Dangerously Bound (29 page)

Except he hadn’t needed to breathe.

Her heart hammered, a fast, staccato beat. She walked faster, found curtain number
four. She took a breath, pulled it aside and stepped through.

Mick lay on the hospital bed, his eyes closed, his face white as a sheet except for
the dark bruise forming on his temple.

God, please no . . .

Papa being loaded onto the white bed on wheels, his head bruised where it must have
hit the piano when he’d . . .

Mick opened his eyes.

“Allie? What are you doing here?”

She shook her head, unable to speak as fear and love and anger suffused her, forming
a cold, nearly incomprehensible ball of emotion.

“What am I doing here? What are
you
doing here?”

“I guess . . . you can probably guess.”

“How badly are you hurt?” she asked.

“It’s just an MTBI.”

“A what?”

“A concussion. The scan looked fine. No blood clots or anything. I’ll be fine. It’s
fine.”

“Jesus, Mick. This is not fine! What happened?”

“Someone got the better of me. I was . . . distracted. It’s bound to happen once in
a while.”

“This happened because you were fighting. On purpose.”

He didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed. The anger boiled over.

“It’s only bound to happen when you put yourself in stupid situations.
Illegal
fights. Come on, Mick—this isn’t
Fight Club
.”

He blinked, seemed to be thinking for several moments. “Except that it is. That’s
why I do it. It’s what I need.”

“
That’s
what you need?” she demanded. “What about me, Mick? What about what I need, huh?
How about I need a man who doesn’t think punching something or getting the shit kicked
out of him is the way to solve a problem? A man who doesn’t
lie to me
and push me away after showing me how amazing we could be together? A man who isn’t
going to
die
on me.”

Tears made her throat tight. She used the rage simmering in her system to swallow
them down.

“Seriously, Allie? I’m not going to—”

“You might! You’re the one determined to keep punishing yourself for every kitten
you didn’t rescue from a tree instead of seeing what you have right in front of you.
You’re the one fighting without gloves, without rules, without letting anyone know
where you are in case something happens to you, for God’s sake. How fucking stupid
do you have to be?”

His face went even paler, his lips tightening into a thin line, and she knew instantly
she’d said the absolutely wrong thing. But she couldn’t stop now.

“Mick . . .” The damn tears again. She blinked hard, but they welled in her eyes.
“I can’t watch you do this to yourself. I can’t watch you do this to me. If something
happened to you . . . and it will if you won’t stop doing this.”

“You don’t understand.”

“You’re right. I don’t. I’m never going to. You could have
died
, Mick. Just like my dad.”

“Allie. Baby. He died of an aneurism.”

“So could you if you keep taking hits to the head. There were no blood clots this
time, but what about the next time? Or the time after that?”

“Come on, Allie. That’s not going to happen. We can talk about this when I get out
of here.”

She stared at him, her vision being swallowed up by the bruise. By the cold expanding
in her chest.

“We could talk about it—the fighting, the emotional masochism—but you’d have to actually
want to listen.” She shook her head again, taking a step back. “I can’t. I can’t do
this, Mick. I just . . . can’t.”

She turned and hurried away, pushed her way through the big doors—and ran into Jamie.
The paper cup of coffee he’d been carrying splashed to the floor.

“Fuck. Jamie, I’m sorry.”

“Where are you going? You okay?”

“No. I’m not okay. I have to go.”

“Allie, wait.”

But she was already moving past him, walking as fast as she dared until she got out
to the parking lot. She ran the rest of the way to her car, dug in her purse for her
keys.

“Come on, damn it,” she muttered.

She finally found them, unlocked the car, yanked open the door and got in. She started
the engine and put it in reverse just as a sob surged into her throat, choking her
on its way out.

She clamped a hand over her mouth, but another one came, then another. Blindly, she
put the car back into park, leaned her head on the wheel and gave herself over to
the tears.

There was no conscious thought in her mind as she cried—just emotions too big to name.
Too long held to make sense any longer. Tears she’d been holding since she was ten
years old. Since she was sixteen. Since she was twenty. All the old pain, the tears
she’d refused to cry since then, thinking she’d just get over it—all the events that
had left her feeling devastated. But she never had. She never had.

She knew she never could if something happened to Mick. Better to stay away from him,
the way she had for most of her life. If he wasn’t right in front of her, he couldn’t
hurt her. If she didn’t love him . . .

