Derek watched Elaine as she walked back to the house, her arm around his dad’s waist and his around her shoulders, supporting her. She loved him and she had for years. And Derek probably had too. It had scared the shit out of him when she clutched him with a death grip and her jagged breaths loud in his ear as she struggled to breath. He hadn’t thought much about the job except that he’d be getting a piece of both worlds. The dangerous life for the adrenaline junkie that he was and that of a family man. He never thought that the only difference between his former job and his present one was that he chose whether or not to travel and he would be home from work in time for dinner. He would be facing the same risks and dangers.
He chuckled at her promise. For someone who never took them, she’d made that one easily and had given herself and out by adding ‘try’. But he hoped she didn’t. He didn’t want the mother of his child anywhere near danger. After that incident with Daniel, he’d been up till the sun rose watching Elaine and Katya sleep when it hit him how much danger she’d put herself in offering to help Daniel. How close he’d come to losing her, of Katya ending up an orphan if things had gone sideways. It might be a double standard, but he didn’t care. Derek liked her at home, safe behind a strong door and the state of the art security system with a basement full of weapons if the need to defend herself and their family arose.
Dear Lord, he would fucking lose his shit if anything ever happened to her. Now all he had to figure out was how to tell her he loved her and for her to confess the same because once they said it, they would be making a promise for a lifetime and the woman didn’t believe in promises.
Now, he needed to go find Daniel and kick his ass for telling his woman Derek’s business. The least he could have done was tell her not to blab. For a second, when he first met Elaine’s livid glare, he was so sure she was going to pull a gun out and destroy his other kneecap. But he was glad they had moved on from that extreme reaction to anger otherwise his future would be filled with surgeries from injuries inflicted by her.
She was changing. The Katarina created by a horrific circumstance, and he was damn sure something terrible had turned her into a cold-blooded killer, was slowly disappearing and the Katarina, who she was meant to be from the start, was emerging.
That night, Elaine shook him awake and it was only the sound of tears in her voice as she called out to him that got him fully alert. She sat beside him, her knees clutched to her chest. Her bedside lamp was on and he could see the trail of tears on her face, her eyes red and swollen. Her lips trembled and shocked wasn’t a word enough to describe what Derek was feeling at the moment. Not once had he ever seen her cry, let alone this broken. It filled him with apprehension and he was scared to death of asking what was wrong. His first thought was something was wrong with Katya because truly that would be the only thing that would send a woman like Katarina to that state. But since she was sitting beside him, he turned to the little bed across the room fifteen feet away; it was dark, but he could make out the shape of her little body.
“She’s fine,” Elaine whispered answering his unspoken question.
He sat up slowly, his back against the headboard, he watched her for a long moment before he finally asked, “Elaine, what’s wrong?”
He cursed when what he got in response was more tears and a harshly trembling lower lip. He reached for her and pulled her onto his lap, cradling her and soothing her as he waited for her to cry herself out. He was stunned she had more tears to loose.
“You need to tell me what the problem is so that I can help you.”
“I love you,” she mumbled against his bare chest. The breath she used to say those words scorched his skin and her warm tears magnified it.
He stilled his hands on her back as a ragged breath escaped his body. He’d always wanted to hear her say those words, but fuck, he never expected them to paralyze him.
“You and Ellsa came into my life and ruined everything!” she echoed that with a hard punch to his chest.
Derek bit back the groan and grabbed her abusive hand, pinning it to his chest. He then shushed her. “Keep your voice down unless you want to wake Katya and explain why loving her daddy is the worst thing that could ever happen to you.”
“I thought I had erected an impenetrable shield around me. Boy was I wrong,” she laughed harshly.
Derek tried to be understanding. Her shell reinforced with steel had been cracked wide open and she was lost, ruled completely by her emotions. He had expected a similar reaction when it finally happened, but never hysteria. So he just hugged her to him and let her rant and rave until she got her equilibrium back.
“Promise me you’ll always be safe. This afternoon when I found out about your job, I was pissed, but I was sure if and when you needed it I would be able to have your back like I used to. No biggie. But Derek, I don’t think I’ll be able to kill ever again. All those memories and the emotions they came with what I thought I’d locked away, never to remember, are back and I feel so raw.”
She turned her face up and he looked down at her. His heart broke at how vulnerable she was. There was so much about her that he needed to know, to find out because this, this wasn’t normal, Katarina Pajari wasn’t normal.
“Swear to me you’ll stay safe always.” He sadly shook his head, gutted that he couldn’t give her that. He’d been alive long enough to know that tomorrow was not a guarantee but a gift from God. She closed her eyes, sighed then nodded before looking at him again, “Then love me.”
“Always,” he sealed his promise with a kiss, laying her down next to him before sliding his body over hers.
