I got out of the disgusting SUV that smelled like baby powder and death. I wanted to hate Dane for every single truth he threw in my face, but I had no one to blame for my life or my decisions except myself.
“Wait by the barricades,” Dane ordered.
His command sounded no different than Viktor’s, but nothing about it was anything like Viktor. I hated Viktor. He’d taken my virginity against my will, and everything since had been worse. So much worse that I’d become numb.
I stood watching Dane pour gasoline over every inch of the SUV, including Peter’s body, and I didn’t care. I only wished Peter was still alive to smell the stench and feel the agonizing pain of what was about to happen. The fact that my mind was even going down that road should’ve scared the hell out of me, but it didn’t. All I kept thinking about was the way Dane had looked at me in the shower. My whole life I’d been waiting for a man to look at me like that, but when it’d finally happened, I’d turned my back. I was so screwed up, I didn’t even know how to act around a man.
Dane stepped beside me and pulled a lighter out of his pocket.
“I want to do it.” I wanted to be in control of something.
Careful not to set his glove on fire, Dane lit the lighter. “No.”
“Why not?”
“It makes you an accessory.” He threw the lighter with exact precision.
Seconds later, flames licked up the inside walls of the vehicle and raced across the floor toward Peter’s body. “Maybe I want to be an accessory.”
“You don’t.” His arm landed on my shoulder and he pulled me face-first into his chest. “Don’t watch.”
“I want to see him burn.” I didn’t know if I did or didn’t. In that moment, I just wanted to take back something of myself, but I couldn’t even say what that was because I didn’t know who I was anymore.
“I know.” He didn’t let go of me. “But I don’t want you to.”
He was protecting me. Again. Inhaling the scent of his soap and his musk mixed with gasoline, I regretted the shower all over again. “I’m sorry about the shower.”
His other arm came around me. “It’s okay. Let it go.”
Careful of his staples, my hands went to his sides and I rested my head against his chest. “Is that what you do… when you kill someone?”
“Yes.” He rubbed slow circles on my back.
“I don’t feel anything,” I admitted. “About Peter.”
“Because it was justified.”
“It was self-defense,” I corrected. At least I thought that’s what it was. But burning him? I didn’t know what that was. Maybe karma. Maybe just efficient body disposal. I didn’t know and Dane didn’t respond.
The wind howling, the rain pelting, the flames roaring, I didn’t hear a vehicle pull up next to us until a door slammed shut.
A man stepped up beside us and took in the burning SUV. “Dios mio.”
Tall, muscular, close-cut brown hair, brown eyes, the man rested his right hand on a gun in a holster at his waist as if it were as natural to him as breathing. He was as handsome as Dane, but despite the position of his hand, he didn’t have the edge of danger Dane carried.
He tipped his chin at the burning vehicle, then looked at Dane. “You said there wasn’t going to be any heat.” He glanced at me and smiled like an angel. “And you didn’t mention company.”
“André, this is Irina. Irina, André Luna. Let’s go.” Dane didn’t give his friend my last name.
“Copy that.” The man spun and got behind the wheel of a new black SUV with tinted-out windows.
Dane pulled his gloves off, then took mine off and stuffed both pairs in his back pocket. His gaze intent, he dropped his voice. “One down.”
The acrid stench of the fire filled my nostrils, and I stole a glance at the burning vehicle. Flames hid anything that might have been left of Peter’s body, but a horrible sense of dread still washed over me. I couldn’t do this. I had to give Dane an out. This wasn’t his fight. “You don’t have to do this.”
Dane didn’t hesitate. “I’m already doing it.” His hand landed on the small of my back and he led me to his friend’s SUV, then opened the back door.
