If he only knew.
* * *
Jarvis
Gracie dozed on the plane but I kept waking her up to make sure she was alert and remembered me. It turned into Twenty Questions all over again but this time I asked her questions I knew the answers to from reading her file. I even asked her when we met and where I bought her chocolate. When she explained I was the one-night stand that just wouldn’t go away, I knew her head was going to be okay.
After we landed in Paris, I helped her dress in my shirt and a pair of my sweatpants. I had to cinch them tight and roll them over a million times to stay on her for me to carry her off the plane and into the waiting car. We went straight to Crew’s penthouse without making a stop. Grady drilled me with questions about his sister, questions I didn’t know the answers to and was afraid to ask—and I’m not afraid of anything. But at that moment, I was fucking scared. He arranged for an associate of the normal doctor we use in Paris to look her over. A female.
There was no way I was going to leave her. I didn’t care if it was with a doctor or how trusted and highly acclaimed she might be. I dug my heels in. I was not taking my eyes off her again. I even told them both it’s not like I haven’t seen everything there is to see.
But the fluids must have done their job because Gracie Cain was awake and alert. She and the French doctor kicked me out, the door practically hitting me in the ass on my way.
That was seventy-two minutes ago, to be precise—since I haven’t been able to take my eyes off the clock—minutes that have felt like lifetimes.
Dr. Laffitte comes out of the bedroom and pulls the door shut behind her. I’m up and off the sofa before the latch catches.
“Well?” I ask.
The doctor pulls the strap to her big bag up her shoulder and sighs, speaking to me in fluent English. “You were correct, she has a concussion. Do not allow her to sleep for long periods of time. I had to stitch the wound at her hairline but was able to use butterfly closures on the rest. Without proper equipment in a hospital, I cannot tell if she has cracked ribs. At the very least, they are badly bruised. It will be very difficult for her to move around for a while. I suggest staying here for a few days. The change in air pressure when traveling will make her headaches worse.”
Standing here, I wouldn’t be surprised if I shot her down with my glare. “What else?”
“There’s no way for me to know if she has any internal bleeding. If there’s any change in her stability, bring her to the hospital at once.” She looks around and narrows her eyes on me. “My partner explained the situation as best he could and insisted her case would remain off the record. That does not mean I understand it or like it.”
She starts for the door, but I catch her by the bicep. My grip is probably too hard, but I have to know. “What else? You’re not leaving here until I know everything.”
She jerks her arm out of my grasp. “And who are you to that poor, young woman?”
If tearing the walls down and ripping this place to shreds would calm the beast inside me right now, I would. Instead, I grit my teeth and tell her the truth. “I’m the one who’s going to make sure she gets past this and heals. But I need to know what I’m dealing with.”
“Interesting.” The infuriating doctor cocks her head. “Mademoiselle didn’t give me that same impression.”
I take a step closer and lower my voice. I have to know. “A-t-elle été violée?”
The doctor sighs and shakes her head. “She says she was not. She insists she was not violated sexually. I could not force an examination. I had to take her at her word.”
My eyes fall with relief and I pray it’s the truth.
“Here’s my card, should you need me while still in Paris. Take good care of her. She will need time.”
I take the card and pull out my wallet. Peeling twenty hundred dollar bills off, I hand it to her.
“This is too much—” she starts but I interrupt.
“It’s for your services and for being discreet. Take it.”
She stuffs it in her bag and turns for the door. “Call me should anything change.”
I lock the door behind her and turn, heading straight for the bedroom. An hour and fifteen minutes away from Gracie is enough.
When I open the door, she’s sitting on the side of the bed, pushing herself to stand. I rush to her. “What are you doing? She said you need to rest.”
She peeks up at me through her one good eye. “I want to take a shower.”
“Can you?”
She doesn’t stop moving and slowly stands. “I’ll manage.”
“Baby.” I move to her and take her arm to help her hobble to the bathroom. “You should rest. I can make you something to eat and you can try it tomorrow.”
She shakes her head as she opens the heavy glass door on the shower to flip the water on. “I just need to wash this off me. The blood, the filth, I threw up after I woke up from being drugged.” She turns to me and her face—still as beautiful as ever—cracks. Exhaustion pours over her and she begs, “Please, Noah. I need to be clean.”
“Shit.” I rip my shirt off over my head and reach down to unlace my boots.
“What are you doing?”
“You have a concussion and you just got stitches. You can only see out of one eye, and at the very least, have bruised ribs. I don’t need you slipping in the shower, there’s no way your body can handle more and I know I sure can’t handle seeing you hurt further.” I rip my socks off and push down my pants but decide to leave my underwear on. “Do you need help getting your clothes off?”
She sighs and nods.
I help her out of her clothes, her skin that I’ve tasted in so many places and touched in even more, is bruised and scuffed and dirty. I untie the sweatpants she’s still wearing and they fall to the marble we’re standing on. When I pull the shirt over her head, she’s standing there in nothing but her panties that are just as dirty as the rest of her. It doesn’t matter how I’ve seen her or what we’ve done in the past, I’m not taking those off of her. Not today.