Except she did.

God, she loved him.

Another sob broke through but she caught it halfway, swallowed it down, the hard edge
of the steering wheel digging into her hands.

“No. No more.”

She pulled in a deep breath, blew it out. Shifted the car and drove away, hoping to
leave some of the pain behind in the white, white hospital that spoke to her of death.

*   *   *

“
J
AMIE, WHAT THE
fuck?”

Mick was trying to sit up, but his friend held him down on the bed.

“You have to stay put until they release you.”

“The fuck I do! You’re as bad as Allie.”

“What did you say to her? She ran out of here like a bat out of hell.”

“I didn’t say anything. She just freaked out.”

And told me I was stupid. And a masochist.

Apparently I fucking am.

He stopped struggling. Jamie backed off.

“Whatever’s going on with you two, you need to sit tight for a while,” Jamie told
him.

Mick put a hand to his head, winced when his fingers smoothed over the bruise there.
“Yeah, fine. Maybe I don’t need to talk to her right now, anyway.”

“That sounds cryptic.”

“Don’t want to talk about it,” he muttered.

“You have a head injury so I’ll ignore that grumpy-ass tone.”

“Go ask the nurse when they’re letting me the hell out of here, will you?”

“Yeah, okay. Don’t go anywhere or I’ll hunt you down, Reid.”

“I won’t. Just go find out.”

His head was pounding. From the knockout. From the hard lump in his gut that told
him what Allie really thought about him. Hell, he should have suspected. It was what
he’d always thought himself. But to have to hear it from the woman he loved . . .

Maybe he’d been right all along. They should never be together. He was poison to her—that
had been obvious tonight. He’d never forget the look of misery and pure terror on
her face. His damn fault. And still he’d argued with her like an ass.

But he couldn’t give up the fighting.

The fighting? Or the rest?

Fuck, his head was spinning, his stomach churning.

He closed his eyes and leaned back on the pillows.

He’d have to let Allie go. Again.

For the last time.

M
ICK WOKE AT
six out of habit, his limbs itching to go for a run, but the ER doctor—and Jamie—had
made him promise he wouldn’t work out for a week. It had only been five days. Maybe
he could push things a little?

He felt okay. The bruise was already clearing up, and he hadn’t had any nausea or
dizziness since that first night. Physically, he was fine. The rest of him was pretty
well fucked up.

He got out of bed and pulled on a pair of sweats and a tank top.

“Fuck it,” he muttered as he put on his running shoes. He was going to lose his shit
if he had to hold still any longer.

The sky was dark and heavy with clouds when he stepped outside, and he could feel
the damp air cool on his skin. Didn’t matter. He’d warm up fast enough.

He did a few quick leg stretches on the sidewalk in front of
his house, then he took off at a slow jog to get his muscles warmed up.

He went down Dauphine to Canal Street, turned toward the water and let himself speed
up, his legs and his lungs pumping. It felt good, even if the bad leg hurt. He didn’t
care. It was good to be
out
, to be moving.

The last few days had been pure torture—constant thoughts of Allie with not enough
to distract him, going back and forth with himself about whether to call her or to
stay away. He had a great argument for keeping his distance. Logical reasons. But
emotion was telling him something else.

He loved the girl.

There was no getting around it. And she loved him back. Despite her walking away from
him at the hospital, despite their history. Despite everything. And maybe—just maybe—there
was something to it, some reason.

She was scared, which he understood when he could get out of his own head long enough
to let his own shit go—all the shit that had been holding him back his entire life.
The shit that had been stirred up once more by the angry words she’d hurled at him
in the emergency room. He’d let it get to him, he realized now, in a way that was . . .
every bit as stupid as she’d accused him of being.

And he was if he couldn’t give up the Goddamn fighting to be with her. She was worth
it. If he could have Allie, why would he need it anymore? What did he even have to
be so pissed off about? Hell, weren’t there other reasons why he shouldn’t need to
fight anymore? Wasn’t he stronger than that? Better than that?

It was time to fucking get over himself.

Heat flooded his body, a kind of release as years of tension and stubbornness drained
from him.

Amazing what a good knock on the head could shake loose. That and the love of the
most incredible woman he’d ever met.

He really was stubborn to have hung on to this image of himself all these years—even
now, knowing she loved him. Was he really so in love with the idea of him being the
bad seed that he hadn’t been able to let it go? Had he really been so damn stuck in
that awful place inside his head where all the good things he’d done with his life
counted for nothing?

