Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
“Can’t sleep?” she asks quietly.
“No.”
“Neither can I.”
Turn around, walk away, lock yourself in your room until morning.
I cross to the bed and sit on the edge, not touching her but close enough to feel the warmth radiating off her body.
“Why did you protect me?” The question comes out before I can stop it. “When your fellow agents asked how you got out of the warehouse, you lied. You didn’t tell them about me.”
She’s quiet for a long moment, staring out the window at the stars
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
“I don’t know.” There’s frustration in her voice now. “I should have told them. Protocol says I should have reported everything. But when Kat asked…” She shakes her head. “I just couldn’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“Because.” She meets my eyes, and there’s something grave in her expression. “Because telling them would have put you at risk. And I couldn’t do that. Because even after everything, I couldn’t make myself betray you. I’d already betrayed you so much.”
The words hang between us.
She’s lying, the cold voice whispers. It’s another manipulation.
But I don’t think it is.
I think, for the first time since this nightmare started, she’s telling me the truth.
At least, that’s what I so desperately want to believe.
“That’s fucked up,” I say quietly.
“I know.”
“You were sent here to evaluate whether I needed to be eliminated. And you couldn’t even report that I saved your life?”
“It wasn’t like that. If I told them I thought you saved me in the warehouse then…”
“Then what?”
“Then my cover would be blown once more. It would mean that you knew the truth about who I really was, which mean you would have to be…dealt with. No witnesses, definitely not in America’s superhero.”
“That’s really, really fucked up.”
“I know.”
So she cared. So it wasn’t all fake. So at least some part of what we had was real. But where’s the triumph in that? Where’s the vindication? All I feel is tired. Angry. So goddamn lonely I can barely breathe. Because even if she was honest, even if she had feelings for me, we can never go back to the way things were. That door has closed, like a jail cell slamming shut.
“I dream about you,” I hear myself say. “Every night. I dream about Montana, about the barn, about you looking at me like I was worth something. And then I wake up and remember what you are, and I want to—” I stop. My hands are shaking. “I don’t know if I want to kill you or keep you. And I don’t know which one is worse. Both options are bullets loaded with pain.”
Her hand touches my arm.
I flinch but don’t pull away.
“Nate.”
“Please.” My voice breaks. “Don’t say my name like that. Not when I don’t know who you really are. Not when everything between us was fake.”
“I told you. It wasn’t all fake.”
“I know you did. But how am I supposed to believe that now?”
She moves closer. Close enough that I can smell the soap from the shower, feel the heat of her body through the thin cotton of my shirt.
“You’re not,” she says quietly. “You’re not supposed to believe anything I say. That’s the smart play. That’s what you should do. That’s what you’ve been trained for.” Her hand slides up my arm, over my shoulder, coming to rest against my jaw. “But since when have either of us been smart about this?”
I swallow hard. “This is a bad idea,” I manage to say, but I don’t move away from her touch. If anything, I lean into it.
“The worst.” Her words fall softly.
“You’re my prisoner.”
“I’m aware.”
“I should hate you.”
“So, do you?”
The question hangs in the air between us.
I don’t answer with words.
I kiss her like I’m trying to punish her for every lie.
My hands fist in her hair and I drag her mouth to mine with none of the tenderness I showed her before.
She gasps against my lips, and the sound goes straight to my cock.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” I growl against her mouth.
“I know.”
“And it doesn’t mean I forgive you.”
She pulls back just enough to meet my eyes, and what I see there makes my chest constrict. I don’t see any fear in them, and there’s no calculation either. Just heat and hunger and something raw and open and bare.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” she says. “I’m asking you to fuck me.”
Christ.
I shove her back onto the mattress, and then I’m on top of her, pinning her down. She looks so dainty and small beneath me but I know the truth now, she’s anything but.
“Is this what you want?” I drag the T-shirt up her thighs, my hands rough on her skin. “You want to fuck the man who’s holding you captive? The very man you betrayed so callously, the man who could kill you with his bare hands?”