He spent the night making love to her, showing her how he felt about her because he was sure she wasn’t ready to hear the words from him just yet. She loved him and she forgave him even if she hadn’t realized she’d done the latter. She hadn’t made it impossible to wiggle himself into her plans, her home, and her bed. The day he had expected to leave the life he thought he loved so much he’d expected a huge fight and weeks of trying to convince her that he was here to stay for as long as he lived. She didn’t even ask him what he was doing back the day she found him at the dining table having breakfast with Katya on his lap. Other women would have grabbed the baby from him and ordered him out of their lives because they wouldn’t give him a second chance. Most women would have punished him, made his life hell. But Elaine just kissed Katya’s forehead smiled politely at him and served her breakfast.
But it was unfair comparing the broken beauty under him with normal women because there was nothing normal about her. The way her skin brokeout in goose bumps as he ran his palm up her leg from her ankle to her hip bone where he grabbed onto to hold her steady as he rocked into her. Or the beautiful curve her neck made when she pushes her head back into the pillow as she thrusts her chest out for him to feast more on her lovely breasts. She was unique in the way she sighed with each retreat and gasps with his hard and deep advance inside her. In the way she clawed his back, tightly wound her legs around his waist and pushed up to meet him in urgent fervor as she approached the precipice of complete euphoria. How her face contoured in pleasure pain when she finally fell, her body clutching his in spasms pulling him with her over the cliff of bliss. Elaine was different from the other normal women because in all his life he never loved someone as much as he did her. And the only normal that came close to their love for each other was that of Bonnie and Clyde because he and Elaine would definitely kill and die for each other.
It scared the living shit out of him and yet he was ecstatic to live it.
The next morning they woke up tangled in each other’s arms, their legs intertwined, he wasn’t surprised his leg that ended up being at the bottom was feeling a little numb. He was careful not to jostle her awake when he stretched, but he ended up laughing out loud when she locked their legs tighter. There was no moving and if he tried he’d hurt himself.
“You’re not asleep are you? How long have you been awake?”
She giggled and Derek was so surprised he chuckled. He’d never heard her giggle and if he were to imagine it before, he never would have thought how cute it would sound. Or how warm it made him feel. She cuddled more against him, settling her head under his chin as her arms wrapped around him tighter as they lay on their sides. She sighed contently.
With the arm under her, he caressed the valley of her back, teasing the sensitive dip right above her ass. He’d noticed she got ticklish there a few years back. She’d jumped when he’d touched it for the first time and was clearly shocked by it. He’d found it funny, but it also made him question a lot about her. She never liked soft, slow and gentle when they had sex. It always had to be hard, deep, fast and rough. The wilder, the better. But last night, she’d blossomed under his soft love making and he’d realized then that wild sex was a way for her to stay detached from him in the past.
“Did Katya make it downstairs okay?” she whispered and her warm breath against his skin provoked a spark of arousal.
He pulled her more against him, “She pulled on the covers and woke me. I called dad and he came and got her.”
She stiffened, “He came in here?” her voice got a little high pitched.
He chuckled, “No. He beckoned her from the door. Katya wasn’t very amused we decided to sleep in and were not at her beck and call.”
She laughed, “Ow, I bet her lower lip stuck all the way out when she pouted. Her little brows furrowed so deep when she glared at you, before she dismissed you, by giving you her back and stomped away.”
She was right on the money. It had taken everything in him not to laugh and wake Elaine. His dad had to bite his hand and only when the door was shut and they’d made it some distance away did he let it out. He had a loud bellowing laugh that could wake the dead. Derek hadn’t heard much of it in the past, but he was glad it was more often now than not. He had to give it to Elaine. This plan of hers to achieve the ultimate American dream was working better than he expected and he had expected for it to flop.
“Well, she is your daughter. I bet you used to do the same thing,” the second the words were out of his mouth he wished he could stuff them back in. “Babe, I’m so sorry.”
He felt her head shake, “No, it’s okay.” She whispered, “It’s not like I haven’t been thinking it. I look at her and I wonder if I was the exact same way when I was her age; so open and loving and yet a pain in the ass diva when I wanted to be. I look at your mother holding her and I think would my mother have been just as dotting? I wonder a lot of things.”
He ran his palm up and down her upper arm. He wasn’t sure if she noticed, but her hand was a shaking fist against his pectoral.
“How much of her do you remember?”
She didn’t respond. She stayed silent, the shaking had consumed her entire body. Her breathing long and hard as if she was trying to stem another panic attack. He held her, soothed her, whispered reassuring words to her until she was calm again. A few minutes later she was fast asleep.
What about her past did she fight so hard to keep buried that the slightest reminder sent her into a panic? Why was she so paralyzed by the thought of him dying? Of course, a loved one dying does instill fear but with Elaine, the fear crippled her. He needed to find out and try to help her and he knew just where he would do that.
He slowly stretched for his phone on the bedside table and called Damien, “Hey, I need your cabin for next week… No, you guys can’t come… I didn’t tell you to go off and have twins now did I? Damien would you stop whining like a woman and drop off the keys!”