His legs pumped, taking him down one block, then the next, past houses and stores,
bars and restaurants, all of it a blur.

He’d been standing in his own way for most of his damn life. He hadn’t been able to
stop until she’d come back into his life and made him feel worthwhile again.

They’d wasted so many years . . .
he’d
wasted so many years.

He had to tell Allie.
Had
to. He had to tell her what he’d just figured out. And he had to get her back.

“Fuck,” he puffed out, increasing his stride until he reached Magazine Street and
made the turn to head toward Allie’s neighborhood just as the sky opened up and it
started to rain, a light spring shower that felt good on his heated skin.

She made him feel amazing. No more letting this twisted shit inside his head talk
him out of that. With her, he could believe it. Now it was time to learn to believe
it on his own. Because if he didn’t, then he really didn’t deserve her.

He did, damn it. He was going to make her see that.

He concentrated on keeping his legs moving, breathing in, breathing out, until he
turned the corner at Orange Street and ran toward her house.

The sun was beginning to break through the rain, lighting up the sky in shades of
pale silver, bathing the old cottage in a watercolor wash. He had to stop on the sidewalk,
bent over, hands braced on his knees while he tried to catch his breath.
The leg throbbed, but he didn’t care. Allie was the only thing that mattered now.

He straightened up and went to her door.

*   *   *

A
LLIE SKIPPED TOWARD
the French doors that led into her father’s study.

“Papa! I have to go to school soon. Play something for me.”

She stopped in her tracks when she saw him. So still. Slumped over the piano keys.

“Papa? What are you doing? Does your head hurt?”

The house was more silent than she’d ever heard it. She knew something was terribly,
terribly wrong.

“Papa, why won’t you answer me?”

She stepped closer, put a hand on his arm, running her fingers over the crisp blue
cotton of his shirt.

“Papa?” she whispered, her heart twisting in her chest.

She took a step back, terrified. Guilty for being scared of her own papa. Tears slipped
down her cheek.

She woke to a loud pounding, clutching the sheet—and wiped the tears away.

The pounding continued.

She glanced at the clock. It wasn’t even quite seven—who would be there so early?
Allister wasn’t due to work on the kitchen until Monday.

She got up and padded barefoot down the hall in her pink cotton nightgown as the pounding
came again, more insistent this time.

“Okay, I’m coming!”

She unlocked the door and pulled it open. And froze when she saw Mick standing on
her porch.

His hair and his skin were wet, and it was only then she realized it was raining.
He was panting hard, his expression grim.

He was so damn beautiful it made her heart ache.

“Allie, you’re crying.”

“What?” She swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “It was . . . just a bad
dream.”

The same one she’d had every night since she’d last seen Mick.

“I had to come,” he said.

“Why?” She couldn’t think of anything else to say, her brain still half asleep yet
churning a hundred miles an hour.

“Come on, baby. We have a lot to talk about.”

She bit her lip, trying to stay strong in her resolve even though every cell in her
body wanted nothing more than to reach out for him. To feel the texture of his skin.
The crush of his arms around her.

No.

“Can I at least have some water before you decide you won’t talk to me? I ran all
the way here from my place. I’m a little dehydrated even with the rain.”

“Oh. I . . . yes, come on in, I guess.”

She turned and walked into the kitchen without looking at him, her pulse racing. She
needed a moment to gather herself. She pulled a bottle of water from the refrigerator
and took a breath before turning to hand it to him, along with a dish towel.

“Thanks.”

He popped open the bottle and drank, ran the towel over his face, his hair.

He seemed to fill up her small kitchen, and it was as much his presence as his height,
his broad, muscular shoulders. His skin was slick with sweat and the New Orleans rain.
There was rain caught on the tips of his dark lashes.

He wiped his mouth, looked at her. And as was his habit, it seemed as if he could
see right through her. How the hell did he do that?

She put a hand on the back of a kitchen chair to steady herself. “So,” she started,
looking at the floor. Anything to avoid that searching gray gaze. “What is it you
think we have to say to each other?”

She looked up then, feeling the challenge of her own words.

“Plenty. At least, I have plenty to tell you. I need you to hear me out, Allie.”

“I—”

“Just do it,” he interrupted, his voice low. “Give me five minutes. If I can’t convince
you I have a point, you’re free to ask me to go. And if you do, I won’t bother you
ever again.”

