“You don’t kill women, you only kill your husbands or men on your list,” I told her. “Come on, let them go, they don’t have anything to do with us.”
She moved back from Mimi and cut her bindings with the knife. I moved forward slowly, helping Kemp up, checking his pulse before I told them to go. Mimi reached out for me but I dodged it, closing the door on them before I turned back to Maurelle.
“Now, what?” I asked her. “What’s your endgame?”
“I didn’t really have one,” she replied.
“You always have an out,” I told her. “Always.”
“I know,” she said, her face showing the contradictions of emotions flowing through her right now. “You mess me up, and I don’t know why. I don’t understand why I feel this way.”
I understood, because I felt the same way. She had me questioning the oath I swore when I became a cop. I wanted her to clean up these men who did bad things, and I wanted her to be free. I wanted to run off with her and live on a secluded island, never letting the big, bad world harass us, but it would never work.
My investigation had opened up all of her crimes, which meant she’d never get away free.
Not anymore.
We were each other’s enemy, forcing us to live through the most difficult decision of our lives.
We were kryptonite to each other, and yet we were drawn together.
Every damn time.
Maurelle came over to me, the knife in her hand still. Her eyes were dark and intimidating, and yet my body reacted in a completely different manner.
Jesus, what was happening to me?
“Upstairs,” she said, her voice had an edge to it that had my cock hardening and my heart hammering in my chest. It wasn’t a request, it was an order.
I turned, walking to the base of the stairs, knowing full well that she could plunge that knife into my back and end it all here.
My hand on the railing felt like I was clutching onto the last slivers of my life as I pulled my foot up to take the first step.
Maurelle
As Kane marched up the stairs, I tried to figure out why I was doing this. Why didn't I just take him and flee? His bitch of an ex-wife would have alerted authorities by now, so this was dangerous.
Danger was something I lived for, but the thought of getting locked up, and unable to be myself scared me.
Yet, I couldn’t stop.
Once we got to the top of the stairs, he stopped, and I realized I hadn’t been up here so I had no idea where to go.
I held the knife to his back, ripping his shirt open, revealing his olive skin.
“What are we doing, Maurelle?”
God, why did I react so viscerally when I heard my own damn name? What was it about this man that made me want to act recklessly? Why did I do the things I did for him?
“Where?” he asked me, feeling the cool steel of the blade against his skin. I nicked him as I got closer, the knife slicing his skin.
“Bedroom.”
He continued down the hall until we got to a door, he opened it and walked inside, turning around, and pulling his destroyed shirt off him. I could see the outline of him, and his muscled chest through the glint of the outside lights shining through the window.
“They’ll be coming for you by now,” he said. “This is dangerous.”
I closed the distance between us, knowing what I wanted, and that I would never leave until I got it. I grabbed the back of his neck and dragged his head down to mine, my lips tasting his before I held my head against his, our foreheads pushed together, almost painfully.
