Both of us pause.
Her lips are slightly parted. Her cheeks are flushed.
“Lance,” she whispers.
Art’s face flashes through my mind. But right behind it is the sound of him telling me to kill a man. Of Genevieve asking where he is. Of her panic and his absence and my goddamn traitorous pulse.
I step back so fast I knock into the counter. “It’s late. You should get some sleep.”
Her lips close, and the flush stays, but the softness behind it dies, her expression shuttering like a door slammed in her face. And I hate myself for putting it there. But not as much as I’d hate myself if I found out what her mouth tastes like and had to live with it.
“Right.” She dries her hands, not meeting my eyes. “Early-morning torture session?”
“Six a.m.”
“Monster.”
“So I’ve been told.”
She moves toward the stairs, Cavall trotting at her heels. At the bottom step, she pauses.
“Hey, Lance?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For telling me everything.”
I dip my chin. “Night, Half-Pint.”
“Night, Champ.”
She climbs the stairs, and Cavall settles outside her door, taking up his post.
I sink onto the couch and press the heels of my hands against my eyes. I was supposed to be the sacrifice. The one with nothing to lose. That was the deal I made with myself all those years ago—take the hits, protect the people I love, and never want anything for myself because wanting things gets people killed.
And now there’s a woman asleep upstairs who makes me wantsomany things. Things I have no right to. Not only because she’s Art’s, though that alone should be enough to stop me. But because if I let myself feel this, she becomes the biggest weakness in my life, and I’ve already got too many graves I’m responsible for.
I’d do nothing but put another target on her back.
Chapter 24
Genevieve
He’s closer than he should be.
I don’t know where we are. Somewhere dark and warm, the edges blurred like my mind can’t hold the room together. Everything smells like him, like leather and campfire andcomfort.
His chest is pressed flush against my back, heat bleeding through my clothes like a brand. His breath ghosts across the shell of my ear, and tingles shoot down my body.
“Genevieve.”
He says my name like it hurts. Like a confession dragged out of him against his will.
The sound goes straight between my legs.
My body betrays me completely, pressing back into him. His arm slides around me, his hand coming to rest at the front of my throat. His fingers splay there like a collar, thumb brushing my pulse, and then he squeezes just enough to make my breath hitch. A soft command. A reminder that he could take more if he wanted.
His other hand finds my hip, thumb digging in, then drags upward under the hem of my shirt, fingertips skating over bare skin. Goose bumps erupt in his wake as he traces my rib cage, lingering just beneath my breast.
