I stepped in close again, sliding my other hand around the back of his neck, grabbing him to make him pay attention. “I’m not letting you die on my watch, you silly kid.” The next words forced themselves through my lips, even as I tried to bite them back. “I won’t let another ally die while I can do something to prevent it.”
Now that I’d said it, I wanted him to understand me, and I pressed my forehead against his as though it might help me transmit the thought, physically force understanding into his brain. I squeezed too hard at the back of his neck, making him wince.
“Igetit,” he hissed.
“Convince me that you do.”
I’m not sure how it happened. He flowed forward a few inches until it wasn’t just our faces touching but our whole bodies. He grabbed my face, one hand on each side of my head, before planting his mouth over mine.
And I kissed him back.
His tongue tasted sweet like the candies he’d been sucking all night, red Twizzlers that I’d bought at the gas station as a joke, but he’d actually eaten. His mouth was warm, demanding, and when I pulled back it was only to bite at his lower lip, test its fullness, see if it was as luscious as it looked.
It was. And I wanted more. I wanted to pull his clothes off, go down on my knees and taste his cock, see if it was as delicious as his mouth.
He broke away, gasping, falling back against the car. I let him go. He stood there breathing hard for a moment and then asked, “Is that what I am? An ally? Just last night you were saying you and I were natural enemies.”
I swallowed down my spit, or maybe it was his mixing with mine, and willed my semi away. “That was before we found ourselves in the same boat. Whatever else you are, the enemy of my enemy—”
“Is my friend?” He gave a short, sharp laugh. He was looking too hard at me, too thoughtfully, so I turned and made my way back around the car, and got back in.
“Thanks for covering my ass back there,” he said, once he’d climbed back into his own seat.
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m sorry I kissed you.”
I had been hoping he wouldn’t mention that, that we could brush it away, consider it just a sign of attempted dominance. That kiss, and my reaction to it, was not something I wanted to examine. I gave a chuckle, a shake of the head, and started the car. “Well, Hanson never kissed me, but I’m going to see it as a by-product of a near-death experience.”
He looked almost disappointed. I wonder what he expected me to say.
“Where to now?” he asked after a moment.
“We go back to the safe house and go to sleep. In the morning we try to figure this out.”
Chapter Fifteen
Baxter
“So, what happened around the back of the house?” Angelo asked as we drove through Brooklyn. He hadn’t made me put a blindfold on again, but I didn’t point that out.
My mind was full of the kiss I’d just given him, that Angelo had just brushed off. Like he was so used to being suddenly kissed it didn’t even register. I wasn’t even sure why I’d done it. He’d asked me to convince him that I understood what he was telling me, but kissing and convincing seemed pretty far apart from each other.
Was it fear? Fear that he really did mean to kill me there by the river, “disappear” me, and I’d taken the first way I could think of to distract him?
Or was it just plain old lust overtaking me?
Maybe Angelo had been right, and it was merely an inappropriate reaction to having my life saved. My analytical brain had recovered, was reclaiming my thought processes now. One way or another, I observed, it seemed like I was determined to completely fuck up my career.
I should probably try to get word to Villiers that I was okay and still alive, and definitelynotthe Central Park Slayer. Maybe I should explain the whole lost gun issue…since I was pretty sure that’s what the task force had found and that in turn had made me a suspect.
But when he found out I reallywaswith Angelo Messina, it would undercut anything I said.
No, the task force would never believe that I was doing this with the purest of intentions, and especially not if my gun had been lying there in Central Park. Still, ballistics should show it wasn’t the gun used to kill Bachman. Hopefully. Ballistics was not infallible, and the Feds might still—
Shit. I was even starting tosoundlike Angelo now.Feds.
“Kid?” Angelo asked. “What happened at the house?”
