After a beat, one corner of Devon’s mouth lifted into a half-smile. “You get what you want a lot, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Kylie answered without a trace of apology.
“Guess arguing with you would be kind of pointless, then,” Devon said, pressing his forehead against hers for a brief second before lowering his lips for an equally quick kiss.
“Mmm hmm.” Her belly squeezed with warmth and goodness and about forty other things as she kissed him back. But they had enough to worry about with Fagan just waiting for his chance to pounce. Complicating things between them? Yeah, that just seemed stupid.
“Now, why don’t you finish getting your stuff packed up while I grab a couple of waters from the vending machine?” Kylie asked. “Then we can get back on the road and take a dent out of some of this trip.”
“We’ll hit the vending machine together on the way out,” Devon challenged, but Kylie had already grabbed a couple of dollar bills from her purse.
“It’s literally ten feet from our front door. Plus, faster is better, remember?”
“Fast might be good, but safe is better.” Devon took a nasty-looking knife out of the nightstand drawer, tucking it into the side pocket of his duffel as easily as if the thing were a butter knife going into a drawer. “I don’t want you out of my sight.”
A soft laugh pushed past Kylie’s lips. “Everything worked out just fine when we did divide and conquer at the convenience store earlier.”
“That was a mistake.” His knuckles turned white over the nylon strap in his grasp, his spine unfolding into a rigid line. “I should never have let it happen. I won’t fuck up like that again.”
Kylie had closed the space between them before she even registered her brain’s command to move. “Hey. We were barely separated in that mini-mart, and technically, you could see me the whole time. Plus, the whole thing went without a hitch. You’re being a little hard on yourself, don’t you think?”
“I think I’m not hard on myself nearly enough.”
“What happened to you on your last tour in Afghanistan, Devon?”
Her cheeks burned at the brash question that had flown from her mouth, but there was no sense trying to take it back. What’s more, she didn’t want to. He hadn’t exactly been a chatty guy when she’d met him five years ago, sure, but the titanium intensity and all of these scalpel-sharp edges were definitely new acquisitions.
Whatever had gone down out there in the desert had changed him. Not a little.
Devon opened his mouth, and for a second, Kylie thought he’d actually answer. But then the flash of emotion disappeared from his amber stare, and all at once, he was as unreadable as ancient Greek.
“Nothing. Look”—he shifted back to run a hand over his crew cut—“Fagan’s dangerous as hell, and the thought of him trying to hurt you makes me want to kick the shit out of something. So, until his ass is in a maximum security lockup where it belongs, you’re going to have to get used to being stuck with me, okay?”
“Okay.”
“What?” Devon’s brows climbed in undisguised shock, but Kylie was done fighting the reality of her situation.
Xavier Fagan wanted her dead, and despite Devon’s fierce demeanor and arm’s length attitude, she trusted him one hundred percent to keep that from happening.
“If going together is the safest plan, then that’s what we’ll do,” she said. Taking a step back, she gave him enough space to finish getting his things into the duffel bag, not even flinching as he slid his gun into the holster beneath his arm. Devon opened the curtains, scanning the mostly empty parking lot with care before moving to open the door.
“Come on,” he said, his voice as soft as the rest of him was tough. “Let’s get you closer to that spaghetti dinner.”
“Now that sounds like a plan.” Kylie pressed her smile between her lips, squaring her shoulders beneath her white cotton tank top. Popping her aviator sunglasses over her face, she followed Devon’s lead to the vending machine, relieved to see that her sly glances around the parking lot revealed nothing suspicious. She took the two bottles of water he passed in her direction, turning to make her way to the car so they could get the hell out of Dodge…
And ran smack into the motel manager.
“Oh!” Kylie exclaimed, her pulse going from zero to six thousand as she dropped one of the water bottles to the dingy pavement in surprise. The guy was stealthy as hell for someone who stank so badly, and she let out an involuntary cough at the lungful of smoke he’d just exhaled into her air space.
“Sorry about that. I was just getting a drink on my smoke break. Didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”
He offered up a crooked, yellow-tinged smile, and God, could she be any jumpier?
“Oh, no. It was my fault.” She retrieved the bottle at her feet, tucking it into her purse along with the one she’d managed to hold on to.
“Aw, you’re not in a hurry to leave us, are you?” the manager asked, his glance taking an obvious slide over the duffel on Devon’s shoulder along with the keys in his hand. “You just got here a coupl’a hours ago. It’s not even dinnertime yet.”
“We’re passing through,” Devon said, clipping his tone close enough to the quick that the manager held up both hands in concession.
