Deep Under (Tall, Dark and Deadly #4)(72)

***





I wake on day twenty-four of Michael’s silence in Kyle’s arms. Yesterday was day twenty-three. Tomorrow will be day twenty-five. I wonder if this is a test or a strategy to make us both crazy. “Do you know what I want?” Kyle asks, letting me know he’s awake and knows I am as well.

Rolling around to face him, I curl my fingers on his freshly stubbled jaw. “Coffee?”

His lips curve. “Coffee is good, but I was thinking bigger.”

“Pancakes again?”

“Yes and no. I want to wake up with you in my bed.”

“I am in your bed.”

“My real bed in New York. My apartment is only a few miles from where Kara and Blake live.”

“I’m curious about your man cave. Take me there.”

“I will, Myla. I am going to take you there.”

I smile, and it is a smile I feel to my soul, but it fades quickly.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m afraid it won’t happen. I’m afraid. I hate that I’m afraid. How can I be afraid of so much when I lived so many months without that emotion?”

“It’s called waking up,” Kyle says. “I’ve lived it after a few undercover operations. It’s bittersweet pleasure. You’re you again, but what you did when you weren’t is still there, haunting you, sometimes clawing at your soul.”

“There is something to be said for what you don’t know, or let yourself realize, not being able to hurt you,” I say. “It worked for me.”

“But it can hurt you,” he says. “It just takes you off-guard when it does, and when that happens, that’s when you’re broken.”

I sink deeper into the pillow, not sure how I feel about that, because I am waking up, and when Michael returns, I’ll be awake to live it.





***





On the twenty-seventh night of silence, three eves before the opening event at the store, I remember falling asleep in Kyle’s arms, his heart thrumming beneath my ear. But it is not long before a fit of nightmares follow, mostly about my months with Michael Alvarez. I remember Kyle comforting me. I remember falling back to sleep. I remember the first moment of tragedy in my life.

I am in the corner of the closet, fifteen going on twenty until this moment, when I feel ten, tears streaming down my cheeks. Kara, not much older than me, is hugging me. “Shhh,” she whispers. “Don’t cry.” The sound of my mother’s scream fills the air, and I sob, but Kara covers my mouth. The memory flashes forward, to the funeral. I am dressed in black, on my knees in front of my parents’ caskets. Kara, is beside me, hugging me. “We will always have each other. Remember that, sis. We are not alone.”

I sit up straight, looking around the brightly lit room, to find Kyle missing. Throwing off the covers, I hurry through the apartment and find him in the kitchen in nothing but pajama bottoms, his chest bare, his hair a sexy, mussed up mess. His eyes light on me and then narrow with concern. “What’s wrong? Aside from a night of nightmares.”

“I need to talk to my sister.”

“Are you sure?”

“I said what you don’t know, or let yourself realize, can’t hurt you, but you were right. It can and if it takes you off-guard, you are broken. If anything happens to me, and I was keeping a distance to play some role with this monster of a man, it would break her.”

Understanding fills his eyes. “Now?”

“Now.”

He reaches in his pocket and removes his phone, punching in a number. “I need Kara, Blake.” There is a pause. “Kara,” he says his gaze connecting with mine. “I have a call for you.”

I hear her sob from the distance and my eyes start watering. My hand shakes as I take the phone and press it to my ear. “Kara.”

“Myla,” she whispers. “I can’t believe it’s finally you.”

I turn away from Kyle, walking toward the living area. “I’m sorry I haven’t called. I can’t explain what kind of mess my head is. I mean, it’s not. I found a place to put it all, but I just…I didn’t know how to be both people.”

“I don’t care. I am just so very ready to hug you again. And I want to ask so many questions, but I know this isn’t the time.”

“Not yet, but I’ll tell you.”

“Are you okay? How is it with Kyle?”

“He is…I am…”

“Oh no. Or, oh yes. You’re in love with him.”

It’s not until that moment that I know the truth. “It’s soon. It is but….”

“You are.”

“Is that bad?”

“Are you kidding? He’s the greatest guy. I love him too.”

“Is that why you drugged him?”

She laughs. “Serves him right for trying to be a macho man and protect me.” She goes on to tell me the story, and then all about Blake. When we hang up, I find Kyle in the shower and join him, hugging him.

“How’d it go?” he asks.

“She says you’re pretty great.”

“What did you say?”

“You’re pretty great.”