by Lana Hartley
I am goddamn drowning. The emotions swirling within me are going to crush me from the inside out when she wakes up ready to leave me. Fuck. I let Leah go once. I tried to stay away. I cannot fucking deal with losing her again. I'm holding her so tight against me I worry I might crush her at this point, but the pain crushing me makes me wish we were both cinders and ash, forever together and strewn through the wind. I thought I was devastated before, but if she left me now, Leah would leave me hollow. I can't lose her again.
I look at her, and she's sleeping so soundly. Her body is so still for a moment I think I have crushed the air out of her. But she's perfectly still in a calm sleep. I kiss her hair, inhaling the scent of her, closing my eyes, content that she's not, at least for a moment, going to disappear from my life forever. And somehow I can fall asleep now. Though I am not calm. My sleep is fitful. I dream about shooting Willoughby, but when I stick my fingers in his bullet holes, Leah is screaming, and she's bleeding before me. I try to pull my fingers out of the wound she now has, but she holds my wrist and looks at me with heartbreaking eyes. "You're killing me," she says in a slow, soft voice. But it is ice in my veins. I am screaming in my mind, but no sound is coming out. I'm shaking, but I'm still. I'm sweating and struggling, and I'm stuck, in a loop, living this moment again and again. I can't save her. I can't stop hurting her. Each time she says "You're killing me" it is like it echoes again until her pain is the quietest, stacked scream.
"Jacob!"
Leah -- real Leah -- wakes me up, still in my arms. Her hand is cupping my face. When my vision goes from blurry to clear I see that I'm holding her so tightly that she has fingerprint bruises on her. This is almost worse than my nightmare. It is because this is real. I couldn't be worse at letting her go if I fucking tried.
"Leah, I'm sorry," I say, releasing my death grip on her arms and rubbing where I've bruised her. She reacts when I touch there, and I know she's sore. Fuck.
"Jacob, I," she starts and stops. I swallow everything in my brain and tell myself not to interrupt her. To listen to her.
To let her go.
I stop rubbing her arm and put my hands to my sides.
Her eyes search mine. I have no idea what Leah hopes to find, or what I'm seeing in her own gaze. I have no idea what is happening. I, Jacob Renaud, who can make anything I want to happen when I want it, have no fucking clue what is happening. What I am supposed to do?
"I...Inspector Willoughby...I don't know..." Leah starts and stops. Of course, this is difficult for her.
My urge to ask her why she came to my house is no longer stifled, though my thirst for her is not fully quenched. I'm painfully away that she's naked, in front me, after all this time. I want to touch her and forget about everything. Want her to forget about everything. But that's not how this works. Fuck.
"I'm not in prison because you underestimated my ability to make anything I want to happen," I speak up. I wanted to let her speak simply. I wanted to say anything that wouldn't make me sound like the manipulative evil bastard that pushed her to run to Interpol in the first place.
Leah's lower lip trembles. "I know I betrayed you," she whispers, her eyes meeting mine with such sadness I feel like my heart literally goddamn breaks at the sight.
Betrayed me? Fuck.
What the fuck does Leah think is happening?
Why is she here?
"You turned the criminal who bought you into the authorities. You took care of yourself. I'm an infectious disease on your life," I tell her, and I'm standing, walking to the guest closet. I have a robe in there to give her for after her shower. I'm bitter at the idea of putting clothes on her fucking body, but I need to stop taking from her everything that I want.
"Jacob, please, look at me," Leah pleads, closing the distance between us. I'd be amused that she managed to practically shove me in a closet if I wasn't so fucking stunned by the pain in her voice. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know how to undo what I did." Tears are streaking down her cheeks at a fast clip.
I wipe them away and pull her to me. I cup her chin, so she looks me in the eye. "You didn't have to undo anything. I did. And Willoughby-"
"I didn't know what he was really like," Leah sniffled. "I thought he wanted to protect me...but I don't need protection from you, Jacob."
