“I’ve just come to check on you, Firecracker,” he says as innocently as ever. “Heard some banging around and figured I’d make sure youwere okay. You know, doing the neighborly thing.”
My gaze narrows. “The only thing you know how to check on is your dick. Though with your head so far up your own ass, it’s a miracle you can even find it. After all, you’re the reason instructions come with pictures.”
“Fuck, baby. You know I love it when you talk to me with that feisty little mouth,” he says, his gaze roaming over my body, taking in the way my tits are squished into my workout crop. “Tell me, how was your night? I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Hmm. Strange. Because I certainly heard you,” I say. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but at one point I could have sworn I heard you screaming my name.”
He scoffs. “Impossible. Because to have heard that, you would have had to be close . . . say, somewhere inside my bedroom.”
I shake my head. “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say. “But I really must get going. I’ve got a busy day ahead of me, and I’ve got to get a run in first.”
“Oh, a run. Don’t mind if I do.”
“That was not an invitation.”
“Oh, of course not. I wouldn’t want to be seen with you anyway. You probably run like a turtle with a bad case of explosive diarrhea,” he tells me, that smirk only getting wider. “And to be honest, there’s no way in hell you could keep up with me anyway. But I’d invite you to try. It’d be amusing to watch you floundering behind me.”
I scoff and step straight into him, and as he holds my stare, helooks at me as though he knows every last one of my dirty little secrets, and for just a moment, I can’t help but wonder if he actually does. But it’s not something that could ever be said out loud, because the moment that happens, everything changes.
If my suspicions about him turn out to be right, then there’s a very good chance that he has the same suspicions about me. If he is an assassin, then he would be trained to spot these things the same way I have.
Tilting my chin up toward him, I press my hand against his chest, feeling the warmth of his skin through his shirt. “You know, I’m jealous of everybody who hasn’t met you.”
His hand locks around my waist, pulling me in hard against him. “That’s a real shame,” he murmurs, that deep raspy tone rumbling through his chest against mine. “I was just starting to think you’d be devastated without me.”
I smile sweetly, my fingers splaying on his chest. “Devastated? That’s cute. You overestimate your impact. But let me clue you in, you’re not a tragedy,” I whisper, pushing up onto my tiptoes, my gaze skimming over his face as he watches me, refusing to look away. “You’re a bad habit.”
He grins, and I realize too late that despite thinking I’d just stabbed him in the back and twisted the knife, I also inadvertently admitted to wanting him.
“A bad habit, huh?” he pushes, his thumb brushing across my waist and sending goose bumps soaring across my body. “Those arealways the hardest ones to quit.”
“I could quit you if I wanted. It wouldn’t even be hard,” I say, bringing my hand up and trailing a finger over his chest, my nail dragging over his shirt. I move it around, trailing it higher and higher until I drag it straight across the front of his throat, a silent warning of exactly what I’m capable of. “Don’t worry, though, I’d make it quick.”
Raiden laughs, his arm tightening around my waist, but the look in his eyes tells me he clocked my threat the moment it was whispered on my lips, yet there’s not a single part of him that seems threatened by me in the least. Hell, he looks more confident than ever.
He leans in, his lips skimming along my collarbone and sending shivers soaring down my spine. “I’d love to see you try, Firecracker,” he breathes, his lips moving over my sensitive skin. “But if you were capable, you would have already done it.”
I suck in a breath and pull back just enough to see him clearly, holding his stare as my pulse riots beneath my skin.
The confession is there. Loud and clear. Balanced between us like a blade neither of us is willing to pick up. Because the moment one of us says it, the moment it stops being an implication and turns into something real, everything fractures.
The lies.
The roles.
The carefully constructed worlds we’ve each built our lives on.
And neither of us is reckless enough to be the one who lets it fall.
He starts to inch away from me as if realizing the very same thing,and just as I go to make an excuse to pull this door closed between us, both our phones chime with incoming notifications. I instinctively reach for it, my gaze dropping to the screen to see the brand-new contract staring back at me.
He does the same, his shoulders pulling back as he looks over his phone, and at the exact same time, we both look up, his stare colliding with mine as it becomes undoubtedly clear that the exact same contract lingers on both of our phones.
And just like that, it turns into one hell of a competition. The target doesn’t even matter. This is all about besting him.
“I umm . . . I gotta go,” I tell him, stepping out into the corridor with him, pulling my door closed behind me, and hastily locking up. “Yoga waits for no one.”
He’s already starting to move, and I fall in beside him, both of us moving with a brisk pace. “Yeah, uhhh . . . wait. Yoga?” he says, glancing at me, his gaze narrows. “I thought you were heading out for a run.”
