Nya

I turned, looked at him where he lingered in the doorway, and remembered my earlier thoughts.

Patrick Murphy was the best lover I’d ever had.

Patrick Murphy was dangerous.

Both of those things remained true, yet it wasn’t immediately clear to me which was more important. A side effect of my current state I told myself, though I knew that wasn’t true.

I tried to focus on the danger, but when my eyes locked with his, the fear that would have been reasonable, probably even warranted, was nowhere to be found.

Which only left what Jade had told me. She’d said he was suspected of being a mobster. Suspected but not proven to be, the annoying voice at the back of my brain whispered.

The little voice might have convinced me, but I remembered how easily he’d stolen that car. I didn’t like thieves, but Patrick was so much more than that. I wasn’t sure how I’d missed it before, but I could see it now, knew it as clearly as I knew my own name. He might not have been indicted, might never have seen the inside of a cell, but he was a mobster. There was no doubt about it.

That was effective enough to get me focused on what mattered right now, which wasn’t how I felt when he looked at me, how much I wanted him. No, that didn’t matter at all. All that mattered was getting out of this, getting away from him. I’d deal with everything else after.

“You’re awake,” he said, walking toward me slowly.

I arched a brow, looked at him skeptically, surprised, a little bit angry that his first words to me were so mundane.

“I thought you liked to be direct, didn’t enjoy a meaningless conversation?” I practically spat, parroting back his words to me last night.

Except, that was a mistake because using those words reminded me of how I’d felt when he’d said them. A small part of me had thought it was utter nonsense, that I was being sucked in by a bullshit pickup line. The bigger part of me had been intrigued, especially when he’d said he wanted to cut through the pretense and take this where we both knew it would end up.

I hadn’t even hesitated, and I was paying for that now.

He stopped, still several feet away from me, studying me. I couldn’t read his expression or tell how he was reacting to what I’d said. “Given circumstances I thought I’d make a minor concession,” he said as though it was the most magnanimous thing in the world.

A flicker of anger sparked in my gut. “Don’t feel like you need to patronize me,” I said, finally standing from where I’d been perched on the edge of the bed. It was a small thing, but I didn’t want to be in a vulnerable position, not with what I’d just learned. And I didn’t want him to see me as weak as I had been before.

“As you wish,” he said, his words seeming more like a threat than a concession, a feeling that was confirmed with his next action.

Moving so swiftly I didn’t have time to react, he grabbed the phone I was clutching from my hand, dropped it to the floor, and then stomped it, the sound of cracking glass and twisting metal muted but undeniable.

It startled me but I managed to stay still as I watched him pick up the shattered phone. He cracked the bent phone casing, pulled out some small component, and then crushed it under his foot.

“What—Why did you do that?” I sputtered, blinking as I looked down at the floor and then back to Patrick.

“A small but necessary countermeasure. I should have taken that from you before.” He held my gaze for a moment but then continued. “Who were you taking to and what did they tell you?”

In the few moments Patrick had been here, he’d changed. When he had entered the room, there had been something of a softness about him, a little bit of tenderness, maybe. But it was gone now, and when I looked into his fearsome gaze, all I saw was the expectation that I would answer.

I had asked that he not be condescending to me, and it seemed he was fulfilling my wish. Given what Jade had said, my own sense of him, that should have frightened me a little, and it did. But only just a little, a fact I chose to overlook for the moment.

“My friend. And no, I won’t tell you her name. She told me you’re a criminal.”

“Jade? I assumed she’d be the first person you called,” he said.

He stepped closer to me, looking at me expectantly. I looked back at him, incredulous.

“Is that supposed to scare me? That you know her name? Is that your way of warning me? Making sure I know that you can find me and the people I care about?” I asked. My voice didn’t tremble even a little bit, and I was proud of myself for that.

“No. If I wanted you to know those things, I would tell you. But it’s good that you picked them up on your own,” he said.

I scowled, shook my head. Paused only long enough to acknowledge how stupid it was to provoke him and then proceeded to do it anyway. “Oh, so you’re going to threaten me by not threatening me?” I said.

“Nya, the entire premise of this conversation is that I’m direct. Trust me, if I threaten you, it won’t be with implication,” he said. As he spoke, he stepped ever closer and stopped in front of me.

