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“I didn’t know that?” I open my mouth to explain to him how insane that statement is, but a sudden thought has me clamping my lips shut.
He’s testing me, pushing me, living the same kind of hell I have in different ways. If he’s innocent of the charges against him, and I believe that he is, then he’s been betrayed and hurt. He’s lived with knowing that I was gone, that I was being told what a bastard he was and is, and yet, he stayed away to protect me until that no longer protected me. I get what he feels. I thought he betrayed me. I thought he left me.
He needs me to do exactly what I needed him to do when I was lost and alone. Show up. Be present. Claim me. So, I claim him. I press my lips to his, sliding my tongue past his lips and aching when he doesn’t respond, until he does. Until he’s kissing me passionately, so damn passionately, and I kiss him back. I kiss him with all I am, and when our lips part, I say, “This is where I want to be, right here with you, the man I love.”
He pulls back, searching my face with his burning hot stare, his hand scorching my waist. “And you’re the woman I love and that love is why I’m here, why I met with Smith. I don’t want you on the run like this. I want more for you and for us.”
“Then we have to let them help.”
“We don’t have to let them do anything.”
My heart lurches. “Are you saying we’re walking away?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“You haven’t decided? What about me? What about us?”
“I’m protecting you and us.”
“Protecting me? Or making a decision based on emotions? You hate Smith for the wrong reasons. Are those the reasons you have to think about?”
His jaw tenses, and suddenly, he releases me, walking to the window, yanking it open and presenting me with his back. “Don’t shut me out, Aaron. Don’t—”
“Get your things,” he says, turning to face me. “We need to leave now.”
I have no idea what just happened, but something set him off, and the urgency in his voice tells me not to ask questions. Not now. Now, we need to leave before we end up dead.
Chapter twenty-three
Ashley
Aaron and I shove our belongings into two small bags, and we’re on the street walking in a matter of minutes. “What happened back there?” I ask as we cut down a side street.
“Someone had been in our room.”
My heart that’s already racing skips a beat. “How did you know?”
“A glass was moved a few inches.”
A glass was moved a few inches. I don’t even know what to say to that. He notices when a glass is moved? I need to notice when a glass is moved. What kind of life is that to lead? And yet, that has always been his life. I wonder for the first time what that must be like. I wonder if he loves it or hates it. I wonder what he really wanted in life when this all began for him and if this is where he thought he’d end up. By the time we’re on a subway car facing each other, our hands stacked on a pole, legs twined, I’m searching his face. I’m thinking about the way he was hunted by a cartel after taking down someone inside that cartel. He didn’t want this. It came to him. It happened. He accepted it and thrived inside this life. I have two choices: quit or thrive. I’m with him. I’m going to make sure I thrive.
His brow knits and he leans in close. “What are you thinking?”
“That I’m not afraid. I’m angry. I’m challenged. But, I want to survive. I want us to survive.”
Surprise followed by admiration flickers in his eyes. “We’ll do more than survive. We’ll win.”
Win.
It’s a good word. It promises good things. What those good things look like, though, I don’t know. I don’t let my mind define a fantasy world or life. I don’t let my mind ask questions. There’s only one win for me, and that’s with him.
Aaron strokes my hair, his eyes soft. The car halts and we end up alone: the only ones in the train and this is a relief to me. Alone is safe.
“Can we talk?” I whisper.
He gives a negative shake of his head. He doesn’t trust any public location. He’s afraid of being recorded. I don’t see how that’s possible, not if we were targeted. I suppose if there’s an existing device in the car, it could be tapped, and we could be listened in on.
“But we can do this,” he says, and before I know his intent, his hand is on the back of my head, his fingers tangled into my hair, and he’s kissing me. A deep, possessive kiss that still tastes of his anger back there in the bagel shop with Smith and Adam. He didn’t like the way Smith touched me. He didn’t like the way Smith tried to claim me, but it wasn’t how he saw it. Smith couldn’t claim me. I’m already his, and I was from the moment we met. I want him to know this. I want to kiss him deep enough and passionate enough for him to know this, but already his mouth parts from mine.
