The way she made a little noise in the back of her throat when I pulled her closer.
Don’t start.
Not now.
Not with a bounty on our heads and Dean Maddox tearing down the dark web for us.
“Lark,” I say, voice lower than I intend.
“Yeah?”
“About last night,” I start. “About the kiss?—”
She lifts a hand. “If you’re about to say it was a mistake, I’m leaving you alone with the canned bread.”
“It wasn’t a mistake.” The words come out before I can edit them. “That’s the problem.”
She smiles. Slow. Wicked. Soft around the edges. “Good,” she says.
“We can’t… lose focus,” I add. “We can’t afford to get sloppy. Not now.”
“I know.”
“But when this is over…”
Her breath catches.
“When this is over,” I say quietly, “I’m not going to pretend it didn’t happen. I’m not going to pretend I don’t want more.”
Her eyes shine with something bright and hot and terrifyingly hopeful. “Deal,” she murmurs.
We stand there for a second, letting that promise settle between us.
Then she claps her hands once. “Okay. Enough feelings.”
I huff out a laugh despite myself. “Always ruining the mood,” I say.
“You’ll survive.”
She’s right.
I don’t know what the hell we’re walking into next.
I don’t know who’s hunting us, or how many layers we’ll have to peel back before we get to the rot at the center of this.
I know one thing:
As long as she’s here, alive and defiant and completely impossible,
I’m going to do whatever it takes to keep it that way.
TEN
FIGHT ME (NICELY)
LARK
We have our meeting with Ozzy and Arrow, and they send us work. It’s busy work, sure, but at this point I’ll take anything. We need to find these fuckers, and sitting around a cabin staring at one another isn’t helping.