I toss a couple of washcloths into the shower and hold out my hand for her.
She puts her thumbs to her hips and finishes undressing.
Gracie is small, she can’t be over five-three and my guess is she’s a blueberry muffin shy of one-fifteen—maybe less. Despite her size, she was a force of nature the night we met. Her eyes and her smile and the way she drew me in with her words and Twenty Questions…
She seems smaller now. And I don’t like it. I need her back the way she was.
Someone did this to her. I don’t know if she was targeted or if it was random. Either way, they’re dead.
I walk in and she takes my hand. When she steps into the shower, she doesn’t stop. She walks right into my arms and plants her face in my chest.
I bring one hand to the back of her head and the other to the small of her back. I feel her pull in a big breath and her body trembles against mine when she exhales.
I put my lips to the top of her head. “Shh. You’re safe now. We’ll stay here until you feel good enough to go home.”
She presses herself into me, hugging herself, her arms smashed between us. Shaking her head against my skin, she mutters so quiet I’m not sure if I heard her right. “I don’t want to think about going home. I’m so tired, Noah.”
I turn her back to the water, smoothing her wet hair away from her fresh stitches. “You need a good night’s sleep. That is, in between me waking you up to make sure your head is okay.”
Even though I’ve never washed anyone’s hair but my own, I reach for the shampoo and try to massage it into her hair without hurting her head, which is hard as hell to do since I have no idea what hurts on her. Or, I should say, what doesn’t hurt on her, if there is such a spot.
With her forehead resting over my heart and her hands flat on my abs, I rinse her hair as best I can. I step back to grab a washcloth, wet it, and tip her face to me. Pressing the warm rag against her skin,
she starts to look better already. Marginally, but better.
She doesn’t open her eyes when she asks, “Have you talked to Grady?”
I pause and move to the body wash and suds up the rag. “Not since right after we took off. He knows you’re here and that we were having a doctor come and check on you. I need to call him. Unless you want to.”
“No. I don’t have the energy. He’ll ask me a million questions.” She puts her hand on my chest and presses in. “Thank you. For not asking me a million questions.”
Well, shit. I was only going to ask her one even though the good doctor already asked it. I need to make sure.
I’ll wait.
Right now, we need to get out of this shower, I need to feed her, and she needs to sleep.
I find a spot on her forehead that isn’t cut, bruised, or banged up and put my lips there. I take the rag and drag it up her arm and across her neck. She closes her eyes and leans her head back, letting the water run down the back of her hair. I don’t stop. Her other arm. Her chest. Between her tits that I became obsessed with after only one night together. They’re not big, yet they’re full and the water is dripping off her hard nipples.
I wash across her back and down her spine.
There’s no way I’m touching her ass or anything else. Not today.
I snake my arm around her waist and pull her into me. I push the rag into her hand and lean down to put my lips to her ear. “Finish up. You can help yourself to anything in my bag to wear to bed.”
She turns in my arm and presses her bare body flush against mine. Pushing up on her toes, her lips grace the underside of my jaw.
Once she finishes, she gets out and I flip the water to cold. Stripping off my underwear, I take less than two minutes to clean up and get out.
I need to feed her, put her to bed, and call Grady.
And I need to find out if what she told the doctor was the truth.
Fuck me, it better be.
Chapter 16
Recollections
Gracie
Bacon.
It’s crazy how the mind works. All the fake memories I created in my head of my mom and me are because I have nothing real and substantial. No arguments over my room. No nagging about my algebra grade. No teaching me that less is more when it comes to eyeshadow.
But I do remember the smell of bacon and it was as real as the grease stains in the tattered kitchen we grew up in until the big event that changed everything. Raine would snuggle me in bed when I was tiny and tell me how mom always made a huge breakfast every Saturday morning, and how the smell lingered until Monday. It was a weekend smell, she’d say, feeding my memories, both real and fake.
When your recollections of home are only filled with fear, you cling to the littlest of things. Such as the smell of bacon, like it’s your most precious gemstone, and you protect it with all your heart.
And right now, that memory is crashing into my reality, which is proving to be as bleak as my real memories. Except for Noah. He’s proving to be the exception to a lot of rules.
I need to move but don’t want to because every inch of my body feels like it was dredged over a cheese grater. Up and down, over and over and over. Raw and stiff and throbbing.
But even through all that, the smell of bacon wins. Because, memories and Noah and … bacon.
I look outside for the first time since he brought me here, through the double doors and remember where I am. The Eiffel Tower stands tall and proud and erect, just like the man who’s now cooking bacon was every time we were together before this happened.
There’s a glass of water sitting on my nightstand next to two pills.
I fall to my pillow and shut my eyes—or my good one since the other is swollen shut all on its own.
After I got out of the shower last night, I stole the softest T-shirt I could find out of Noah’s bag and went straight to bed. Noah followed, just like he did in Brussels, but this time he wasn’t naked. He fit himself to my back—his big, warm body cocooning mine, reminding me of where I was and, more importantly, where I wasn’t. Reminding me I was safe. He explained how he was going to wake me every hour because of the knot on my head.
