Page 68 of Murder Notes

A single drop of cold rain splatters on my nose, the wind lifting. I rotate and start back toward the house, toward the location it all took place. I need to be in that spot now, I realize, to truly face the past, and I quicken my pace, running harder, faster, until finally I’m there. I stop by the edge of the water and turn toward the beach and that place where I swear I can still see my imprint. I walk forward, into the sand, halting when I know I’m at my destination. That’s when a shadowed figure appears just beyond the patio of my house. I am no longer alone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

It’s as if I’m living one of my nightmares: The beach. The blood in the water and sand. The murder. The man in his fitted suit, who is now walking toward me. I don’t move toward him or away. I stand my ground. I make him come to me, the questions he hasn’t answered, past and present, clawing at me, demanding they be heard. Pissing me the fuck off.

He pisses me off.

He makes me want things, do things, be things.

He stops in front of me, and the space between us is the exact location where that monster raped me. “Why are you here, Kane?”

“You should have told me about the tattoo on the body.”

“Why? So you could handle this for me? Like you handled things for me that night?”

“Yes. So I could handle it like I did that night. You were drugged, Lilah. I was protecting you.”

“Were you?” I demand, cold rain now beginning a steady fall, soaking my face and hair. “Because what I remember is me lying in the sand, naked and exposed, and when I pushed to my feet to look for help, you were talking to that monster. Talking, Kane. He didn’t deserve conversation.”

“You think I wasn’t going to make him pay for what he did to you? You think I wasn’t going to kill him? I had him in a choke hold, trying to find out if he was a fool alone or for hire when you came at him.”

He means when I saw the knife in that monster’s belt that I knew he’d intended to kill me with, and I grabbed it. And I’d shoved it in his chest, over and over and over again. Twelve times that felt so damn good it was terrifying. “I didn’t feel like waiting on you to finish your chitchat with him,” I say. “And how do I know that’s what you were doing? No matter what question I ask, you never give me a straight answer. I don’t know what is real and what is a lie with you.”

“I’ve never lied to you, Lilah.”

“You think leaving out information isn’t a lie?” The rain explodes, an eruption of force, and I shout through it. “This is getting us nowhere. Go home, Kane!” And I don’t wait for his reply. I start running for the house, my hair and clothes drenched by the time I yank open the sliding glass door and rush inside, but when I turn to shut the door behind me, Kane shoves his way in, sealing us inside. “I said go the fuck home, Kane.”

“Not yet,” he says, shackling my arm and walking into me as he pulls me closer, his hand releasing my arm to move to my spine, the other at the back of my head. “And in case you didn’t get that. Let me speak your language. Not fucking yet.” His mouth closes down on mine, and he is kissing me, his tongue stroking long against mine. The taste of him is familiar in a way no one else would understand. It’s dirty. It’s sexy. It’s that addictive danger that is Kane Mendez. It’s a man who I do know would have killed for me, and I wanted him to. Oh God. I wanted him to.

I shove on his chest, tearing our lips apart. “I hate you right now.”

“Show me,” he says, releasing me to shrug out of his wet jacket.

I could say no. I should say no. But he is the answer to the storm inside me that hasn’t been answered in far too long. And he owes that to me. I pull my shirt over my head and toss it away. Our gazes collide, that old burn between us igniting. We undress. No words. No questions. We just strip, and I am not beyond enjoying every last inch of his hot, hard body. I deserve this. He owes me this. He does the same. He watches me. Touches me without ever touching me. Possesses me in a way no other man ever has. But only with his clothes off. I will never allow him more than that again. Yet there is no denying that the understanding between us, the freedom to be who we are, that we cannot be with anyone else, still exists, and why wouldn’t it? We’ve killed together. That’s a special kind of screwed up. Bonnie and Clyde have nothing on us.

He reaches for me, but I’m already there, moving toward him, and when his fingers tangle in my damp hair, his tongue licking into my mouth, I let him taste how much I hate wanting him. How much I hate his secrets. How much I hate how good he feels. I’m still embracing that pissed-off feeling. I’m full of rage, and I grab his hair and pull. “I do hate you.”

“I know,” he says, his teeth nipping my lips, and not gently, a spike of pain and arousal shooting through me, and by the time I’ve recovered, I’m on my back on the couch, with his big body on top of me. “But you know what they say about hate,” he says, one of his hands on my breast, the other cupping my ass. “It’s a fine line and I can live with that.”

“I’m sure you can,” I say, pissed off all over again, but still arching into his touch. “Because then you get to keep your secrets.”

“And what about your secrets, Lilah?” he challenges, shifting us to our sides, and him between my legs. “What are your secrets?”

“I don’t have secrets,” I say, a bitter laugh that is about self-hate, not humor, escaping me. “I mean, except stabbing someone twelve times.”

He tangles fingers in my hair, pulling my head back and forcing me to look at him. “I would have killed him for you with no guilt. I would have made him suffer. Isn’t that what you want to hear? And my willingness to do it doesn’t make me a monster any more than you wanting me to do it or doing it yourself makes you one.”

“You’re justifying your actions and mine. That’s dangerous.”

“You like dangerous, Lilah. That’s the real problem, isn’t it? You don’t think you should. You don’t think you should want me and us like you do.”

“I shouldn’t. I can’t.”

“And yet here we are,” he says, and he doesn’t give me time to process those words or even allow them to produce a reaction. He presses inside me, driving into me, and angling us together. And before I know his intentions, he’s sitting up and taking me with him. I am now on top of him, straddling him, my fingers digging into his shoulders. And I know why. His message is: this was my choice. I want this. I want him. “Bastard,” I hiss.

His lips curve, his eyes raking over my breasts before they return to my face, and he declares, “Damn, I’ve missed you, Lilah Love.”

I lean into him, pressing my lips to his ear. “I hate you, Kane Mendez.”