Page 76 of Ash Storm

“Thank you for letting me hold you.”

She nodded, pulling herself together. She wished she’d been able to find some coffee, but she was going to get right on with it—never mind that she was standing half-naked in the middle of his kitchen. “We need to talk.”

“Okay …” he said, his expression a perfect poker face.

“We need to talk about Chloe.”

He nodded as if he’d expected this.

“I’m not leaving until we find her,” she said.

“I figured.”

What?

He isn’t going to fight me on this?

“I didn’t really buy your reason for staying around,” he said.

Oh.

Right.

That made her sound like a real bitch.

“I do want to make sure Griffin’s okay.”

“I got a message from Slate. Griffin’s going to be fine. They’ll be here tomorrow.”

“Okay. That’s good.”

He opened and closed the same cabinets that she’d looked into minutes earlier, with the same level of success. “Right. Let’s go to the main kitchen downstairs. There’ll be coffee there. And we can talk.”

His large, rough hand reached out and gently skimmed across her cheek. “Okay?”

“Okay,” she said. Then, before she could stop herself, “I don’t understand why I’m not afraid of you.”

He pulled his hand back. His brown eyes looked straight into hers. “I never want you to be afraid of me, Re.”

Something fluttered inside her belly. Reka’s name was short. Nobody had ever bothered to give her a nickname before. Until now. And she had to admit she liked it a lot.

But she couldn’t get overly comfortable. She believed him when he said he would never hurt her, but he was still a dangerous man.

The words spilled out of her before she could clamp her mouth shut. “You killed that blond man.”

Ash sighed.

“I didn’t, actually,” he said. “I’ve killed men before. But not him.”

She shook her head. She didn’t want him to lie to her. “Please don’t lie to me. I saw you break his neck.”

“You saw me choke him out, and then pretend to break his neck,” he said, stressing the word.

Really?

She replayed the scene in her mind.

Could she have missed that?

“He’s alive?” she asked.

“He’s alive … if Afsan didn’t kill him. But he was alive when I left him.”

He opened the door to the studio and pulled inside a box that had been left there. “I asked Carrie to get some clothes for you,” he said, “and this.”

In his hand, he held out a pair of white Crocs. They were thick, ugly shoes … exactly what her feet needed today.

Reka wanted to cry.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

“Come on, get dressed, and we’ll head on down to the kitchen.”