Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 102942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
His smirk falters, but he’s not ready to back down. “You invited me to take my shot, Firecracker,” he challenges. “Who am I to deny a beautiful woman?”
Yep. There’s the anger again.
“You used me as target practice,” I cut in, trying to force space between us, but he doesn’t relent and continues holding me down against the couch. “You adjusted for wind off my shoulder.”
Those gold-speckled eyes flash, and I start to recognize just how dangerous this man truly is, because it’s the same wild recklessness that I see reflected in my own eyes every damn day. Raiden and I, we’re one and the same. “You stepped into my line.”
I clench my jaw, glaring at him and refusing to respond. He knows exactly why I stepped into his line. Had I not, he would have taken his shot, and I would have lost. And I do not lose. Period. But judging by Raiden’s reaction, he isn’t accustomed to losing either, which is going to be more than a problem.
He leans in, his lips barely a breath from mine, and suddenly, my heart is racing for a whole new reason. “You don’t get to take contracts out from under me,” he says, his voice low and menacing, the clear warning thick in his tone.
I smile, the smugness of the win consuming me, even more knowing just how annoyed he is by it. “You don’t get to measure a bullet drop off my spine.”
His grip tightens just slightly, and something shifts in his stare, but I don’t know what it is or what it means. “You think I would’ve hit you?”
I hold his stare. His shot was perfect. One of the best I have ever seen. If he wanted to hit me, he would have landed a direct shot between my eyes, but that’s beside the point. “You think I’m stupid enough to wait around and find out?”
A breath passes between us, the silence growing heavy when his tone rumbles through my apartment. “You compromised the op.”
I scoff. “You’ve compromised me just by being here.”
Raiden sighs, watching me through that calculated stare, when some kind of realization dawns in his dark eyes. He almost seems surprised by whatever he thinks he’s figured out. “Well, shit, Firecracker. You actually think you’re better than me.”
Another barking laugh comes tearing from the back of my throat as he releases his hold on my wrists. Is he for real? “I don’t think,” I tell him. “I know. Two for two, Raiden. I am better than you. The only shot you’ve been able to get off is at me. And for the record, I wasn’t that impressed. I could have made that shot ten times over.”
He just smiles, and something warns me that I haven’t even scratched the surface of what this man is capable of. “Arrogance will get you killed, Firecracker.”
Holding his stare, I challenge his loyalties, not that he owes me any. “By you?”
His brows rise in surprise, and he pulls back just a fraction as that same tension I felt in the elevator in Barcelona begins burning between us.
He doesn’t respond, and I watch him for a second before shoving him off me and scrambling out from under him. His silence tells me exactly what I need to know.
I get to my feet and position myself across from him, the coffee table between us as I watch him get up from the couch. “You’d kill me?”
He stands opposite me, stoic and serious, an emptiness spreading through his stare. “Yes. If I had to.”
I narrow my stare, my hands trembling at my sides as I gently shake my head, calling him out. “You’re lying,” I whisper, my heart racing as I step toward him.
He can’t be lying. He can’t feel something here. I can’t allow it. That’s not how this works. Him and I—it’s only going to get us both killed.
He inches back, knowing this moment defines it all, and his chest heaves once again, slower now. Controlled. “I’m not lying, Kiara,” he says evenly. Too evenly.
My trembling worsens, and I take another step, having absolutely no idea what I’m trying to achieve. All I know is that I have to keep pushing this. I have to know. “You couldn’t,” I challenge, my tone a breathy whisper that hangs heavily between us. “Not me.”
His jaw tightens, and I start to realize this is one of his tells, a tell he thinks I don’t notice. “I could and I would,” he insists, darkness and deceit swarming in his stare. “Don’t romanticize this.”
Romanticize. The word hits me like a slap, and I close the distance between us, forcing him to either turn and run, leaving this behind, or hold his ground to see it through.
He holds, and I should have known better.
His stare consumes me, heated and feral as he tries to grasp onto just a semblance of control, and when his gaze drops to my mouth for only a second, I finally understand it. This is more to him now. I’m not just the girl who fakes orgasms through the wall. I’m not the feisty woman who bangs on his door and gets in his face. It’s something neither of us knows how to navigate.