She doesn’t answer and we go to the room.It’s big, with two king-sized beds, a TV mounted on the wall, and a long table with a desk at one end.The bathroom door is open, the tile floor green and the shower curtain has tiny pinecones on it.It will do while we catch our breath.
Scarlet goes to a coffee machine and takes out the jug.“Want one?”
“Sure.”I drag off my t-shirt and after she’s filled the jug I drop it in the sink.It needs a good wash.
And unlike my hands, the blood would come off.Me, I was stacking up sins the way most people stacked up books.But at least I hadn’t gotten Scarlet killed.She’d witnessed me on a killing spree but she was still breathing, her heart still beating.
I would never have forgiven myself if she’d been hurt, or worse.I would have hated myself until the end of time.Scarlet is the real deal, a decent human being who I don’t deserve to call mine.
****
Scarlet
I sip the coffee.My hands have finally stopped shaking.Long ago I’d taught myself some deep-breathing techniques to handle the aftermath of one of Billy’s rampages, and they’d gone on to help after particularly traumatic or violent cases in the ER.I’d done them now, while Reaper was showering.They always helped.
He appears in nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist.His tan skin and dark body hair is a stark contrast to the white material.Damn, the man is a hot ball of sin who knows exactly how to push my buttons.
I swallow.How can I be thinking of sex now?After the awful events of the day.
My body doesn’t seem to care and I press my thighs together as I watch him walk to the mirror and run his hands through his hair, his idea of combing it.He removes the wet dressing and replaces it with a dry one.The wound is healing well.
The road rumbles in the distance and nearer someone shouts about car keys.I ignore it all and walk up behind Reaper.I wrap my arms around his warm, still-damp torso, and pressed my cheek to the center of the cross inked onto his back.
He stiffens slightly and holds my forearms.“What are you doing?”
“Can’t you tell?”I close my eyes and inhale his scent.Man and sex and a hint of soap.“I want you.”
“No, you don’t.”His voice was gruff.“Not really.”
He turns me around so my back is against the wall and looms over me.
I look up into his face.A drip trickles from his hair to his temple.“Reaper?”
“I’m no good for you.I almost got you killed today.”
“That’s not how I see it.You saved me.”
His lips curl downward.“If I hadn’t taken you to that house, you wouldn’t have been in danger.”He pauses, sucks in a breath.“You wouldn’t have had guns pointed at you.You wouldn’t have had a knife at your neck.You wouldn’t have had to kill.”He shakes his head.“That was all my doing.”
“No.”I touch his stubbled cheek.“I got on the back of your bike willingly and went to care for Consuela.I didn’t exactly fight you.I knew what had to be done.”
“I could have found another doctor.”
“Could you?”
He makes a strange growling sound.
“And would he have been as sexy as me?”I smile and reach for his towel.It needs to go.
“Scarlet.”He grabs both my wrists and hauls them above my head.
My torso elongates and my shoulders tug.His grip is tight.
“You have no idea what you’re asking for.”His body presses into mine.
“I know exactly what I want.”I glare at him.I hate it when people tell me what I want or think.Only I know that.“I always have and always will.”
“This time you’re mistaken.My world is dangerous, lawless, my hands are soaked in so much blood it will never come off.”I pause.“I made my first kill at seventeen.An asshole who was going to shoot me if I didn’t shoot him.Seventeen, Scarlet.”
