My eyes have stopped feeling like they weigh ten thousand pounds, so I can finally open my eyes. I look around expecting to be in my own empty bed. Instead, Magnus Bane is sleeping in the chair across from the bed. I glance around the room, I'm in his place. Surprisingly, he's fairly messy. Scraps of fabric that seem way too tight for a cop to be wearing are scattered around the room. His bed is a comfy purple affair, adorned with black sparkly pillows. To the right of the bed he has a gigantic window which is pouring soft light into the room. I'm surprised it didn't wake him up. Then I realize. Oh, he's exhausted because he was spooning you all night. Fuck.
I pan over Bane himself, who looks like hell. Deep circles are underneath his eyes, his hair a messy wreck. He's wearing a black teeshirt with matching black boxers. My cock twitches. Even when he's a wreck, he's still sexy as all fuck. Roaming back up to his face, I reevaluate. His face is so peaceful despite the fact he held my sob wracked body for hours. He looks like a fallen angel. Feeling self conscience, I glance down to my own he left my jeans on, but I'm shirtless. FUCK. He saw them.
Ugly white lines coat my skin. All over my arms, here and there on my stomach and my chest. I desperately search for my shirt. I spot it on the bed to my left, but as I lean over to grab it something metal bites into my ankle. Throwing the comforter off I see that he's handcuffed my right foot to the post of the bed.
"You're shitting me, right? You know my arm has a bullet lodged into it?" I mutter mostly to myself as I gingerly pull my shirt on with some difficulty.
"Well, I had to make sure you weren't going to leave. You don't exactly have the best track record." He replies, scaring the shit out of me. I make a startled high pitched noise that is not attractive in any way. I look up. He's staring at me with sleepy yet alert eyes. Yawning, he stretches in the chair. It probably isn't the most comfortable thing to sleep on.
"Jesus Christ. How long have you been awake?" I ask, trying my best to sound casual. You're not succeeding in the least. Smooth, Alec.
"A while. This thing is not comfy at all." He replies, echoing my earlier thought and giving me a teasing smile.
"You could have just slept here. I don' t have cooties, I promise." I scoff, rolling my eyes.
"I didn't think you wanted us to sleep together." He says, dropping his tone down to a quiet sexy whisper. His golden eyes have settled on mine, his gaze burning into me. The way he's looking at me should be illegal and I can feel the color rising to my cheeks, ensuring I look like a tomato. Thankfully, he takes pity on me and releases me from his stare.
"You want breakfast?' He asks, casually as he pulls some silky purple pajama pants on.
I give a short laugh. "Breakfast?" I ask, raising my eyebrows. It seems like such a mundane activity. Ordinary has never been an aspect from my life, even before I was selling drugs for money.
"Yes, breakfast. The meal that comes before lunch, usually consisting of eggs cooked in a pan? Or at least it does in my house." Magnus muses, as he walks out of the room. Before he walks out of the room, he stops and turns around.
"Just wait here. Don't go anywhere." He smirks, winking. I flip him off, but he just chuckles and walks away, swinging his hips in a way that he knows I would be watching. He's definitely flirting with me, but why? I'm a criminal, one that probably hasn't made life too easy for him. What is his game? I have to get out of here.
About fifteen minutes later, I can smell the eggs being cooked and it's making me crazy. I haven't eaten in... Wait, how long have I been here? I'm still thinking about it when Magnus comes back in with a plate of pale yellow, fluffy eggs. He hands the plate and a fork to me and sits back down in his chair.
"How long have I been here?" I ask, as I put a mouthful of eggs into my mouth. They're delicious. Possibly the best eggs I've ever had.
"You've been out for two days. Your arm is not infected, and you don't need a blood transfusion. Which is good, because I'm not sure how I would get you one. Cat says you're the luckiest person to be shot she's ever seen." He explains.
I give a harsh laugh. "Lucky is never a word I would have used to describe myself."
"How would you describe yourself?" He questions, as he raises his eyebrows.
"What are you going to do with me, Bane? What's the end game here?" I answer, hoping to distract him. It works. He runs a hand through his messy hair and sighs.
"I don't know yet. You're deflecting. Fine, just tell me your name." Magnus shoots back. Deflection denied.
