Page 34 of Merciless King

London

My apartment seemed so quiet. Deafening in its silence.

I hadn’t been there for a week. It felt like a year. Everything felt different. I felt different.

“You want my fingers inside you, baby? You want to ride them?”

Zaps like little electric shocks zipped through my lower belly, like they did whenever I thought of what we’d done.

Stop it.

No good would come from overanalyzing it, every word, every touch. Somehow I needed to put it aside. Think of it as the goodbye it had been.

I forced myself to go through the motions, showered, and changed into tights and an old T-shirt. It was pink and had big faded roses across the chest. Then I occupied myself by changing the sheets on my bed and making a light dinner, even though I wasn’t actually hungry, and forcing myself to eat it.

I ended up pacing around my apartment. There was this restlessness inside me I didn’t know what to do with.

For so long, I hadn’t been living, I’d been existing. When I walked out of the hospital and back into my life, I hadn’t known it but I’d stopped trying. I’d given up on real happiness.

Then fate had seen fit to throw even more at me, and I was starting to think maybe it was for a reason. If not that, it was certainly one hell of a wake-up call.

What happened to me this last week, the fear, the helplessness I’d felt living through it, weirdly felt like a second chance. Like the universe had given me a shake and screamed at me, “You survived. Someone tried to take it all away again, but you survived. Start living.”

I wanted to. I just had no idea where to begin.

Someone knocked on the door and my heart kicked behind my ribs, stuttered, tripping over itself. I knew who I wanted it to be. I also knew there was no way it was him.

I checked through the peephole, disengaged the new alarm system that I’d discovered when Van brought me here to drop off my stuff earlier, and unlocked and opened the door.

I smiled. “Detective.”

“Connor, remember,” he said, his warm gaze meeting mine.

I didn’t duck my head despite the urge to. “Connor,” I said.

His gaze drifted down then slid back up. Not in a sleazy way—he didn’t linger or make me feel uncomfortable—but there was definitely interest in his eyes when they met mine again.

“You have a minute?”

A sick feeling curled in my belly. “Has something happened?”

“No. We’re still waiting on DNA results. I just…I wanted to see how you were doing.”

I liked Detective Daniels. He was a nice guy and, I realized, very good looking—not that I hadn’t noticed that before. I also trusted him. “Do you want to come in?”

His brown eyes softened. “Sure.”

I opened the door wider and he followed me in. “Drink?”

He seemed to mull this over for a lot longer than was necessary but finally shook his head. “I’m just gonna spit this out, no point skipping around it. I think I might have already missed my shot here, but I’m gonna say it anyway. I’m attracted to you, London, have been for a while actually, and I wondered if you’d like to go out sometime.”

That was not what I’d been expecting, not at all. “Ah…” I shut my mouth, trying to think of an answer. Did I? Want to go out with Detective…Connor sometime?

I’d spent two years fantasizing about what I wanted, stalled out, coasted, waited for something I couldn’t have. I’d waited for Van. I’d wasted two years living in some fantasy, letting my imagination fill the emptiness inside me. Van made it clear that he couldn’t give me more, that it wasn’t what he wanted. It hurt, it did, and it would for a long time, but I wasn’t going to waste another two years wishing things were different, that my life was different. That Van wanted me the way I wanted him.

I wanted to be happy now.

“Yes, I’d like that,” I said, and going by the look on his face, surprising us both.