God, I wanted to get in and remain silent and let this man take care of all of my problems, but life didn’t work like that. I closed the door and looked up at the striking angles of his face. This wasn’t just about the shower. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I called you a male prostitute. I’m sorry I brought my mess to your house, and I’m sorry you had to kill for me.” I sucked in a breath and said what I should’ve said hours ago, “You can drop me off at my mother’s and I’ll leave you alone.” If I was lucky, Viktor wouldn’t have called her yet and told her I’d run, and she’d still let me in. If not, I could ride out the hurricane in the bathrooms her condo complex had by the pool, then figure out what to do next.
His gaze more intense than any man I’d ever met, Dane stared at me. Then he did what I was only beginning to understand was his superpower. He zeroed in on the truth. “You don’t want me to let you go.”
After everything he’d done for me, I couldn’t lie to him. But I was also too embarrassed to tell him the truth. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
For a brief moment, his impenetrable mask fell away and he ran the back of his hand across my cheek. Then just as quick, the mask was back and he opened the door.
He was right, I didn’t want to leave him. So I got in the back of the SUV and he got in the front passenger seat.
The ride back to his house was worse than the ride out. The wind gusted and threw the vehicle around, but Dane and André held a quiet conversation as if they did this all the time. My head spinning, I didn’t listen to what they were saying. Before I could process what I was feeling, we were back at Dane’s house.
André pulled into the garage, then Dane was out of the vehicle opening my door.
André acknowledged me with a polite nod. “Ma’am.” He glanced at Dane. “Stay out of trouble.”
Dane nodded, then André backed out of the garage. Without a word, Dane led me inside, and Hunter practically jumped all over us. Circling, whining, he didn’t calm down until Dane scratched behind his ears. “Good boy.” Dane pointed at his bed. “Go lie down.”
I started to take off my borrowed jacket, but a large hand covered mine.
“You’re quiet. You okay?” Dane slid the jacket off my shoulders.
His body heat at my back, I shivered. “Yes.” I didn’t know what I was.
Gentle hands threaded into my hair and he took my ponytail out. “Let your hair dry.”
I swallowed past the sudden dryness in my throat. “Okay.”
His fingers ran down my arm and he took my hand in his. His breath on my shoulder, his huge, muscular body at my back, he curved his tall frame around me and the room shrunk to just the two of us. “Hi,” he said quietly.
My stomach fluttered, and I couldn’t help myself. I leaned back into him. “Hi.”
He took my palm and bent my fingers toward him, then his thumb ran across my fingernails. “You washed all the blood off.”
His touch was so gentle but so commanding, I wanted to melt into him at the same time I wanted to run from him. “In the shower.”
His other arm curled around my waist and his free hand threaded through mine. “You hungry?”
Not for food. “No.” Wanting this moment to last forever, I closed my eyes to just breathe him in, but a loud creak followed by a horrible crash made me jump.
His arms tightened. “You’re okay.”
“What was that?” Both the storm and his hold on me made my heart race.
“A tree, or part of one.” He squeezed my hands then released me. “I’ll go check.”
His heat left my back and I panicked. “Don’t go out there.” Wind rattled the shutters.
He looked over his shoulder at me. “I’m not. Just checking the security feeds. Be right back.” He disappeared down the hall.
I made my way into the kitchen. My hands shaking slightly, I reached for the coffeepot and filled it with water.
“You drink too much caffeine.”
Startled, I almost dropped the pot.
He walked past me to the couch and casually sat. The same finger that’d run down my arm swept across the screen.
I abandoned the coffeepot and walked up behind the couch. “What can you see?”
“Everything.” The screen cycled through various camera angles of the house and property.
Already there were several trees down. “Will we lose power?” And would he lose his security feeds so we wouldn’t see if Viktor was coming for me?
Dane inhaled deep and let it out slow, then he answered me as if he could read my mind. “I’ll know if he comes for you.”
Another crack sounded and I jumped. “What was that?”
The tablet in his lap, he looked up at me. “You’re safe here, I promise.”