Like hell, you don't, baby girl. But she didn't want to leave me? "Why did you come back?" I can barely form the words, but I have to. I have to know. Because I think my princess is about to say the one thing I never thought I'd hear.
"Because I wanted you to forgive me!" Leah screams out, more tears falling her cheeks. "Because I love you."
There it is. The words that stun me. I stare into her perfect eyes, knowing that I don't deserve this angel. I never thought she'd say those words.
"I love you, too, Leah. I thought you wanted to run from me. I'm fucking lost without you." I cup her face with both hands. Treasure the feel of her, real, in my home, in my embrace. In my heart.
"I didn't think you'd forgive me. And now...you've taken care of Willoughby? Or have I managed to actually guarantee you'll be in prison?" Leah is sniffling again. Her faraway look tells me that that whatever she's currently considering is eating away at all the soft, sweet parts of her soul.
"Don't go there." I press her head to my chest. I don't want her haunted. I don't want my Leah tainted by what a bastard I am. "And I ruined Willoughby before now. He's not even that expensive to disappear, to clean up."
As I say it, I know it is a horrific thing to say. But Leah is gripping me tightly, even though I'm the monster who said those things.
"He would have raped me. I would have killed him if I had to. I wish you didn't have to, but I'm glad that you did." Leah is shaking. She stops and looks in my face. "I think not knowing what he was really like made him more terrifying than anything I've ever faced. I don't know what he was capable of. And now I never have to."
Baby girl is telling me she's okay. For now, maybe she is.
Jacob
Leah had made me feel like I could really have her, be with her, be something other than the bastard inside of me. But that's the thing. Seeing what I really was? Seeing how much I truly cared about Leah?
There was no other option but to keep my toxic ass far, far away from her. She deserved so much fucking better. I was too much of a bastard to say that I wished I could undo everything that I took from her. I didn't want her to remember me, or want me, ever. I wanted her to be free. Free of me. Free of men that tried to capture her, control her, dictate what she was going to do with her life. I wanted her to be free to be herself without having to look up to see if she was allowed.
"May I?" the words from her lips echoed in my mind. Never again. I couldn't have her, no matter how much I wanted her. Not when being without her made me want to fucking die because I needed her so bad. Because for fucking once, none of this shit was about me. I had to let her go.
"Don't forget me, baby girl," I whispered into the darkness, grateful that she was asleep right now. Because she goddamn should forget me, but I couldn't subject her to me anymore.
I shouldn't fight this urge anymore, the bastard inside me says. I have her. I can have her. She truly wants to open up to me. Wants to be mine. So why does this horrify me? I don't want my strong angel to fade away into being just my possession. Which is so goddamn confusing because I want to own her everything. Body. Soul. Mind. Her very essence, I want to be mine. But I don't want to take her. I want to ravish every inch of her; I want to consume her. But it is more than I wish she were overtaking me than I was overtaking her. It makes no goddamn sense, except to say that Leah Waterson is a much better person than I could ever be. A much smarter, sweeter, stronger person than me. And she deserves more than me. So I have to let Leah go.
Soon.
I pull her sleeping body toward me, breathing in her innocent vanilla scent that entices me to taste her. I kiss her neck, and she curls against me. I can't stop looking at her beautiful, peaceful face. Unworried. Her
body, so perfect, without any stress or tension. Here, in my arms, she's everything I've ever wanted. But I know. I'm going to let her go. She left me, and now she’s back…but I can’t be right for her.
Leah
I wake, and I see a brooding Jacob sitting up in bed. I reach out to him, nuzzling my face to his arm. Finally, I'm here with him. We can be everything that I've hoped to be and held myself back from. I search his eyes for the same happiness, but he's got such pain practically emanating from him. I have to make it go away.
“Does this mean you'll start school? Start work?" Jacob said, and his voice was so hopeful. I realized that he really did want to give me the life that everything else had robbed me of, and I wanted it. "I want to take one thing at a time," I said, telling him the truth and hoping that I wasn’t disappointing him.
