Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 46895 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46895 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Fuck. We’re having this conversation. “He’s dead.”
“How does that help them find the package?”
“It reminds me that if I don’t deliver the package, more people die.” My lips press together, my nerves ticking with a mix of anger and self-blame I was working real fucking hard to escape a few seconds ago. Now I’m swimming in all kinds of bullshit.
I told the men who worked for me that the jobs we took were safe. Ana trusted me to bring Kasey home. I failed on all counts. Suffocating in my own emotions, I open the door, exiting the car.
Ana is out before I can round the car, joining me at the door. I open it and allow her to enter first. She hesitates, studying me, and I feel the push of words she wants to speak but bites back. Does she want to call me a killer? Maybe she won’t say it, but I know she’s had that thought. She enters the house. I follow her down a small hallway and into a kitchen with a connected living room.
The place is nice, I guess, modern, with a giant white island and a whole lot of navy blue everywhere. Not that I give two fucks about décor right now or ever. Ana takes it all in beside me for about thirty seconds and then turns to face me. “You were deep ops,” she says, her segue to logic I’m never going to hear right now. “Easy jobs or not, the work comes with risks and they all knew the risks, including me. You know you didn’t get Parker or anyone else killed.”
She’s wrong, but she doesn’t want to hear that right now, and I’m not in the mood to have her dogmatic desire to win this battle. Because she won’t. Then we won’t. And I’m pretty damn tired of us losing together.
I reach for her, pull her into me, mold her close, and despite everything hard and harsh about this night, she is a soft, heady mix of past and present that both torments and soothes in one hot minute. My cock is hard, pressing against my zipper, my body tense with the adrenaline rush of wanting her like I never wanted anyone but Ana. But then, me craving her, everything about her with all-consuming need is nothing new, nor is it anything I’ve ever attempted to resist. That’s another battle with Ana I’d lose but do so happily. This, her and I naked and wild for each other, won’t erase the pain or anger of the past, or even my guilt about the men we’ve lost, but it damn sure offers a really fucking amazing outlet.
My hand frames her jaw and tilts her head back to look at me, but I don’t reply to her words. Kissing her makes a whole hell of a lot more sense. Her breath is warm, her lips tempting, and I savor how familiar and right this feels, no matter how much our history tells me it’s wrong.
I lower my mouth to hers, a prelude to getting her naked, which is where I do my best talking.
“Kissing me won’t end this conversation,” she promises.
“It will,” I assure her. “It abso-fucking-lutely will. At least until we get our clothes back on.”
With that, my mouth closes down on hers in a kiss meant to seduce her and drug me in the way only Ana can.
Chapter Six
Ana
When I was a little girl, before my mother died, she used to bake chocolate chip cookies. I was allowed one per night after dinner, but I was addicted, and naughty me, would sneak out of my room and steal a cookie. I’d hunker down by the kitchen island, out of the sight of the door, and nibble away.
My behavior was oh so bad, but the cookie was oh so good.
That’s how I feel about Luke.
Addicted.
Naughty.
Oh so right, and somehow oh so wrong.
I could demand we make the wrong right by talking through the past, by talking about why he can’t even share a memory of a restaurant with me. The problem is we are more complicated than those minor topics.
Parker is dead.
His guilt is alive.
I helped create his self-blame with how I handled Kasey’s death.
I’m back to we should talk, but his kiss—God, his kiss—undoes me, destroys my objections. How can it not? His hands are under his coat I’m still wearing and he’s all over me, my senses on fire with his touch. The truth is that I didn’t think I’d ever feel him touch me again. I didn’t want anyone else. I never got over him. I never even tried.
And the truth is, the physical side of our renewed connection is far easier to navigate than the emotional side. In other words, I want just what he wants right now. To drown out everything else, to forget about the blood that was all over me, the death that clings to the night and our lives.