I swallow, the flame swaying rhythmically. I keep asking myself how I can love James. It’s a mental battle I’m having every minute. Sensibility is yelling at me to break away before my love kills me. Logic is demanding I stay before something else kills me. Don’t break the bond. “How can you love me?” I ask, and the moment the question is out there, he stills beneath me. Even his heart beating into my back slows.
“Turn around,” he orders, helping me to shift on his lap until I’m facing him. I spend some needed time taking in every inch of his face. From his mussed-up hair to his rough stubble. From his soulful eyes, to his beautifully shaped lips. From his defined jaw to his perfectly crooked nose. Every inch of this man is breathtaking. Every part of him sends my senses into meltdown. His rough, gravelly voice. The words he says. The feel of his touch on my skin. His scent. Manly but soft. His tongue in my mouth. The taste of him.
Flattening my palm, he places it on his shoulder. “I can love you because you’re as merciless as I am.” He moves my fingers across the bumpy flesh of his shoulder, and my eyes fall there, seeing my scars blend with his. “I can love you because you’re crippled by hatred and a sense of injustice.” My eyes bolt back to his, and I lose myself in their blazing depths. “Your love for me walks hand in hand with your hate for the world.” Bringing my hand to his lips, he presses a kiss in the center of my palm. “They are equals. Passion fueled. Your love and your hate are what makes you, Beau, and mine is what makes me.” His hands land on my hips, and my traitorous lip wobbles. Love and hate. I couldn’t stop loving this man if I tried, no matter who he is. And I couldn’t stop hating the world if my life depended on it. But I can do both. Love and hate. “I will treasure your love, and I’ll nurture your hate. Because without your hate, you’re not the woman I love.”
“That’s so fucked up,” I whisper, my voice breaking.
“That’s so us,” he replies, taking my nape and holding me firmly. “We understand each other. Feel each other’s pain. See each other’s struggles. I’ve searched for one reason not to love you, and yet all I can find are a million reason to love you.”
I’m not sure if a weight has been lifted or lowered onto my shoulders. I feel heavy but light. Hopeful but full of dread. “That’s quite swoony for an assassin,” I say, and he smiles a little.
“It’s not swoony. It’s the truth.” His eyes lower to my exposed chest, and he leans forward, peppering kisses over each boob before finishing on my tummy. “We should eat.” Cupping my ass, he stands effortlessly and takes me to the kitchen area, placing me on the counter by the sink.
“Shouldn’t we be leaving?” I ask, glancing around, now noticing all of the windows are no longer clear. No one can see in. Protection.
“He thinks the job’s done,” he says, going to a cupboard.
“Well, it’s not,” I say, motioning to his beast of a body, like he could have missed the fact that he’s still breathing. Thank God. “Surely when he doesn’t get word from those men, he’ll know you’re still here.”
“He has got word from his men,” James says, and I withdraw. Did one of them get—
It clicks. He’s used the cell he found on the body to check in. “We have some breathing space,” he says.
I don’t like the sound of that. Breathing space. He’s plotting something. I hear my cell in the distance as James reaches into the fridge, peering back at me.
“I should get that.” I slip down. “It’ll be Dexter. They’re worried.”
I get a small, accepting nod, but I can see his concern. “Will they try to talk you out of this?”
“You mean me and you?” I ask, and he nods, lowering some milk to the counter. “You’re a killer, James.” It sounds as crazy as it is. And yet here I am, in love with a killer. I can sugarcoat it all I like. Plead justice. Claim every life ended was warranted. That every man James has killed deserved to die. None of those things change the fact that James is a cold-blooded murderer.
“They don’t know what I do,” he says, leaning against the counter, casual and cool.
“Then they clearly just get a bad vibe from you.”
He pouts, and it’s quite adorable. “Go answer your phone,” he orders, continuing to make whatever it is he’s making.
I do as I’m bid and find my cell nestled in the sheets, but I falter answering when I see it’s Nath calling again, not Dexter. I don’t want to argue with him. I’m not interested in hearing what he has to say. There’s nothing to be gained from answering, so I don’t. He tries again immediately. And again. Then the messages start landing, one after the other, all urgent words begging me to take his call. Something about my mother. He’s done this before. Lured me in with false promises of information. But what if . . .
My heart constricts in my chest, and I answer, lowering to the bed as I do.
“Beau,” Nath blurts urgently. “You have to leave.”
“You said you had information on my mother,” I whisper lowly, my tone loaded with warning. “Don’t tell me you’ve lied again, just so you can tell me to leave James.”
“Beau, you have to listen to me.”
“I don’t have to listen to anyone,” I seethe, slamming my fist down on the bed with my phone so hard, it jolts my other arm. I hiss as a wicked pain shoots up my limb. How could he?
I head to the bathroom to splash my burning face, but another message halts my tracks. I look down at the screen as it pings, one message after the other.
You’re in danger.
He’s not who you think he is.
I don’t know who the fuck he is, but he’s not James Kelly.
He was involved in your mom’s death.
My inhale is so sharp, so abrupt, it has me reaching into thin air to grab something for support. My thoughts chase in circles, my mind trying to process what I’m reading. I look up at the glass, seeing through to the top of the stairs. Transparent.
Another ding from my phone pulls my attention back there.
Watch this. I’m sorry, Beau. GET OUT.
The shakes come on strong, unstoppable and relentless, making my thumb uncoordinated and clumsy as it hits the play icon of the video attachment. A computer comes into view, and on the screen, footage of a place I recognize. I lower to the bed, seeing the comings and goings of the store parking lot. My eyes drop to the bottom corner. To the time and date. “Oh my God.” That date, that time, they’re etched in my memory. And then I see us. Me and Mom. She pulls into the parking lot and zips into a space, and the car sits there for a while. I remember the conversation. I remember pulling on my boots. I remember her face when her cell rang.
I watch as I get out and shut the door, wandering through the automatic doors of the store, and the whole time I’m in there getting our wine, I stare at her car, looking, searching, waiting, watching.
Ten minutes later, I emerge from the store.
My heart starts to pound.
I wander across the parking lot.