"Gideon Wood." It's the name that's on all the official documents Camile has bought me. Only she knows me as Alec, but the world sees me as orphaned Gideon Wood. He has a rich aunt that gives him large chunks of money every month, but he stays in an average apartment. He's a nobody, a fly on the wall. I try to draw as little attention to myself as possible.
Magnus chuckles. "Okay. That's a good name. You know I'm a cop, and eventually I'm going to find your real one right?"
Finishing my eggs, I set my plate down next to me. "Yeah, but what's life without a little mystery?" I answer, giving a smirk right back to him.
"You are one big mystery. What were you dreaming about last night?" He asks, quietly. I hesitate. No one has been around to ask me what I dreamt about for a long time. Just telling anything personal to anyone seems strange and foreign. I look up to tell him no or some other bullshit excuse, but he's giving me a look. Those freaking eyes. They're burning into my soul, pleading with me to just tell him something. Goddamnit.
So I tell him. As I tell him, it begins to feel more natural. With every word, another knot is loosened in my heart. All the while, Magnus listens and nods along like he understands. And the weirdest thing is, it feels like he does. I keep going until the part where he shows up in my dream and I pause. He patiently waits for me to continue, and so I go on.
"And uh, then you appeared telling me to run. So I ran past you, and when I turned around to look at you, the guy shot you in the chest." I stutter out, fixing my eyes on the comforter.
"Have I ever been in any of your dreams before?" He asks me, quietly. I shake my head no.
"I guess if that guy had been in any of my dreams, I would have woke up screaming too."
"Yeah, he was a real son of a bitch." I admit, nodding.
"Wait, all of that was real?" He asks, his voice raising.
"All of it, except when you showed up. That was new."
He looks befuddled. He runs his hand through his hair again. "Was that your first time dealing? Why did you keep doing it?" He implores, sounding a bit exasperated.
"That's another story. Let's talk about you. My guy found a lot about you, but nearly nothing before your 18th birthday. Nothing about your parents except that you had no money." I challenge.
"Oh yeah, when you pulled a background check on me? Why did you even flirt with me at the bar? What was the point?"
"Now look who's deflecting? I got... distracted. And I was drunk." I blush, looking away.
"Were you casing me at the bar?"
"Well yeah, but I had no idea you would come and talk to me. One thing about you during your formative high school years. Come on, I told you about the dream." I look at him through my lashes, staring at him with a look that will make him say yes. It works.
"Fine. I was a flamboyant, sparkly, popular kid in high school. I was obsessed with cops because when my dad died, he went down in a hail of gunfire. He saved ten people. He died a hero. All I wanted to do was get out of New York and be a detective in some big city," He pauses. Closes his eyes with a pained expression. "But my mom was a drug addict and we had no family to take care of her except me. She used up all of my money for college on drugs."
My mouth dropped. So he had a drug addict mom and a cop for a dad? That must have been strange.
"What happened to her?" I ask softly.
"She OD'd when I was nineteen." He replies, his voice a mixture of melancholy and hardness. It's a familiar feeling for me too. A long period of silence passes over us until my mouth decided to go AWOL.
"It was the high." I say, suddenly. He looks up in surprise. "The reason I keep doing it. I felt so invincible after that first deal. I had escaped the guy, I had a boatload of cash, a place to sleep. And I was good at it. I had been going through," My voice catches. I swallow hard and laugh bitterly. "What some people might call a rough patch."
"Doing what you do, that helps?" He asks, with a bit of hope in his voice.
"Yeah, it does. But like all addictions, it's a temporary fix." A lump is forming in my throat at the mention of my old pains.
"Before it's not enough, and you need more. I get it." His eyes are glued on mine, filled with understanding. I want him to come closer, but before anything can happen his cellphone rings. Closing his eyes, he slowly gets it out of his pocket. He didn't want the moment to end either.
"Bane." He barks into the phone. "I know, I have a relative in town. I'll be there in 10. Bye." He hangs up, and stares at me.
"I have to go into the office, think you can handle yourself for an hour?' He demands, as he looks around for his uniform.
"Where am I going to go?" He nods, and flies out of the room. I hear the door shut and he's gone, and I am alone.