And he did. I tried to answer his trivia questions that got more and more ridiculous as the hours clicked by. His smile was small when he’d tell me I was wrong but he could still tell I was okay because I was trying. It was annoying but he was even hotter in bed with rumpled hair.
We must have slept the whole day because the sun is now saying its daily au revoir to Paris—which is literally the only French I know. The sunset looks different here than it did in Uganda. Less orange, less wild, less alive. We’re up high in the building and the miniature people below are living their best lives in the most romantic city in the world, taking advantage of every moment—as they should.
It’s funny how the world moves on as if you weren’t beaten within an inch of your life, lived through a trauma, or received a life-changing diagnosis.
I move to the french doors that look over the balcony and barely catch myself when I almost trip. A slew of bags are sitting in the middle of the room.
So many, all with French writing and logos I don’t recognize. It hurts like a mother, but I bend and pick one up to peek inside. I reach in and pull out a handful of cotton and lace and satin.
Panties.
When I dig further, I find camisoles and soft T-shirt bras and a pair of pajama shorts.
I toss it on the bed and pick up another bag. Joggers, sweaters, a loose dress, more shirts, and even a pair of jeans.
I hug it to my chest as I’m still dressed in nothing but Noah’s shirt since there was no way I was putting those panties back on.
All of a sudden, I’m angry that I’m here, in Paris with a view of one of the dreamiest structures in the world with someone who I know can rock mine because he’s already proved it, and I can barely move without something hurting. And that man is proving to do nothing but take care of me in every way.
But even if all of this hadn’t happened, I’m still the same. I’ll still be the same after these new cuts and bruises are gone.
I pull in a big breath. All I can do right now is get dressed and get through this until I can get home and move on. Again.
I pick the softest and loosest items in the bag and down the pills—whatever they are—because at this point, they can’t hurt.
I open the bedroom doors that are almost as tall as the ceilings, which are really freaking tall, and move quietly out to the family room and kitchen. I wasn’t in any position to check things out in the dark of night when Noah carried me in and put me to bed. There are more french doors, and these are open, the sounds of the city drifting in like a soft, white-noise machine that is strangely comforting instead of bothersome. Everything is white to match the noise, besides the floors and a couple pieces of furniture.
“How are you feeling?”
I turn away from the Eiffel Tower, doing a one-eighty, and there he is. My one-night stand who’s turned into my everything. I tuck a chunk of unruly slept-on hair behind my ear and wonder if there’s a hair band in one of those many bags. I motion to my new outfit—a pair of PJ shorts and a T-shirt. I knew there was no way I’d be able to put on a bra right now, and let’s face it, with all I’ve been through with this man, what’s the point? “You went shopping while I was asleep?”
Noah Jarvis is standing in the stark kitchen looking something like a modern-day Greek god. Gym shorts sit low on his hips with his underwear band winking at me, reminding me of the fact he did not shower or sleep naked with me like he had before. His wide, chiseled chest is on display, and I realize that about half of the time I’ve been in his company, we’ve been naked, mostly naked, wrapped up in each other, or asleep.
He picks up a steaming mug, puts it to his lips, and takes a sip without looking away from me. He shakes his head. “I sent out for them.”
“Like Uber Eats? You just ordered me a whole wardrobe?”
/> “Something like that.” He narrows his eyes on me before turning back to the stovetop that’s big enough to cook meals for an entire army and all their allies. He messes with the bacon and keeps talking. “You take the Advil I left for you?”
“Yes.” I finally remember my manners. “And thank you for the clothes. I have no idea where my backpack is or where my suitcase ended up.”
“Grady has your suitcase.” I breathe a sigh of relief. Everything I brought back from Uganda is in it and the thought of losing those items to remind me of my time there hurts. He turns to me, leans a hip on the marble island that separates us, and crosses his arms, causing his biceps to do that bulging thing. “I doubt we’ll find your backpack. You tell me what was in it and I’ll work on getting it replaced. I already took care of a phone—it’ll be delivered first thing in the morning.”
I open my mouth again and close it. Looking back out to the world from whatever bubble Noah has me in, my mind doesn’t know where to go next.
“Gracie,” he calls for me.
I turn back. “Thank you. For that, too—the phone, the clothes. Everything.”
He flips off the gas burner and brings the pan to the island, forking the bacon to a plate lined with towels. “You should eat. You feel like coffee? It’s dinnertime but we’ve got our nights and days mixed up since we slept for the last ten hours.”
“Yes, coffee. It might make me feel human.”
He pours me a mug and sugars it up the way I like before pouring enough cream to make it look nothing like coffee. He sets it on the bar with the bacon, joined by fruit and croissants. I sit in front of my mug and grab a piece of bacon, looking up at him where he stands across from me. “Aren’t you going to eat?”
Veils: A Killers Novel, Book 4 Page 14
