Raine (Gods of the Fifth Floor #2) - M.V. Ellis Page 0,75

going to lie, it got ugly just before. Not ugly like physical or anything, but like a domestic beef, you know? We argue more like husband and wife than colleagues, or employer and employee, or even fuck buddies. It’s totally off key. The worst part about it all is that throughout the whole thing, I just wanted to pull her to me, and kiss the words right out of her mouth, and the anger out of her system.”

I paused again, giving myself time to think.

“I just wanted to feel her heartbeat against my chest, the way it had that Friday night when I’d held her in my arms while she slept. I wanted to look into her big chestnut eyes and see myself reflected back in them. Instead, I pretty much told her to go fuck herself. She’s probably making a little voodoo doll of me as we speak, sticking pins in it and imagining me writhing in agony.”

I sucked in a big lungful of air. It was weird that I felt winded when all I was doing was lying still and talking.

“Actually, she’s probably not. She really doesn’t strike me as that kind of person. She’s more likely to be trying to work out how she can help me, even though I made it abundantly clear that it’s not her place, and that I don’t want her inserting herself any farther in my life than she already is, which let’s face it, is too far.”

I stopped tearing up the grass. It was probably classed as desecration, or something, under the circumstances. Either way, it wasn’t really a good look—I didn’t want to make the grass look patchy and gross.

“You know what, too? She reminds me a little of you in some senses, actually, Lilypilly. It’s easy to underestimate her, because she’s sweet and caring, but my God, despite that, she’s no pushover. She’s strong, and stubborn, and she’s not afraid to speak her mind, apparently, regardless of the stakes. Just like you. I think the two of you would get along. It’s just a shame that, thanks to me, we’ll never get to find out.”

I didn’t even realize I was crying until a tear ran down the side of my face.

Chapter 28

Noa

* * *

Raine had left his office and headed straight for the elevators without saying a word to me. While he wasn’t always a Chatty Cathy, he would at least say, “See ya,” on his way out, or give me a hurried explanation as to where he was going, and when he’d be back if it wasn’t something noted in his calendar. I was also getting to learn that if he simply said, “Back soon,” he was going to pick up something he shouldn’t have been.

When he’d walked out without a word, I’d known something was up. Of course, I’d known something was up when I’d read that letter. Even more so when I asked him about it. And I got it, he was absolutely right, it was none of my damned business, and totally unprofessional.

On the other hand, we’d thrown ourselves off that bridge when we’d had sex in pretty much every position in the book, all over his office, and when I’d come all over his dick in the front door—and on his finger in the back—at a hotel on a Friday night after work.

Still, appropriate or not, I couldn’t get the question out of my mind of why would a guy in his prime—albeit with little regard for his own health when it came to drinking and drugs—not want to receive medical treatment if it was available?

In fact, if the healthcare professionals offering that treatment were seeking him out, pretty much begging him to have it? It made no sense. All of my research had shown that, if he was to have a fighting chance of coming out of an illness like that alive, early intervention was crucial.

He had the resources to procure the best treatments that money could buy, but their chances of success decreased exponentially with every lost day of early intervention. Raine just burying his head in the sand, as though nothing was happening, was inexplicably senseless. As frustrating as I found the man—and boy, did he frustrate the fuck out of me—and as maddening and reckless as he seemed to be, he didn’t strike me as suicidal.

I agreed with him, too, even after he’d explored the most intimate parts of me, the issue was in no way my area of jurisdiction