PROLOGUE
Three Months Ago
JACQUES
His gorgeous face stared right back at me, those deep caramel-brown eyes almost inviting me inside so I could swim in them. I tugged my baseball cap a little further back against the hair standing on end.
“My work is pretty boring,” Ezra said, as he dipped a finger into his cappuccino and licked it clean. I clung to every word he said. He was my distraction today. “I’ve signed so many NDAs, I’ll probably have to redact a whole bunch of it if I ever leave, though.”
“Do you enjoy your work?” I asked.
It felt like it was just the two of us in the cafe. He nodded. “It’s straightforward. I like things that are straightforward. Anyway, you haven’t told me what you do. Your dating profile was a little bare. I—” He blushed, turning his head down to stop looking at me. “I thought you were a catfish. And I really should’ve known better than to meet you, but here I am.”
“Here we are,” I said, and my words had some effect on him.
“You know, I love your tattoos,” he said. “Did they hurt?”
“No, I don’t think so.” I turned my arm over and rolled the black shirt sleeve up to show him more of the pieces I had tattooed on my skin. There were a lot of a small additions in the blank spaces. “You don’t have any?”
He shook his head. “I think the only thing I’ve ever done to my skin is a piercing I got in high school. Then people said ‘That’s the gay ear,’ so I removed it and kinda avoided doing anything to my appearance ever again.”
“I think you look good,” I told him. “Why would you mess with perfection?”
Ezra went red right across his face. It was a subtle transition from his tanned skin. He was Korean American, but the white American genes won out mostly. “You really don’t have to compliment me,” he said. “I wasn’t fishing for it.”
“Is there a problem with my complimenting you? I just have this compulsion to be honest with people.” Reaching out, I took his hand in my palm and stroked over the back of it with a thumb.
“I wish more people would be,” he grumbled, staring at the tattoos on my hands. Snakes were my go-to, because I loved the way they wrapped around the skin. He gently turned his hand, turning mine over to see the movement of the double-headed snake up my forearm. “You have snakes?”
“No.”
He laughed. “Justno?”
“If I’m being honest, I saw someone with something similar and decided I wanted it,” I said. “There’s no meaning behind any of these, in case you were wondering.”
Back to eye contact. I was enamored, and for the first time in a while, I wasn’t rushing to get a guy back to an apartment, ripping his clothes off, and giving another meaning to Reaper, the nickname I’d been given.
“So, are you going to tell me what you do, or do I have to guess?”
I chuckled. “You’d never be able to guess,” I whispered. “But I don’t want to tell you. I don’t want to ruin what we’ve got going on right now.”
“You know what, I don’t care,” he laughed. “Do you want to come back to my place? I really want to see more of those tattoos, and I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to see them in front of everyone.”
Glancing around, there were people, unbothered by us both being here, but he was right. However, I didn’t know if he’d even want to invite me back if he knew me. The real me. And I wanted to tell him. I had to tell him.
“I kill people,” I let out in a whisper.
Ezra laughed. “With laughter?” he asked. “I’ve already invited you to my place. Is this your way of blowing me off.”
I tightened my grip on his hand. “You saw my profile, you know I don’t lie.”
He leaned in closer, and the gulp echoing from his throat was loud. “I also saw that you like to play,” he said. “You’re looking to Dominate. You’re looking for someone to submit. I want that. I need that. What should I call you?”
Consent was there, and I’d been honest with him. Was he my soulmate? “But you believe me, right?” I asked. “That my job is dangerous. I... I kill people.”
Through shallow breaths, Ezra smiled and nodded. “You said.” He gulped hard again. “I work for big pharma; they kill people too.”
Maybe he thought I was playing a game. Maybe he didn’t care.