There was an edge of command in his voice. And pain. That much was plain to see.

She chewed on her lip. This felt dangerous.
Mick
was dangerous. She’d always known that. But hadn’t that always been part of the allure?
That and his purely masculine face, the features a little raw, yet beautiful to her
all the same.

So beautiful his face alone broke her heart.

Stop it.

“Allie? Come on. Hear me out.”

She nodded and sat down slowly in the chair. Mick stayed on his feet.

“Okay.” He ran a hand over his damp hair. “I’m sorry. For every rotten asshole thing
I’ve ever done to you. For every stupid thing I’ve done—and you were right back in
the ER—I’ve been an idiot. I was punishing myself. I think you already know that much.
You said as much.”

“Yes,” she said quietly, her hands twisting in her lap. This was exactly what she
wanted to hear from him. And everything
she didn’t dare believe. “I think it’s what you’ve always done. You told me you’d
stopped running, but that’s not true. It’s as if it’s almost habit for you. You create
this self-fulfilling prophecy, Mick. Which one of us did you think you were punishing?
Because frankly, I’m tired of it being me. And I don’t know why I convinced myself
that it had just gone away. That’s what’s kept me in this with you, but I don’t have
any reason to exist on blind faith anymore. There’s just been . . . too much has happened.
I can’t take any more apologies. I can’t take any more worry that something horrible
will happen to you because you invited it to.”

God, it hurt her to say it.

“I understand you feeling that way. I do. I’m not going to argue a single point. But
we’ve
built
something together, Allie. Something important. And I refuse to walk away from it.”

“You don’t have to add yet another thing for you to feel responsible for destroying,
Mick. You don’t have to walk away, because I already did. I did it because I had to.
Why can’t you understand?”

“Because my life without you in it doesn’t make any sense. It never has. Don’t you
see? It’s always been
us
. Mick and Allie. No matter how many years we spent apart. The ones who have to end
up together if life is fair. Hell, even if it’s not. You were right about that, Allie.”

When all she could do was blink at him, he went on. “We were meant to be together.
We both know it. You always have. I ran from it for years because I didn’t think I
was good enough for you. I covered that up in excuses about you being so pure—and
I don’t mean this as any kind of insult, but I knew damn well you weren’t some innocent
virgin. I recognized your desires back when we were in high school, when you
were
a virgin. I saw a little of the darkness in you and I blamed myself for it. And the
kink . . . back then I thought there was something
wrong with me. But even now, knowing what I know about kink, what I know about you,
the kink seems more pure for you.”

He started to pace then. She still had no idea what to say or where he was going with
all this. All she knew was the staggering pain she felt at seeing him there, hearing
that raw edge to his voice. But she didn’t know what she could trust in.

We were meant to be together.

Wasn’t that what she’d always believed?

He stopped and stared at her for several long moments.

“Are you letting me stay?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “You have my attention.”

He leaned against the counter behind him. “It’s all fucked up, and I’m just now getting
it. What played into the way I viewed myself, and the way I viewed you through those
lenses that saw me as . . . defective.” She saw his hands clench into fists at his
sides. “It wasn’t about you at all. Except for the part where I love you. I always
have. I always will. That much was true from the start.” His tone lowered, his brows
drawing together. “Do you love me at all, Allie girl?”

Her breath caught on a strangled sob. “Of course I do!”

He was at her side in an instant, but when he tried to take her in his arms, she pushed
him away.

“Mick, I don’t know how to feel right now. So, you’ve had this epiphany. Now what?”

“Now I stop the fighting—the kind that’s anything more than a workout. The kind that
comes from anger and frustration. The kind with that edge of
need
that bites into me. I don’t need it anymore. I thought I did. But Allie, if I have
you . . .”

“I don’t understand, Mick.” Her head was spinning. “I don’t know how this all comes
together.”

“I know I’m not making much sense. I’m trying.” He stopped,
scrubbed at his goatee. “Okay. Let me try this again. I started having these thoughts
about kink back in high school and I felt like they were wrong. Crazy, maybe. I didn’t
want to pollute you with the dirt going on in my head. Those urges got stronger as
I grew older. By the time I was getting ready to leave for college, I was convinced
I would ruin you somehow. I was barely eighteen—what did I know? I didn’t understand
myself what was happening to me.”