Page 92 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

I see her decide to let it go, just like I see the “for now” that comes with it. And that’s fine because I want all her secrets, too. I wrap a hand around the back of her neck and kiss her again, and she sinks into me, her hips tilting to meet my immediately hard-again cock, lingering head injury be damned. But she cuts me off with a quick nip to the center of my lower lip.

“Get out of here.” She hits me with a playfully fierce expression. “And I want to find you resting when I’m done. Don’t make me bust out the blackmail material I have on Gomez.”

The pain in my head flares at even a teasing mention of evidence against me, but when I see Rue’s happy grin, I smile back. Joking about the dark things we do is why this is going to work. Hell, we can do those dark things together, then get naked afterward.

It’s the life I never allowed myself to want, unfurling in front of me.

“I’ll be in bed waiting for you, no blackmail necessary,” I assure her. Ignoring my headache, I crouch and stroke a hand down Cosmo’s back. He lifts his head to study me with somber brown eyes.

I’m not equipped to care for something this small, so I glance up at Rue. “You’ll make sure Pell finds a good owner for him?”

“Of course I will,” she says gently.

“You’ll be better off, buddy,” I tell the dog. “Your owner wasn’t a good guy.”

He licks my hand, which I take as agreement, and I give him one final pet before standing. It takes a beat longer than it should for me to fully straighten, which is extra confirmation that I’m doing the smart thing.

I’m about to leave when I’m gripped by the sudden fear that I’m still in the parking lot of the women’s shelter, about to wake up from this dream that’s fulfilled every one of my unspoken desires.

“This is real, right?” I ask, unembarrassed by the naked hope in my voice. “You’re not going to disappear on me?”

She smiles back. “I’ll see you at home, Hugo.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Rue

Idrive twenty over the speed limit and roll through every stop sign on my way to the duplex. Not the smartest choice for someone who just killed a guy. This is how people like me get caught, but I don’t care.

Hugo’s waiting.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Hugo

I’ve waited for Rue for so long.

So fucking long.

And here I am again, sitting in the dark. Still waiting.

It took me just over two hours to find the tubes when I got back to my half of the duplex and couldn’t banish the niggling little thought that she might not have been joking about blackmail material.

Never in my life have I so badly wanted to be wrong, but in the time it took her to cover up a murder, my own heart has stopped beating.

The garage door rumbles open around three a.m., and she steps inside the kitchen. Her silhouette stiffens, one hand reaching for her knife as the other reaches for the light switch.

She relaxes when she realizes it’s me at her table in my Dr. Mohr costume.

“Honey, I’m home,” she says with a tired grin, flopping into the chair across from me. She’s changed into a red plaid flannel shirt that’s far too big for her. “Everything’s handled. Cleanup, body, car. The guy’s name was Daniel Vartan, and he was crooked as shit.”

Her smile falters when I don’t respond, but she keeps chattering. “I made Pell promise that he’d find a good home for Cosmo. I figure it’s the least we can do after…”

Her voice trails off at the clink of glass hitting the table.

“I found your blackmail material,” I say dully.

She stares down at the two tubes labeled “GOMEZ” before her gaze cuts to the refrigerator, where she stored my blood and DNA in a sealed bag that she buried in an open box of baking soda.