I don’t want to run. I want to sit down and hear everything that he’s done that I’ve missed. I want to hear every story. Every bar fight. I want him to show me every tattoo.
He sucks in a breath and takes a step closer.
"Leaving is your specialty," he grunts.
The words land and I feel every one of them. No anger. Just truth from a man who's accepted something that's still killing him.
I arch an eyebrow and stand. Because Harper Jones doesn't take hits sitting down. And regardless of anything else, I just got tied up in a barn by his family.
We're close now. Too close. I can feel his warm breath. Can see the way his jaw tightens when I rise, the way his eyes drop to my mouth for half a second before snapping back up.
"Is this really how you want to play this, Ace? I've been tied up in your cousin's barn, kidnapped, I might add, and I don't even get a hello?"
He shoves his hand into his pocket and bites his lip. That thing he does, his teeth dragging slow across his bottom lip, that used to make me lose my mind. He knows what it does.
"Hello, Goldie," he drawls it out. That Arizona rumble rolling through every letter.
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Hearing that name on his tongue is almost my undoing. My cheeks burn. My knees soften. Something deep in my stomach pulls tight, a feeling I haven't felt since the last time he had his hands on me.
I hold my ground.
We stand there, mere inches apart. The barn dust floating in the golden light. His eyes on mine. Mine on his.
Everything else disappears.
His hand twitches at his side toward me, then stops. I curl my fingers into my palms so I don't reach for him.
Six years of wanting this man. Six years of running. And now he's right here, close enough to touch, and neither of us will be the first one to break.
So we just stand there like statues. Burning alive in a barn in Arizona with twelve inches and six years between us.
Two broken hearts staring at each other.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ace
Song- Fire In Your Eyes, Chase & Status, Maverick Sabre
She's looking at me the way she used to look at me when she was about to run.
That heat behind her eyes. That stubborn tilt to her chin. The way her chest rises and falls just a fraction too fast, like her body's already making decisions her brain hasn't signed off on.
Six years. Six goddamn years since I've been this close to her. And she's standing in front of me in a skirt and cowgirl boots with rope marks on her wrists and fire in her eyes, and I don't know if I want to scream at her or kiss her until she can't breathe.
Both. I want both. All I ever fucking wanted was her.
"Hello, Ace," she says, and her voice is steady, but her hands aren't. I clock that. I clock everything about her, always have. The way she's jabbing her nails into her hands to stop herselffrom grabbing my shirt. The way she keeps swallowing. The way her gaze keeps dropping to my mouth and snapping back up.
Good. Look. Remember what you walked away from.
"So," I say, pulling off my hat and running a hand through my hair. "You're the reporter."
Her jaw tightens. "I'm a criminal journalist for the LA Press."
