Page 47 of Sinner’s Game

I nod. I hate that I’m a burden. A mess that popped into his life and has to be dealt with. But there is no way that I’m going to argue with him. I want him beside me. If I’m honest with myself—and it is so hard to be honest with myself—I want so much more than that. I want him to kiss me and touch me. I want him to make love to me. I want to forget everything around us, and I want to do that in the circle of his arms.

I turn away, muttering a thanks as I start to drown under this wave of desire. This isn’t me. I’m not a woman who does sex for escape. Who intentionally gets involved with a guy to whom relationships are anathema.

But none of that seems to matter. I want him. His touch. His protection. I want to lose myself in his kisses and forget everything that’s going on around us.

I want it … but I truly don’t know what to do about it.

I draw in a breath and force myself to look up at him. “What do we do now?”

“We need more information,” he says. “Matheson’s phone had the images that fed from his security cameras. But those usually self-purge to save storage on your device. I’m betting that the footage also feeds to a hard drive that will have a historical record of everything any of those cameras have recorded.”

“And maybe we can find an image where he or she’s not in a disguise?”

“That’s the idea.”

“How would we know it’s the shooter? I mean, if he’s standing in the living room talking with someone, how do we know that person’s my double?”

“I don’t know,” Ronan says. “We’re taking this one step at a time. And the first step? Tonight, I’m going back to your house.”

Chapter Sixteen

“You doing okay?”

I lift my head long enough to glance at Ronan, who’s at least three feet above me. I cling tightly to the branch I’m using to steady myself, hoping I won’t rip the small tree out of the steep hillside, sending me tumbling into the dark below.

“I’m climbing up the back of a cliff so I can break into my own house,” I say. “I’m doing as well as can be expected.”

I hear his low chuckle. “You didn’t have to come with me.”

“Um, yeah. I kinda did. One, I don’t want to stay alone, even if your place is Fort Knox. But more important, I’m at the center of some freakish murder mystery, and no way am I just sitting back and letting other people figure out why. And by other people, I mean you.”

“Would it help if I say I’m sorry?”

“Did you do anything to set this in motion?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t need to say it,” I reply, struggling for purchase as I climb to the next position.

He extends his hand, and I take it, letting him tug me up the short distance to his side. I stumble a bit, and his hand goes around my waist, holding me tight.

“Steady. I wouldn’t want to lose you.”

I swallow, suddenly keenly aware of his proximity. I know he means lose me down the hill, but in that moment, I’m tumbling in an entirely different way, and I tell myself this isn’t real. I need to pull it back. My emotions are all out of whack, my adrenaline through the roof, and I’m locked in the embrace of this man that I have been crushing on for a very long time.

But it’s not real, and I know that. I know it. But despite all of that, I still want to fall into the ocean of his eyes.

“You steady now?”

I’m suddenly aware of just how tightly I’m clinging to him. I nod. “I should’ve gotten a place with a regular backyard.”

“But then the neighbors might see us breaking in.”

I meet his grin. “Well, there’s that.”

My home backs up against one of the more treacherous of the hills that rise above Laguna Cortez, and because of that, it doesn’t have a useable backyard, just a huge balcony that extends out over the hillside.

There’s a ladder that extends from the balcony to a small shed, though, and it’s to that shed that we’re climbing. “What do you expect to find in there?” I ask him, but he just shakes his head.