Willa started to crawl out of bed, but James’s hand shot out and wrapped around her upper arm. “Where are you going?”

Busted.... “Nowhere,” she said softly even though it was just the two of them at his house in Arizona. They’d flown in that afternoon, and except for a few bathroom and shower breaks, neither of them had left the bed. On one hand, it was incredibly stress relieving. On the other, it was just reminding her of everything else she should be doing. James pulled her back down and into the crook of his body as he wrapped his big arms around her and nestled his face into her neck.

“Then be nowhere with me.”

She had no idea whether he meant for that to sound so romantic, but she practically swooned. “I just....” She tried to take a note from his book and use as few words as possible to get her point across. “I’m so happy. And I shouldn’t be.”

“Is this about your father?”

She thought about the night before. She had stayed outside while James and Jennifer had gone inside. They’d found her father’s body and the burned remains of what they’d probably been looking for. The Department of Defense documents. When she thought about her father not being around anymore, she felt... a lot of things. She did feel sad, but she was also grateful. Relieved she didn’t have to worry about his activities. Guilty she didn’t feel worse. Guilty that she felt bad about his death.

“I think I’m getting the hang of this whole denial thing,” she admitted, grateful that the bulk of the emotion hadn’t caught up to her yet.

“It will hit you eventually.” James ran his fingers over her bare shoulder. “And it will be a shitty day but you’ll get through it.”

“I’m happy you have faith in my mental capacity for craziness.”

“You survived getting stabbed,” he pointed out.

“Barely.”

“Barely stabbed still counts.”

It was hard to argue with that considering her side was still sore where the knife had gone in, even though it had been healing great.

She twisted in his arms until she faced him. “So what now?”

He narrowed his eyes, as though thinking it over. “Well, it’s late but I have a good two rounds left—”

“Not tonight. I mean what now? They’ll find my father’s body sooner rather than later and Toni is sending off the evidence to the Department of Defense right now.” Toni had asked Willa what they should do and Willa agreed that it should be done. Even though Jadon couldn’t be specifically punished for killing Jules, the information contained on his servers could help break up a lot of the criminal enterprises he was involved in. Just because he was dead didn’t mean the crimes he was participating in would stop.

“You can stay here with me.”

“Think I could be a desert dweller? It is pretty with the mountains and everything.”

“I have a place on the beach in Florida too.”

She stiffened in his arms. “You what?”

“The Florida house. For when I want an ocean breeze.”

“How many houses do you have?”

“Three,” he said. And then he added, “In the States. I have some stuff overseas.”

“Wait a minute. You’re rich?”

“I have a healthy savings account,” he said nonchalantly.

“And you never thought about mentioning this earlier?”

“Well, I would hate for you to fall in love with me for my money.”

She snorted as she pressed a hand to his chest and pushed him over so she could straddle him. “Silly. You know it was your body that made me fall in love with you.”

His hands skimmed up her thighs and came to rest at her waist. “I guess I still have to work on winning you over with my warm personality.”

She bit her lip and looked down at him. It was still so surreal to be here with him. She kept on waiting for the other shoe to drop or for James to get sick of her, but so far he had been nothing but a perfect gentleman. A perfect gentleman with a few caveman-like tendencies, but she’d grown quite fond of his caveman side....

“I wouldn’t get too comfortable,” he said, as though reading her mind. She tensed and started to crawl off him, but he stopped her with his firm grip on her waist.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because as long as Hart is locked up, Toni is going to be on the warpath. I don’t care what she said about keeping you out of the way. We could be called back any minute. She’ll burn the entire city down if that’s what it takes to get Hart out. And if Hart and Sterling are in the same city together?” He tsked his tongue. “I think hell is about to come to Chicago.”

Oh. He was worried about Chicago falling apart, not their strangely intense relationship. She relaxed and fell forward, pressing her palm into the mattress next to his head. “Then we’ll face hell together.”

He reached up, cupping the side of her face with his big palm, and looked into her eyes. “You’re a terrifying woman, Willa.”

She couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not, but she played along with it. She leaned into his hand and smiled at him. “You better watch yourself, James Weston. I’m a dangerous woman.”

She expected him to laugh or make some other sarcastic comment, but he didn’t do either of those things. Instead, he leaned up and brushed his lips against hers before he whispered against her, “That’s why I love you.”

~~~THE END~~~

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