The scent of rain mixed with his brand of soap, and all of a sudden I wasn’t in a hurricane. I was in a Dane Marek storm. His gaze a tether, it wasn’t all the things I noticed about him every time I looked at him, it was all the things he wasn’t that were suddenly obvious.
He wasn’t cruel. He didn’t treat me like a slave. He didn’t intentionally put me on edge or lie to me. He didn’t purposely ignore me or make me wait for his attention as if I were nothing. He was quiet, reserved, and disciplined. And he was risking his life for me. But he was also a trained killer, and now I knew enough about him to make me a liability.
Warm, strong fingers curled over my hand as I gripped the back of the couch. Awareness shot up my arm and I frowned.
“Talk to me.” His thumb ran back and forth across my knuckles.
I stared at his hand over mine. “I’m a liability to you.”
He stilled. “How so?”
I didn’t pull my hand away. “I know too much about you now.”
He slowly nodded. “Do you know I have a sister?”
“No.” I didn’t look at him, but I could feel his gaze on me.
His thumb made a slow pass. “Did you know I was recruited by the CIA after the Marines?”
I wasn’t surprised. I shook my head.
Without taking his hand off mine, he put the tablet on the coffee table. “I turned them down. Did you know I got a Dear John letter on my first deployment?”
“I’m sorry.” His girlfriend must have been a fool.
“I’m not.” He rubbed the back of my hand, all the way up to my wrist. “Did you know Hunter was trained to be a PTSD service animal?”
I looked up and met his gaze. “You have PTSD?” I was shocked. He was so strong and impenetrable.
He didn’t answer my question. “Now you know more about me than Luna.” He threaded his fingers through mine. “Does that feel like a liability?”
It felt worse because it felt like hope, but I wasn’t going to be that naïve about any man ever again. I pulled my hand away. “I think I should get some sleep.”
I made it one step.
“Irina.”
I didn’t turn, but I paused.
“I want to ask you for a favor.”
My shoulders dropped and I closed my eyes. “What?”
“Sit with me.”
Inhaling, not knowing what his agenda was, yet unable to walk away from him, I turned. “Why?”
His eyes were more turbulent than the storm outside as quiet command filtered into his voice. “I want you next to me right now.”
Tingles spread across my skin, and I wanted to sit more than any command Viktor had ever given me, and that was terrifying. I knew Dane was aware of the effect he had on me when he barked out orders. I saw it in his eyes. But this wasn’t that. He didn’t command me to sit, he asked. Except his question came with a condition, and that condition had a time clock of two words. Right now. “Why are you doing this?”
“Sit down and I’ll tell you.”
Viktor had broken me and trained me. He’d used everything he’d ever learned about me against me. He used it for control. Alex Vega had also figured out I was submissive, but he had no idea what that truly meant. His orders had no depth. They were merely words. I only followed them because they were the easiest commands I’d gotten each week.
But Dane was different, so very different that I had no defense against him or the patient expression on his face.
Confused, I reverted to what I knew. My head down, my hands clasped in front of me, I sat.
“You’re not a liability to me.” His voice was all at once quiet and forceful. He tipped my chin. “I will never hurt you.”
Yearning, so intense it hurt, spiked every nerve in my body, and I couldn’t sit. I didn’t understand what was happening, but I knew I didn’t deserve this man’s trust. I pulled away from his grasp and stood. “I’ll leave once the storm passes.”
He was on his feet faster than I could blink. But he didn’t stop there. He grasped the back of my neck and his mouth crashed over mine.
Oh. My God.
Hot and needy, an instant heat crawled up my body and every nerve was on fire. He didn’t kiss me. He drove his tongue into my mouth and took charge. Every stroke was an assault on my declaration to leave. His mouth possessing mine, his hips making a slow grind, he curled his huge arm around me and held me to him, not as if he wanted me, but as if he needed me. Desperately.
My head spun.
Viktor didn’t kiss me, not ever.
But Dane was kissing me.
And my body responded.