Twisted-Games

important one of all.
If she couldn’t or wouldn’t fight for us—because of her guilt, her duty,
her family, or any other reason—I’d fight enough for us both.
Fourteen minutes past nine. Fifteen.
Dammit princess, where are you?
Either Bridget hadn’t received the note, or she’d chosen not to come.
Booth had texted saying he’d given her the note, and I trusted him. I
wouldn’t have reached out to him otherwise. If what he said was true, then…
Pain lanced through me, but I forced myself to push it aside. I’d wait all
night if I had to, in case she changed her mind, and if—
The door banged open and, suddenly, she was there. Out of breath,
cheeks flushed, hair fluttering across her face from the wind.
My pulse ratcheted up several notches in the space of a millisecond.
I straightened, air filling my lungs as I finally came alive again.
Bridget remained in the doorway, one hand on the doorknob, her lips
parted and her chest heaving.
The moonlight splashed across the roof, turning her golden hair silver and
illuminating the slender curves of her body. The wind carried a faint hint of
her lush jasmine scent toward me, and her green dress fluttered around her
thighs, baring her shoulders and the long, smooth expanse of her legs.
I loved that dress. She knew I loved that dress. And something inside me
unclenched for the first time in weeks.
“Hi,” she breathed. Her grip tightened on the doorknob like she was
trying to steady herself.
My mouth curved. “Hi, princess.”
The space between us hummed, so taut with anticipation and unspoken
words it was a living, breathing thing that pulled us closer together. No more
of the distance I’d felt in the hospital. She was in my skin, my soul, the very
air I breathed.
Everything I’d gone through the past two weeks to get here had been
worth it.
“Apologies for being late. I ran into Markus and got roped into a
conversation about the coronation.” Bridget brushed her hair out of her face,
and I detected a small tremble in her hand. “It turns out the archbishop—”
“Come here, baby.”
I didn’t give a fuck about Markus or the archbishop. I needed her. Only
her.