Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Breathe!
Forcing air into her lungs, pushing hard, pleading.
Please breathe. Please don’t leave me.
Take my breath.
Take my heart.
Take my life.
Always and forever.
Deep breaths.
Check her pulse.
Keep her alive until—
She inhales sharply, coughing like a swimmer coming up from drowning.
Her eyes snap open with streaming tears, turning them into twin blue nights of shining stars.
“M-Micah?” she rasps.
I barely notice the hot trails cutting down my cheeks as I wrap my arms around her so very tight, clutching her close.
“Right here,” I whisper, listening to her labored breaths. “I’m here for you, Talia, and I’m never leaving again.”
25
LIGHT IN THE DARK (TALIA)
Talk about déjà vu.
Somehow both beginnings and endings with Micah involve him reviving me with mouth-to-mouth after I pass out from an asthma attack.
I’d have to say this has been the most stressful attack of my life, though.
If it wasn’t for him breathing into me, I think I’d have given up and told the EMTs to leave me alone and let my lungs collapse.
I’m tired.
And even more worn out later, sitting in the back of an ambulance with a mask over my face, forcing oxygen into my lungs to compensate until the meds the emergency techs gave me kick in and my lungs no longer feel like deflated footballs someone’s been kicking around for hours.
I can barely sit up.
Good thing I don’t need to.
Micah sits next to me with his arm around my shoulders, holding me up, keeping me warm and…
And confusing me so much.
He should be with the rest of the Redhaven PD and the Raleigh people.
They’ve got their hands full with arrests, reading rights, identifying bodies, arresting and treating the injured. I’ve never seen so much blood before, and if not for Micah, I might be panicking at freaking everything.
I almost died tonight.
But I was right.
Micah came for me.
He came, and he stopped himself before he did something awful he could never take back.
I glance up at him uncertainly. Only to recoil when I realize he’s still watching me with those arctic eyes, yet they no longer seem so cold.
Bowing my head, I brush my hair back and touch the mask with a weak smile.
“Bet I look super sexy right now.”
“Ravishing.” He doesn’t miss a beat, pressing a kiss to my hair. My heart leaps with hope. “Just a little longer and I can take you home. Both of you,” he says, leaning over the bumper, where Rolf rests cheerfully at our feet. The dog looks almost smug for playing his part in my rescue. Micah looks at me with concern. “Unless you need the hospital. You really should go. You almost flatlined, Talia.”
It’s a little easier to smile now.
“But I didn’t. You brought me back! You saved my life and you didn’t even need to kill Xavier to do it.”
Micah looks stricken before he glances away.
“I wanted to kill that fuck,” he clips. “So badly I can still feel his pulse in my fingertips. I wasn’t thinking about the fact that technically, we need him alive for his testimony. I just wanted him dead. Your life was more important, though. Hands down.”
Tentatively, I risk resting one hand on his chest.
He looks so dangerous in his tactical gear, but it’s only a small part of his allure tonight.
“I told you,” I whisper. “That’s not who you are.”
“Yeah. Guess you know it better than I do.” He covers my hand with his. “Talia, I—fuck. I said a lot of shitty things I didn’t mean. None of it. It was never about using you or convenience. I never should have let you think that. I never should have used that to hurt you. I wasn’t faking. I never was. Just because I faked my identity a little, no. With you, woman, it was as real as it gets.”
Holy hell.
I’m so stunned I don’t know what to say.
After the way he sledgehammered my heart, those words can’t just pick it up and piece it back together like there are no cracks at all.
But sometimes a broken thing shines brighter when every fragment catches the light, doesn’t it? Just like a diamond.
When I don’t respond, Micah’s brows pinch together.
“Are you okay? You’re not having another attack from the shock, are you?”
“What shock?” I ask faintly.
“…me being honest for once?”
I giggle.
“Um, I think that might kill you more than me,” I point out dryly, leaning into the curve of his arm. “I think I get why you said the things you did. Why you ran. Why you hurt me. But I never stopped having feelings for you even with that, Micah. I trusted you to come for me today.”
“I never would have left you with him. I couldn’t.”
He takes a shaky breath.
Maybe he’s right and I do know him better than he knows himself, because I know his patterns.
I know how he looks away, looks down, then finally looks back at me with his lips tight and nervous when he wants to say something from the heart, pulling it out slowly like a knife lodged in his ribs.