The firelight glow fell softly on her face, making her seem so strikingly beautiful that I felt an ache inside that I wasn’t prepared for. It wasn’t simply lust. The emotion on her face made her even more stunning. I could see the flames reflected in her eyes. She didn’t seem scared, but she did seem somber, almost sad.
Maybe she was worried about the future. This had been hard on her. My stupid compliments weren’t going to make it right. But I did want to make it right. I wanted to take her mind off all the bad things that had happened and make her feel good. I wanted her to feel safe. I wanted her to feel happy.
And I wanted her.
“What are you going to do next?” she asked, staring into the coals.
“I’m heading back to New York tomorrow.”
“And I just stay here waiting?”
“I won’t put you in danger again.”
“So you’ll be in danger, but I get to stay safe.”
“That’s the idea. You can’t help me with this. I don’t want you to.”
Her smile was wistful. “Protecting me?”
“Yeah,” I said gruffly. “And I need to find out what the hell is going on. I can’t do that from here.” I considered how much to tell her. Then I decided to simply tell her the truth. No more games. She deserved to know every bit as much as I did. “There’s a guy I need to find. I was supposed to meet him earlier today to get the rest of my money.”
“The money for killing me.”
It was best to say nothing when there was nothing good to say.
She surprised me by leaning her head on my shoulder as she watched the fire. I could smell the shampoo in her hair and her clean skin. It was distracting because it was turning me on. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to complain.
“Why didn’t you go?” she asked after a moment.
“He was luring me into an ambush. I’d show up and a bunch of associates and wanna-bes would be there to kill me. He was never going to pay me.”
“He was going to betray you?” She sounded shocked.
I nodded, smiling a little at her outrage.
“How do you live that kind of life? Don’t you get tired of it? You can’t trust anybody. Everybody’s looking for an angle. Everybody’s looking to betray everyone else if it gets them anything at all.”
“I trust my brothers.” But I knew she really wasn’t talking about me. She was talking about her father using her as an unwitting courier to get that USB drive to the Cayman Islands. She was hurt. I’d lost my father a long time ago, but maybe she was losing hers a little right now. It made me hate him even more, but it broke my fucking heart for her.
We were quiet for a while. I put another log on the fire. When I curled up on the couch, she curled up even closer to me. I put my arm around her, holding her, wanting to comfort her but also wanting to kiss her.
“Why did you become a hitman?” she asked quietly.
“Times were rough. Pulling a trigger was something I could do.” I wasn’t going to tell her all the gory details. She wouldn’t find them pretty, and for whatever reason, I didn’t want her thinking badly of me. Not right now. Not when her warm and soft body was pressed against mine and I could smell her, and I was half-hard just from this much.
“I love your mother…but your father’s gone?”
“Yeah. He was drunk and crashed his car when I was a kid.”
“God, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up—”
“Don’t worry about it. That was a long time ago. It’s not an original story. Not anything special. He was a drunk, but he loved us in his own way. Did his best, you know? Sometimes your best isn’t good enough.”
“Your older brother got into crime first?” she asked hesitantly. “How did that happen?”
“He never said. But everyone looked up to him. Our dad was dead. Cal put food on the table. People looked at him differently. Respect. Fear. He wasn’t just some Irish tossbag with no money and no hope.” I realized I was only talking about myself and decided to change the subject back to something more interesting. Her. “Did you always want to be a doctor? I mean, since you were a kid?”
She smiled a little. “Yes. I played doctor to my dolls. How cliché is that?”
