“And if I am your mark?” I’m not sure what I’m asking. Would she do it? Could she do it?
Her thighs squeeze my hips, body trembling, breaths puffing out of her with muffled purrs, but she manages to respond. “Have you come up with a solution?”
That’s not an answer, and yet it is.
Ryker’s advisement wallops me.“She doesn’t sound like someone who would willingly stick around. Do you really want to risk it all for someone who won’t reciprocate?”
That’s always been my fear—that my siblings or I would fall for someone who would only use us. It happened to my mother. Twice. She loved two men who never viewed her as more than a commodity. Ultimately, it’s what killed her.
This is different though. There’s no denying how zealously I crave Zara, but I have plenty of willpower.
I piston my hips several more times, my fingers meandering and teasing, but resisting the path of exploration that I most want to pursue, until she’s a quivering mess in my arms—deliriously close to her climax. Sweat beads my hairline, my dick is painfully hard, and my balls draw up with a threat. I don’t think I’ve ever dry-humped before, but I am dangerously close to coming in my pants.
She chants my name under her breath like a dare. Cunning, glowing, and manipulative. And, fuck, I want to watch her unravel. But …
Restraint. And punishment.
“That doesn’t deserve an orgasm, Miss West.” Gripping her wrist, I halt my thrusts, feather my lips against hers—the ghost of a connection I won’t bestow—and jerk her gun away from myside. She doesn’t fight me because I quickly add, “But I have a possible solution that could relieve you of your obligation to the client.”
“I’m listening.” She drops her legs to the ground and holsters her pistol on her inner thigh.
So damn sexy.
And unaffected. What the hell?
Stepping back, I let my solution to her issue swish over my tongue, swallowing the bitterness it evokes. “Marriage.”
Her mouth pops open as she digests that. “Marry? You?”
“No, no. Not me. That would be—”
“Right,” she cuts me off, snatching her coveted cherry jar. “That would definitely be a line.”
I wasn’t anticipating her being insulted—well, I was. But not because I wasn’t willing to marry her. A carnal possessiveness thrums in my chest. Maybe that’s partly why I push forward, to feel her out.
“That’s not what I meant.” I rub my hand over my jaw, searching for a way to explain it. “Your life would be exponentially more complicated if you were to attach yourself to me. But there are some powerful men who owe me favors—”
She throws her palm up to stop me and hisses, like a possessed cat, ready to claw my eyes out. “What you’re suggesting is that you sell me to the highest bidder because that’s the only freedom I could hope for. A suggestion you wouldnothave made to a man.”
I knew this would be her reaction. And the thought of someone touching her makes me want to saw every male in the vicinity into pieces, which is so fucking unreasonable since I know this can’t go anywhere. But …
“You are giving me very little to go on, Zara. And I know you can’t. I get it. But when my members are in trouble, they trust me. That’s how I extend valuable solutions. The only detailyou’ve offered is the fact that you might’ve been hired to kill me. Other than keeping you here, under my protection, which you aren’t happy about, this is the only idea that can possibly trump a hit on you for a botched job. And it will be a botched job because I don’t intend to offer myself as a sacrifice.”
“How selfish,” she deadpans with a grimace that holds more complexity than her stony sarcasm. But then her chest inflates, and she glances away, trying to hide whatever is plaguing that beautiful mind of hers. “You’re not wrong, and you owe me nothing, but I’m still so fucking disappointed in you.”
That is a cleaver to the chest, more painful than I could’ve imagined. I don’t ever want to be a person who lets her down.
Stripping my tone of its reproach, I try to reassess. “Have you spoken to your handler?”
She heads for the door, but the expression on her face as she passes me sours my stomach. She has spoken to her handler. They know she’s compromised, and they’re fucking leaving her here.
If that’s the case, I will hunt her dad down and finish him the way my deranged father vowed to.
When she reaches the threshold, she clasps the molding and peers back at me, like she did this afternoon. But the mood is decidedly more somber.
“You want to know why I’m an assassin, Axel? Because I was raised in a world where women were sold, beaten, raped, abused, and murdered. My mother was one of them. And I knew if I didn’t become as skilled as the monsters doing it, I could become another nameless victim. You might have the upper hand now, and I might be in some shit with the people I work for, but I trained my whole life for this. So, mark my words: when you least expect it, the roles will reverse.”
I don’t doubt it. Toxic fucking cherry blossoms.
