"Boss?" Viper called.
"How'sthe place looking?"
"Couple of dishes broken and a closet ransacked. Nothing serious."
"You think you can get a cleaning service there?" I didn't want her to go back to the messy apartment whenever it happened.
"What are you talking about?"
"Fuck, not the in-house one. Just regular cleaning service off the Internet."
"I see." Viper clicked his tongue. "Sure thing. It's a no-brainer."
"Thanks."
"You're catching up on all those missed Thanksgiving dinners?"
"What are going on about?"
"You're awfully grateful lately."
"Fuck off." I clicked off the line, got on my bike and sped out of the garage.
I made it to the compound just past midnight.
I didn't want to be there, but going back to the safe house was a risk I couldn't afford—not for myself, but for her. If Bale guys were onto me, I needed to stay away from Kimmy as far as possible.
She was the worst kind of nightmare I'd had.
The way she looked at me with those huge pleading eyes and all those words she'd been whispering, words no one else had ever cared to say to me, ignited a storm within me. It twisted and churned inside, a powerful force I could no longer ignore. And tonight, I finally understood its true nature.
It was desire. Not the metaphorical one but real—physical—need to own her, to make her mine in any way possible.
I yanked my door open and stepped inside, then locked the deadbolt and braced my hand against the door for three full breaths.
You better get your head checked, Seven.
She is the client. What the fuck are you thinking?
The inner voice was persistent, but somehow the more it tried to persuade me to stop thinking about her, the more I wanted to shut it up.
I stripped off the jacket and let it hit the floor. My hoodie, T-shirt, jeans, and boots followed. I removed the earpiece and tossed it on the crate.
I padded barefoot into the shower, punched the temperature up to hot. The pipes knocked, then the water fell hard, as if it hated the idea of being let out. I got under and let it burn my skin, hoping it would distract mefrom thinking about her pink mouth and the way she'd teased her bottom lip right before I left.
At that moment in the safe house, I'd wanted to feel that mouth on mine. I'd already memorized everything there was to memorize about her face—the way her lips pressed together before she spoke, how she sometimes bit the inside of her cheek when she was nervous, the flick of her tongue when she said my name, the way she looked at me, full and open and raw, when I was in one room with her, even the tiny divot between her eyebrows when she concentrated.
None of that belonged to me. None of it should have mattered. But in the dimness of the bathroom under the hot stream of water, it was all I could think about.
Something of mine.
She was something of mine regardless of how I'd come to know her.
My blood boiled under my skin and shot straight to my cock.
I closed my eyes and tried to shut off my brain. But the images kept coming. Fuck. This was harder than I thought.
I braced my forearm against the tile and palmed my cock, feeling how hard I was already. My body didn't know what to do with itself. My heart slammed against my ribs.