Though it was insane, though I hated myself for it, I couldn’t help but react to his closeness.

“Why are you here?” I said, my voice bordering on anger, something I hoped was more than a front for the attraction that nothing seemed to be getting rid of.

He reached up, tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear, and then let his fingers graze along my cheekbone. “To see how you are.”

Nothing else he could have said would have thrown me as off balance as that did. The words, his tones, were completely at odds with the ones before it, but also, at least to my ear, completely genuine. As far as I could tell, not that I trusted myself at this point, he had been honest with me, so I had no doubt that his sweet, gentle expression of concern was sincere. And despite myself, that sincerity softened me.

“I…I’m fine as you can see,” I said, trying to ignore the softness and focus on the shit that mattered, like the fact that he was a freaking mobster.

My stupid voice trembled, though, a fact I knew Patrick hadn’t missed.

I’d looked away but then lifted my eyes to meet his, again not quite able to read the expression there, especially not when I was too busy trying to keep myself from kissing him.

We stayed that way for a moment, me staring at him intently as I tried to fight that draw that seemed so irrational but that couldn’t be denied, Patrick simply watching. A moment later, he spoke.

“Are you afraid of me?” he whispered, his voice lit with the faintest curiosity, his expression not changing.

“Of course not.”

The words popped out of my mouth with no conscious thought or reflection on my part. Almost instantly, I wondered if that had been a mistake. Maybe the smarter move would have been to pretend, try to use teary eyes to get him to leave me alone. Trouble was, I wasn’t sure I wanted that. Wasn’t sure about that at all.

I also wasn’t sure what Patrick was thinking. He simply stared at me, his eyes intense, close enough I could see the faint lines that gave his face character, the slight flare of his nostrils as he breathed.

“Good,” he finally said.

Then he leaned forward, brushed his lips against mine in the gentlest kiss.

My mouth fell open automatically, and in the next breath, the gentleness was gone.

He swooped in, kissed me hard, his lips almost bruising as he pushed his tongue into my mouth.

My reaction was instantaneous and intense.

On instinct, I yielded to his kiss, giving in to his mastery of my mouth. But as overwhelming, as awe-inspiring as his kiss was, I wasn’t content to simply receive it.

No, my body, my pride, demanded that I do more than let him kiss me. So I followed that instinct, kissed him back.

Though our mouths were locked in dueling combat that was equal parts passion and stubbornness, I smiled when I felt his breath hitch in his powerful chest. It was brief, almost an imperceptible inhale, but I’d heard it, felt it, and it gave me solace.

Solace that was short-lived.

Patrick took advantage of my moment’s pause and knotted his fingers at the back of my head, holding me in place. I tilted my head, but that only brought us into closer contact, more fully sealing his lips over mine, pushing his tongue deeper into my mouth.

His breath hitched again, but even though my eyes were closed, I knew it was with laughter, could easily imagine the arrogant smirk on his face as he held me still, my own breath coming out short now.

My anger at this situation, at him, only served as fuel for my passion, and my entire body felt electrified. Everywhere we touched, my breasts smashed against his chest, his strong fingers against my scalp, the hand that he used to cup my ass and press our lower bodies together, each of those points of contact felt even more intense than the night before.

That shouldn’t have been possible, not with the way I’d felt then, all that had happened up until now.

Shouldn’t have been possible, but it was. Because as Patrick kissed me, I thought I would come out of my skin with my desire for him.

His tongue tracing my mouth, his hands holding me still, his hard body against mine, all of them chased away anything and everything that wasn’t him, chased away anything that wasn’t the desire that only he could fulfill.

I moaned, my breath pouring out of me harshly, only to be captured in Patrick’s mouth, devoured the way I wanted him to devour me, the way I knew he could.

Then he was gone.

It took me a few seconds to realize that he’d pulled his mouth away from mine, and when I did, I reached for him, groping for closer contact. I only stopped myself when I opened my eyes and met his, saw the self-satisfied look in them, though he had the decency not to smile.

“Breakfast is in fifteen minutes,” he said.

The asshole had the nerve to whistle as he walked from the room.