Page 24 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

“Scrotal trauma, neighbor girl? Sounds like your stance on crime and punishment’s changed a little since we last talked about it.”

I give her the full nasal delivery when I say it, but inside I’m burning with curiosity. She all but recoiled when I suggested last week that Navarro might deserve a high heel to the face.

Her mouth snaps shut, the fire draining from her face to be replaced by a carefully neutral expression. “Right. I’d wish for that if I didn’t believe in the rule of law.”

A gust of wind ruffles her hair, and I’m gently smoothing it back before my brain catches up with my hand. The blond strands are soft and cool, and I want to bury my face in them and breathe until my lungs are full of her honeysuckle scent.

Instead, I let my fingers fall away before she notices the burns. Not that she would. She hasn’t even noticed that her safe, friendly neighbor is soaked while she’s dry.

But that’s the whole fucking point, isn’t it?

“I’m always here,” I remind her. “Literally, I’m always here, yes. But I mean if you ever want to talk. Zero judgment.”

She arches one perfect eyebrow. “Anything? With zero judgment, Dr. Mohr?”

Anything. Everything. I can take it.

“Nothing you can say will shock me,” I tell her in my most authoritative the-doctor-is-in voice.

“Yeahhhhh. I doubt that.” But she’s smiling as she says it, and we stand like that, grinning at each other, for several heartbeats before she looks past me at another car rolling down our street.

“We should get inside,” she says. “If you keep standing near the curb, you’re going to get splashed.”

“Good idea,” I say as we walk up the driveway. I try not to favor my punctured leg while my mind races toward Marcus Alan Navarro.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Rue

It’s important to note that I’m not excited when I hear Marcus Navarro’s back door creak open.

Nope, it’s not excitement making my heart rattle in my chest as my whole body strains to listen from his bedroom. Navarro himself won’t be home from his weekly poker game for another three hours, and the house stays dark as soft footsteps travel through the kitchen to the dining room.

A smile spreads across my face. It has to be Gomez. Anyone breaking in to rob the place would be looking for a safe instead of hanging out in front of the glass-front cabinet full of liquor bottles and drug paraphernalia.

There’s a chuff of amusement, and I wonder which of the objects caught his eye. I was particularly taken by the blown-glass bong that looks an awful lot like a big purple dildo. Unintentional, I have no doubt; Navarro would rather be caught dead than wrapping his lips around anything resembling a dick.

I snap back to attention when the footsteps move toward my end of the sprawling ranch. Since I can’t be entirely sure of my visitor’s identity, I glance around for a hiding place. Instead of running for the closet—a move reserved for amateurs and scaredy-cats—I parkour up the side of Navarro’s massive stand-alone armoire and flatten myself across the top. It’s dusty as fuck up here, which just goes to show you that even the rich skimp on housekeeping.

The scuff of the footsteps is just outside the bedroom now, and I’m fairly sure I’ve made myself small enough to be invisible in the dark. Besides, who thinks to look up when they’re sweeping a room?

I press my cheek against the grimy top as a broad-shouldered figure holding a red-light flashlight fills the doorway. He’s masked and dressed head to toe in dark colors, like I am, and fine, there’s no denying the pulse of excitement that fills me.

It’s Gomez. And that means it’s time to play.

When he heads to the bureau and slides open the top drawer, I shift in anticipation, kicking up more dust. It infiltrates my mask and goes right up my nose, which starts twitching like a rabbit’s. Fuck.

I pinch my nostrils together, trying to fight the tickle, but it’s unstoppable. I clamp down hard on the sneeze, but it still emerges as a tiny squeak. Gomez whips around and plays the flashlight over the room. The red light bulb doesn’t disturb night vision or attract attention from a distance, but it’s sure as hell enough to pick me out when it lands on me.

His masked head cocks. “Well hello, Morticia. Fancy meeting you here.”

“Gomez,” I say with as much dignity as I can muster as he swaggers over to stand directly in front of the armoire where I’m treed like a raccoon.

His casual little one-finger salute makes something low in my stomach clench, and he’s so tall he barely needs to crane his neck to look at me. “Did you want to come down or…?”

I pretend to consider it, as if I haven’t spent the past two weeks replaying our encounter in the privacy of my own bed, usually with a vibrator in hand.

“Nah, I’m good up here. Saves me from your dirty tricks.”