I searched his eyes for a response and found none--because I heard a strange, almost wet thwacking sound and then everything faded to black.
Jacob
"What's it like when you're not in control, buddy?" He emphasized that word, buddy, like it wasn't clear already that he had ill intent. This fucker came to my house and threatened my shit on my territory, but that couldn't be and wasn't even my main concern. No, that fucker threatened my girl. Fuck with my woman, and you'll exit this life a lot sooner than you thought and in several more pieces. I was going to fuck him up.
"I always buy whores, Renaud, maybe I need to start robbing daddies like you," the fucker said as he ran his knife through the valley between Leah's breasts. I was grateful that she was unconscious right now so she wasn't feeling this, but I was fucking pissed she was being touched at all. Violated. After that fucking Interpol scum had tried to rape her, and now I finally had her back. I spit my disgust in his direction, growling out my rage with the blood that came out of my mouth. I'd taken a lot of hits to the face before and they usually fucking hurt but I couldn't feel anything right now. Nothing but my fucking rage.
The cable ties were a smart move on this asshole’s part. I could have wound my way out of most things, but without something sharp, it would be difficult to get myself free. Still, I wasn't going to let this asshole hurt Leah. He and his crew were fucking up countless possessions of mine, and they thought this would hurt me. They thought I gave a fuck about any of this shit. All I cared about was Leah.
And if they were starting to figure that out, they might hurt her. I couldn't fucking allow that.
Leah started to come to, and I cursed under my breath. Fuck. She was confused, and the instant she saw the stranger with the knife in front of her, her eyes flitted with fear. Landed on me.
I've got you, baby girl. It didn't look like it. But I was never going to let anything happen to her.
Several of his crew members popped up, and I recognized one. The person I'd had killed for not telling me Leah was going to be in the Waterson house. That fucker was supposed to be taken care of. There were cracks in every part of my damn operation.
I knew how to fix it. I could, and it wouldn’t even take much. But the most import thing to fix was me and Leah. She is my whole goddamn heart, my life, everything I breathe.
Leah
I'm coming to, and the situation tears into my brain. Someone has come after Jacob, and they've got us both zip-tied up. They want to hurt Jacob, and now I don't care anything about myself. None of the fear I lived in is within me now. Only the agony at the idea of anything happening to Jacob.
"Marry me," I say, shaking as I say the words. I'm nervous as hell that he doesn't even want that. After all, he owned me. I tried to put him in prison. But now I'm back, and I can't imagine my life without him. I need him to tell me that he wants me to be his forever. That he'll be mine.
My eyes well up. I don't want them to, but I can't help it. After the rollercoaster ride I've been on, and now when I'm probably about to die, I cannot fucking contain the storm inside me. Not when it needs to meet Jacob's. Not when I need his everything to consume all of me.
"You're afraid, I'm so sorry, Leah, but you don't have to pretend that you want me," Jacob says, and he's shaking. He's enraged at our captors, and I know he's never been so out of control. But the hurt that drips from his voice, the pain I see when his eyes look at mine. I can't breathe. A thousand daggers are attacking my heart. "I love you, Jacob Renaud. I fucking love you, and if I live, I will steal you if that's how I get to have you forever."
Jacob looks at me. I'm shouting my exasperated words, and he must think that I sound crazy, but he's laughing with a wide and genuine looking smile. I start laughing, too.
"Does that mean you love me too?" I ask him, and I can't help how desperate my words sound. I don't even give a shit right now. I need him to know. If we don't make it out of here, he has to know that I loved him with every fiber of my body, even if I didn't want to. Now, if I get the chance, I'm going to have to show him just how much I love him. I can never be away from him again.
"Of course I love you, Leah. I've never loved anything the way I love you," he says, and there's a pain on his face. I think it is because Jacob has loved me, for some time, and I never let myself see it.
