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He opens the door, and I don’t know who is outside, but he says, “Evening, ma’am,” and I cringe even before he’s out the door, pulling me in front of him, with his back to whoever he just spoke to. I never see our visitor.
He walks me forward with his hands on my waist until we clear the hallway. Once we’re in the bar, he steps to the side of the wall and places me against it, stepping in front of me. “Drinks? Dinner? My place? Your place?”
“Coffee,” I say, not about to let this get out of hand if that’s even possible at this point.
His eyes heat, wickedness in their depths, before he says, “There’s a coffee shop in my building.”
“There’s a coffee shop next door, too.”
He laughs. “All right. I get it. Slow down.”
“Yes,” I say softly, my body tingling wildly in disagreement as I add, “Slow down.”
His hands shackle my waist, and he pulls me close, our lower bodies aligned. “Coffee,” he says, and he makes it sound sultry. He makes it sound like sex.
“Coffee,” I reply, sounding breathless.
We stay like that for a moment and then he laces the fingers of one of his hands with mine and leads me through the bar. We exit into the Houston winter night, and the cold air is a shock to the heat this man is stirring in my body. I shiver, and he pulls me under his arm, using his body to shelter mine. “Good thing it’s a short walk,” he says, setting us in motion toward the coffee shop he obviously knows as do I.
In all of two cold minutes, he’s holding the door to the shop for me, and I’m hurrying inside. Another couple of minutes, and we both have white mochas as we sit down at a tiny table for two, facing each other, just me and this man.
“Tell me about yourself, Ashley,” he says softly, and when he does, I don’t feel like he’s just speaking words, filling space. There is something in this man’s eyes that says he really wants to know me. And, God, I really want to know him. I want to know him in that deep, burning way you hope you feel one day and then when it finally happens, like now, it terrifies you for one reason: you already know that if you let him, this man will steal your heart, and that gives him power. The power to lift you up and make you burn, yearn, and smile, but he can also hurt you.
Chapter eight
Ashley
“Istill love you. I still love you so fucking much that I can barely breathe thinking about losing you.”
At the sound of Noah’s voice, I come back to the present, emotion balled low in my belly. I turn to find him standing in the doorway, his missing T-shirt and boots back in place. “I still love you,” he continues, “so damn much that it hurts to think about me without you.”
“And yet you just said—”
“I know what I said.” He closes the space between us, stepping close, but not touching me. “And it’s not about playing games. I know every reason I shouldn’t have ever gotten involved with you. I know every reason I should let you go, but I don’t want to let you go.” He lifts his hands to touch me, but catches himself, his jaw flexing before he lowers them. “Don’t touch you, right?”
“I don’t think clearly when you touch me.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“Based on present circumstances, it’s hard to see it any other way.”
“Right. It’s hard for you not to see me as the biggest fucking mistake of your life.”
That emotion in my chest expands, and I think back to that first coffee date. “Maybe we should start again, this time, with hot chocolate instead of coffee.”
“You’re telling me to slow down.”
“Yes. I’m telling you to slow down. I need time to think.”
His hands come down on my arms, his forehead pressed to mine. “I don’t have a slow button with you.”
I think of the past, of the kiss in the bar bathroom, and a part of me smiles. “I noticed.” My fingers curl on his chest, and for the first time since we’ve come back together, I let myself believe that maybe he is the man I know. “But there’s a side of you beyond Noah and beyond the assassin that I need to know.” I pull back to look at him. “Tell me about Aaron.”
“I’m a pretty simple man. I love. I kill. I kill for who I love and that’s you. Does that scare you?”
“And if it does?”
“It should.” He steps into me. “I can’t change what I’ve done, but I can tell you that you have changed me. I promise you, when this ends, you’ll have your freedom, from all of this, including me, if that’s what you choose. I just hope like hell you don’t.”
