Honored_ An Alpha Mob Romance(38)

But it was a bad fucking idea to get involved. I was the only person standing between her and the Mob, and I couldn’t afford to be distracted, not even by her sweet lips biting mine.

I sighed as the coffee finished brewing. I poured myself a mug and let its deep, bitter taste help wake me up. I stretched and checked the oven’s clock for the first time: almost ten-thirty. I narrowed my eyes. How long could a kindergarten teacher really sleep?

I took another sip of coffee, her full breasts running through my mind again. With a soft grunt at the pain throbbing in my skull, I walked out into the living room and stood at the bottom of the steps. I didn’t hear anything upstairs, no water running for the shower or anything. Softly, I climbed the steps, trying to be quiet. I didn’t want her to think I was being a creep, but I also had to make sure that she was okay.

My heart began to hammer when I noticed that her door was left open a crack. I distinctly remembered shutting it after I left her, and I was pretty sure she went right to sleep. Adrenaline mounting, I softly pushed her door open.

The clothes I had gotten her were thrown on the floor, and the sheets were wrinkled and tossed around. It looked like someone had torn through the room, tossing things around at random. I blinked as the realization hit me hard: she wasn’t there.

I moved quickly into the space. “Ellie?” I called out.

The clothes she was wearing were on the bed but there wasn’t anything else to mark whether or not she had gone. Adrenaline flooded through me and I tensed my fists. Had Colm found me so easily? How had they gotten her out right under my nose?

Or, worse, had she run away?

“Ellie?” I called again, louder.

I heard a door down the hall open, and I braced myself.

“Yeah?” she responded, poking her head into the hallway.

I felt myself deflate as relief rushed in to replace my fear. She blinked at me, clearly surprised at the wild look in my eyes.

“Is everything okay?” I asked her, walking out into the hall.

She looked at me sideways. “Yeah, I’m just using the bathroom.”

“Okay, okay, good. I thought . . .” I trailed off, not sure what I thought.

“What, that someone abducted me in the night?”

I shrugged and didn’t answer.

She snorted and laughed. “My hero.”

I gave her a look. “Coffee is on downstairs. Want breakfast?”

“If you made me those eggs again, I think I could die happy.”

I grinned. “Not funny.”

“Very funny. Be down soon.” She moved back into the bathroom and shut the door behind her.

The throb in my head returned as I moved back downstairs. I felt stupid and awkward, but I was glad she was still there. I couldn’t stop myself from turning the worse-case scenario over and over in my skull, letting the gory details of that ending penetrate my waking life, and I hated it, hated myself for wallowing in weakness and guilt and anger instead of getting out on the street and fixing things. I wasn’t the kind of man who obsessed, not normally at least; I was the sort who acted, who took action, who did things to fix or save or whatever I was trying to do. But she had done something to me.

Overreaction done with for the morning, I got to work cooking her eggs.

“Where did you learn that, anyway?” she asked, walking into the kitchen.

I looked up from the pot, pulled out of my thoughts. “My mom.”

“She taught you how to cook?”

I shrugged. I wasn’t exactly proud of it, but I was a momma’s boy when I was younger. I decided not to tell her that part.

“My dad wasn’t around much when I was a kid, so I spent a lot of time with my mom. Had to, at least. She taught me how to cook, I think just to give me something to do, keep me out of trouble.”

She smiled. “Were you getting in trouble a lot?”

“Constantly.”

She laughed as I finished cooking her eggs, pouring the creamy yellow goodness out onto a thick piece of toast. I placed the plate in front of her, and then I poured myself a bowl of cereal. We ate in silence for a few minutes, and I wondered what was going through her head. I couldn’t imagine what it was like to be her: lost, confused, shoved into a world she knew existed but only in an abstract way. She probably felt like she was living in a fictional world.

I knew I couldn’t shake the feeling of waking up from a dream, but the dream was lingering.

“I need to go out today,” I said, breaking the silence.

She looked up at me. “And I’m supposed to do what?”

“Stay here. Watch TV. I can get you some books if you want them.”

She sighed and didn’t answer, finishing off her eggs.

“I know it’s boring—”