"If you love her so much," the cretin who has us hostage says as he comes at me with a knife. "Then when I cut her heart out and hand it to you, it will be the only thing left in your collection."
Jacob shouts, and I see him trying to break free and blood coloring the ties at his wrists. Fuck. Let this asshole come at me closer with this knife. I will do something. I don't know what. But this isn't the end of our story, not for Jacob and me. I know now that it can't be it. We're so much more. We've barely started. The asshole gets close enough to me that he's torn my shirt and pricked the skin of my stomach where he's stabbing, and he's tearing my shirt and a tiny, stinging line up my stomach and to my breast where my heart is. He thinks he's torturing me, but I swallow back the pain, gritting my teeth, and take my one shot. He's close enough to me, and he's got his guard down. My head isn't restrained. Jacob taught me the value in having some parts bound and some parts free. My hands are bound, but I slam the full force of my forehead into this asshole’s face. He falls back just a second, and the knife breaks free from his hands. I try to kick at it, but through the shouting yelps of pain from the cretin with a knife, I see that Jacob has broken his zip ties. He grabs the knife, and runs to set me free as quickly as he can. He kicks that asshole for a second, so he doesn't get up, and then turns to stab that jackass as soon as he does stand. It all happens so quickly, and for the second time, I see Jacob kill a man for me. I don't love him any less. It is fucked up, but I may love him more for it. I know killing is wrong, but he's protecting me. He's committing the ultimate sin for my safety, and I can't pretend not to feel a rush of love for him at that, no matter how wrong it is. He runs to wrap his arms around me, and I jump into his. I can't be without him.
"Yes, I'll marry you," Jacob says, kissing me over and over again. "I love you so much, Leah Renaud."
Of course, he's claiming me, down to my name. And for once, I don't want to just be my first name. I don't want to change it. I want to become Leah Renaud, and I feel like I always should have been.
"I fucking love you so much," I say, and I realize I'm blubbering through tears. "I didn't want to," I tease. "But you always get what you want, even if you have to steal it."
Jacob looks at me with the most aching, heartbreaking face. He's at once the strong man I trust more than anything to protect me, and he's the man who desperately needed to hear the words I have kept from admitting to myself and saying to him. "I love you so much," I repeat. "I'm going to tell you every day for the rest of our lives," I promise him.
His hands cup my face. "You came back to me. You really...you're really mine," Jacob says. I hear his words catch in his throat. This powerful man is so tender for me. He needs me. I can never leave him again.
"Always. I can't be without you ever again. I've never felt so horrible in my life. I couldn't stay away...and you were at the house...and I ju
st needed you. I needed you so damn bad," I said, and now I'm crying. His thumbs reach up to wipe away my tears, and he kisses the top of my head.
"Fuck, Leah, how can you love me? After everything? I've died a thousand deaths since I last kissed your lips," he says, his eyes hooded with lust, his voice thick with need, and I feel his cock pressing into my stomach, hard. All of him needs all of me, and this is everything I want. Everything I need. Jacob completes me in a way that I can't even put into words. I vow to try every day from here on out. I will never doubt the depth or necessity of my feelings for him ever again.
His lips are slightly parted, and he's waiting for me to kiss him. The man who claims everything wants me to kiss him, me to give myself to him. "I'm always going to be yours, be with you, Jacob. I love you forever," I say, and I stare him down with my eyes, trying to drill this truth in. I press my lips to his and kiss him, tenderly, deeply, without care or thought for when I need to breathe until I'm gasping and still I want to kiss him more. He's holding my hand but he points to the body, now eerie and lifeless. "I have to take care of this," he tells me. I know he does. I should be horrified, or grossed out, or upset, or something. But I'm a selfish bitch right now getting the man of my dreams, who is mine forever, and who I know has escaped a near sure thing to land him in prison. He's killed the man who was supposed to put him there. And this man, who was supposed to be dead already? He's a fucking footnote in what shaped up to be my twisted, fucked up happily ever after.