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“Then stop acting like a dick. I get it. You’re worried. You blame yourself for all of this, but I don’t. I knew what you were. I felt it. I liked it. And don’t ask me to explain that right now. Right now, I just need to know where I am and how I got here.”
He studies me several long beats, his expression unreadable, but the air is thick, the charge between us crackling. “One of the assholes who attacked us hit you on the head. I killed them all and brought you here, to New York City.”
He killed them all. I swear he speaks those words like he’s baiting me, pushing me, trying to get a reaction. I don’t give it to him. I focus on our location. “Back to where this all started, back to where I was forced into protection. I assume that’s to find out how and who started it all. What now?”
He doesn’t pop out an answer. He scrubs his jaw and turns away, pressing his hands to the wall. Seconds tick by and then stretch to a full minute.
“Aaron?” I prod softly.
He pushes off the wall and faces me. “What now? I get you out of this.”
He doesn’t know what comes next. I feel that in him and he’s lost the only person he trusted.
“I have people we can trust,” I offer.
“They’ll end up dead. Is that the price you want them to pay for being trustworthy?”
“I’m not talking about friends. I’m talking about people with skills. Before I was taken into protective custody, a man from Walker Security guarded me. His entire team is made up of Special Forces and FBI and every agency in existence, even CIA.”
“And you just made the case for why we can’t trust them. They’re connected to the CIA.”
“I trust Smith.”
His eyes narrow on me, a fizzle of something in their depths that is dark and dangerous. But then I’ve always known he was dark and dangerous. “Do you now? Because I remember you being someone who doesn’t trust easily, and I haven’t been gone long enough for you to trust him that much. Not without some intimate time spent with him.”
“I didn’t fuck him if that’s what you’re suggesting,” I snap, angry with him now. So very angry. “But I had the right. You left.”
“I had no choice.”
“There is always a choice. He protected me from you. That’s the irony here. I was being told that you were a monster, and he was protecting me from the man I loved.”
His eyes narrow, and he closes the space between us, his hand coming down on my arm, heat shooting through me as he drags me to him. “Loved?”
My hand flattens on his chest, and his heart thunders under my palm. He’s furious now. “You know I love you,” I say, “if I didn’t, I would have ended up with Smith. He’s a good guy. I’d just found out that you weren’t who you said you were. I asked myself over and over why I didn’t just fall into Smith’s arms.”
He stares down at me, his eyes hooded. “And what was your answer?”
“I’d gotten the flowers, which turned out weren’t even from you. They’d promised there was more to the story. That kept me holding on. You wouldn’t let go of me. I wouldn’t let go of you.”
A challenge resonates between us, both of us angry, and the reasons, well, mine at least, are many. He lied. He betrayed me. He stole my life, even without protective custody. He became my everything. He became my heart and soul. I hate him. I love him. His lips thin, and he turns away, his shoulders bunched.
I open my mouth to call him Noah but clamp down on the name before it escapes my lips. “I can’t help it,” I whisper, hugging myself. “You’re Noah to me, and you did that to me. You told me—”
He turns to face me. “I know every sin I committed against you, Ashley. And right now, I want to strip you naked again, take you to bed, and fuck and love you until you remember I’m still the man you fell in love with, but that doesn’t get us to the endgame.”
“Which is what?” I ask, just needing to hear it again, just needing to know that it hasn’t changed.
“A new beginning.” His hands settle on his hips. “A new life together where I make all of this up to you for the rest of our lives.”
“Unless you talk yourself out of it?” I challenge. “Unless you decide you’re bad for me.”
“Is it my decision to make?”
“It’s our decision, and if we really are a we, that’s how it’s supposed to be. I know that the only person you trusted is gone. I know he turned on you, but I’m not him.” I take a step toward him. “And neither is Smith. Smith is a good man.”
“Who wanted to fuck you.”
“I didn’t—”
