of her, pinning her wrists to the bed as he kissed her. There was so much passion in that kiss that Felice couldn’t breathe. She clung to him, her hands burying in the soft fabric of his t-shirt. Any second, he could be dragged away from her, leaving her alone again. That thought tore through her like a knife, leaving her bleeding and in pain.
But Pierce slid between her thighs, and the insistent grinding of his hips against her through their clothing was enough to shut those thoughts off. For now, at least.
Crying out against his mouth, Felice gasped as her bad boy kissed down her chin, his lips teasing their way down her neck to her favorite spot right behind her earlobe. Gasping, Felice dug her nails into his shirt, pulling on the fabric so hard she was surprised when it didn’t rip.
Arching her body, Felice pressed the lin
e of her body to his. She couldn’t bring herself to say it, but she tried to convey it in every inch of her skin pressed against him.
I love you. I love you. I love you, Pierce Normandy.
Moving with him, Felice moaned, feeling every inch of his hard, throbbing manhood through the fabric of both of their jeans against her pussy. Her thighs wrapped harder around him, trying to pull him through the fabrics and into her. She wanted to be joined with him, to feel the only man she’d ever loved inside of her again; then she could be complete.
But Pierce was determined to take his time, driving her completely mad. Even though it had only been a few days, it felt like weeks since they were together last, like years since the Gala. Like lifetimes since he’d been dragged out of the dance hall and out of her life.
Pierce slid a hand under her shirt, pulling it over her head and tossing it to the floor. She’d worn one of his favorite bras, knowing how he looked whenever he saw it. Felice was not disappointed; his eyes ran over the mostly see-through, cut-out bra like he was starving and it was a feast. A shiver went through Felice’s body, embers setting fire to her already soaking panties.