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“Blake Walker, my boss, is a world-class hacker,” Adam says. “Even governments come to him for help. Everyone comes to him. He can go unnoticed. Give me something, anything, we can help with to prove we’re trustworthy.”
“We’ll think about it,” Aaron states. “Right now, we’re walking out of here, and you don’t want to try to stop us. You might as well not follow us. That won’t go well.”
Smith eyes Adam, and the two men share a look before they slowly step back and leave us a path to exit. Aaron links his fingers with mine, and we start walking, and just when I think we’ll keep walking, Aaron stops next to Adam and says something to him I can’t make out. I don’t catch Adam’s reply if there is one. Smith and I are staring at each other, and he’s tormented. I see that in his eyes. He does care about me. He does. We did have chemistry, but he wasn’t “the one” for me. I wasn’t “the one” for him. But I know he’s honest. I know he won’t betray me. I just hope his need to protect me doesn’t make him do something stupid.
“Don’t,” I whisper, hoping he understands. Don’t push. Don’t fight Aaron.
He doesn’t get a chance to reply. Aaron sets us in motion; we’re moving again, and in a blink, we’re outside of the bagel shop and inside the subway on the other side of the glass door. We weave in and out of the crowd, and my skin prickles with the sense of being watched. Aaron doesn’t guide us to the tracks. We go street side, and the path we travel is wild, fast, and stealthy. It’s a good hour before he pulls me into an alcove next to a church, and he stares down at me.
“I can’t lose you, either. I won’t. Do you understand?” I do. He’s telling me Smith can’t make the wrong move, or he’ll end up dead. I should fear that message, but I don’t. Aaron’s mouth closes down on mine, and I sink into the kiss, into the desperation I taste on his tongue. He really was afraid he’d have to hurt Smith to get me out of there. He was even more afraid he’d lose me, and I believe the reasons are many and complicated. We’re complicated, but we’re together, finally, back together.
Chapter twenty-two
Ashley
The air is chilly, but he is hot, both in body, passion, and temper. So very hot.
Aaron tears his mouth from mine, the passion and need between us palpable. “I didn’t like that man looking at you and touching you.” His voice is low, guttural, with a lethal quality to it that declares those words a threat but not to me. To Smith.
“He’s worried about me.”
“He’s a man who wants to fuck you. There is no other definition for who he is to you, not after the stunt he just pulled. That affects how a man thinks, which he just proved. It affects what he does. It affected what he did.”
“He is a good man,” I say, because denying the truth, that Smith and I had a connection, that Smith still feels it, is a lie, and I can’t take any more lies. “He was conditioned to distrust you. He needs a chance to come around. He’s just trying to protect me.”
“Don’t defend him right now, Ashley. That’s not in his best interest.”
“Because you’re going to kill him?” I challenge.
“I won’t rule it out. Does that scare you? Do you want me to take you back to him? Do you now trust him more than you do me?”
“Stop it,” I say, balling his shirt in my hand. “Stop it now. You know I don’t want him.”
“Do I? You fucking wanted to run to him the minute we had trouble.”
“Because we need someone to trust.”
“And I’m not him, right?”
“Stop it,” I order again.
“I’m just speaking the truth, and that’s what you want, right? No more lies. I can comply. I don’t have the agency to force me to lie anymore. Let’s go.” He laces his fingers with mine and eases out of the alcove to scan the walkway. I want to pull him back and confront him. I want to fight, but that isn’t exactly the smartest thing to do while we’re in survival mode, so I keep my mouth shut. We can deal with this when we’re secure and alone, though, I don’t know when the word ‘secure’ will ever become real for us again, if ever. Is that even possible?
For now, Aaron leads me back onto the crowded sidewalk, and I push aside the war between us, taking in my surroundings, practicing the skills he’s given me, he’s teaching me to protect myself. I scan. I inspect. I observe, and I wonder if the Walker team is somewhere out there where we can’t see them, but I don’t think that’s possible. Aaron is one of the few people who can defeat their level of skill, but his skills and theirs combined give us a chance, maybe our only chance, of surviving. I have to get us past what happened today.
We enter the subway again, and when we’re finally on a train, standing at a stabilizing bar, he pulls me close, his hand on my hip, leg pressed to mine, his touch burning possessively, his eyes burning with anger. I’m angry, too. I am, but the way he’s touching me, the way he clearly needs and wants me, hits all the right spots to calm my mood. I thought he didn’t care. I thought he left to never come back, but he’s here. He cares. I love this man. I love him so much. He loves me, too, or he wouldn’t be here, trying to give me my life back, trying to create freedom for us to be together.
My hand settles on his chest, but he doesn’t touch me. He just stares at me, anger radiating off him. I might have calmed down, but he hasn’t. And he doesn’t. He holds onto me, keeps me close, but through three more trains and a good mile of walking, he never comes down. Finally, we enter our hotel, and it’s more of the same. He’s silent. I’m silent. He holds onto me in the elevator and presses me into the corner, his hands on the wall by my head, his eyes glinting. Now I’m angry all over again. He just won’t ease up, and it’s pushing my buttons. Tension expands between us on the elevator ride up to our floor, the anticipation of our explosion to follow.
The doors open with a ding, and he pushes off the wall. This time, we don’t touch. We exit the car and walk toward our door. The minute he swipes the door unlocked, I open it and enter the room, whirling around to wait on him. He enters, shuts us inside, and flips the lock into place. He turns to face me. “I get angrier every time I think of you shoved against the wall with Smith pressed against you. Did you fuck him?”
“I’ve answered that question. No. I didn’t fuck him. I don’t want to fuck him, but right now, you’re making me so damn angry, I don’t want to fuck you either.”
He’s in front of me in an instant, shackling my arm and pulling me to him. “Maybe that’s because you’re thinking of him.”
“Stop.”
“Not yet. I’m not even close to done. I lived months fearing for you, wanting you. I touched no other woman. I wanted no other woman. I didn’t leave you by choice. I would never leave you by choice, and yet, you didn’t know that.”
