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“I don’t even know you.”
“You do. You know me.”
“You mean I know the financial investor who was really a CIA agent?” I don’t want to give him time to reply, but he doesn’t give me a choice.
“I would have told you before the wedding.”
“That’s it? You’d have told me before the wedding? And all would be peachy and perfect?” Tears burn in my eyes. “I didn’t even know your real name,” I state because that has gutted me.
“I know I lied to you, but that’s my job, Ashley. I was on a mission. You were a part of that mission, close to someone I needed to get to.”
“Who?”
“Someone connected to the law firm you worked at. That’s how this started, but you, you did what no one else ever had. You became personal.”
“Personal?” I demand. “Is that what you call asking me to marry you when I didn’t even know your real name?”
“That was real. I was going to leave the CIA. I was going to tell you everything and leave.”
He releases me and cups my face, our foreheads pressed together. “I would have come for you sooner, but it wasn’t safe. I would have explained everything, but it wasn’t the right time.”
All the warnings about him from the CIA play in my head. He’s dangerous. He’s a killer. He’ll wipe out anything and anyone in his path. “What are you going to do to me now that you’re here?”
“This,” he says, and before I realize his intention, his mouth closes down on mine, a deep slide of his tongue that I feel from my head to my toes, and I try to resist. I do, but he tastes like the only man I’ve ever loved. He feels like the only man I’ve ever loved. He smells like the man I thought I’d marry. He’s the only safe place I’ve known my entire life. For just a moment, or two, or ten, I need him to be that man. I sink into the kiss, and I kiss him with all that I am and will ever be, and it’s such a passionate kiss, such a perfect kiss, the kind that fills up every empty place I’ve ever known and overflows with this man.
“Do you feel us now?” he asks, tearing his mouth from mine.
“Of course, I do,” I whisper. “Because you made me love you. I can’t just turn that off. I want this, and us, to be real, but it’s not.”
“We are what’s real. I’m going to make you feel that.” And then he’s kissing me again, and I know I’m a crazy person, but I don’t fight him. If he’s going to kill me, he’s going to kill me. There’s no fighting him, but fear isn’t what I feel. I’ve been so alone without him. And I’m still so in love with him. If I’m going to die, at least I want to live in the fantasy of this man loving me one more time. Just that thought has me pressing my hands under his shirt to feel his hot, hard muscle beneath my palms.
He pulls his shirt over his head, and then he’s pulling jacket and shirt off before our mouths collide again, and he’s taking us down on the mattress. We’re side by side, facing each other, and he catches my leg with his. “I missed the hell out of you, woman,” he says, his voice low, gravelly, guttural. Like he means it. I feel him and us in that moment. It feels real, but it always did. We were the most real thing I have known in my life, and that’s terrifying. He’s terrifying, but as his mouth closes down on mine, the possessive, hungry taste of him touching my tongue, I remind myself I’ve decided to live the fantasy one last time.
I need him.
I want him.
I hate him.
I love him.
He presses me to my back and never stops kissing me. His hand pushes down my bra, his fingers teasing one of my nipples. I moan, and there is a vibrating sound from somewhere. “Fuck,” he murmurs. “That’s our warning, baby.”
“Warning? What does that mean?”
“I’ll make this all up to you, Ashley. I promise. I promise, baby. I will make it up to you, but right now, I need to protect you.” He sticks something in my mouth, and it melts the minute it touches my tongue. “What did you—”
Chapter four
Ashley
Awareness comes to me with a warm sensation and a strange sound, almost like a crackle. I blink, and the warm glow of a fire in a stone fireplace is in my direct view. It’s then that I notice the soft, snuggly blanket covering me. I lay there, basking in the comfort of the moment and trying to remember where and how it came about. But I’m sleepy, so very sleepy, and at the moment, I’m obviously safe and comfortable, so much so, I’m not ready to do anything but shut my eyes and drift away. In my mind, I’m back in time, back in Houston, and I’m waking up in Noah’s bed for the first time, waking up to the sensation of his big, hard body wrapped around mine.
“You’re awake,” he murmurs at my ear, his voice like warm, honeyed whiskey that sets me on fire and then soothes every part of me.
“Hmmm,” I reply groggily, basking in everything that is this man. “I am.” My eyes pop open as the full impact of the morning after hits me. “Wait. Is this where you want me to leave?”
He gives a low chuckle and nuzzles my neck. “The last thing I want right now is for you to leave. Unless,” he presses the thick ridge of his erection between my thighs, “do you want to leave?”
