Page 44 of Until the End

“Need some painkillers?”

“No. I’m okay.”

He plated the food. She grabbed a cold bottled water and he poured two fingers of Four Roses Single Barrel, offering her a drink, but she declined.

“Is Castle your real name or a nickname? Like Reaper?”

“Real. My dad named Maddox and me after two guys he worked with who saved his life.”

“That’s pretty cool.” She threw a healthy amount of parmesan on her pasta and dug in.

Kit closed her eyes in a dreamy way and a delirious moan escaped her. Followed by another and another with each mouthful like she was having one giant food-gasm.

He gave a low chuckle and glanced at her clean plate. “Did you enjoy that?”

She flashed an oh-yeah smirk but said, “I’m hypoglycemic and was starving. I was wired to moan once food hit my mouth.” Nibbling her lower lip, she dropped her gaze to his cup. “You’re so different than the sort of men I gravitate to. Domestic beer. The gun. Insane muscles. Drinking good bourbon from a red SOLO cup. Calluses. Freight-train personality.”

She had a tongue capable of launching a ballistic attack. The litany of insults left him speechless. Even the bit about his muscles didn’t sound good.

“Not that there’s any gravitation happening here.” She waved a dismissive hand between them, doing another lip nibble that made something in his chest contract like a fist.

Dammit to hell. She grated on him, but rather than getting ticked, he found it invigorating. No one spoke to him that way, throwing him off-balance. No one.

“I know what you mean,” he said, winding up to dish it back to her as good as she’d served it. “The women I usually have in my home aren’t snooping vegans with high-maintenance personalities. No yoga-obsessed princesses who have piss-poor manners, dismissing people with whatever.”

For a second, he thought he’d gone too far.

“Vegetarian.” Her tongue snaked out, wetting her pink lips. “Not vegan.” She winked, and his center of gravity shifted. “And my doctor has advised me against yoga because of possible joint subluxation. I have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which causes hypermobility.” At the questioning look he pulled on, she added, “It means I’m double-jointed.”

His mind nosedived straight into the gutter. As tempting as the images flooding his head were, now wasn’t the time to indulge in them, but one thing was inescapable.

Kit was big fucking trouble.

She brought his stunted feelings to life, reminding him why he was lucky to be alive. A kick he normally only got from the job. And it had nothing to do with her looks. She was cute but too little for him. Narrow shoulders, small breasts, and slim hips. An almost fragile-looking figure on account of the bruises. Not his usual type.

It was Kit’s quick wit and ballsy spirit that were sucking him in. There was no lack of sparks flying between them, regardless of what lies she told herself or him for that matter.

Then the nuances of her body language clicked together in his head, like lock tumblers falling into place. The lip nibble, playing with her hair, how her eyes went squinty.

Those were her tells when she was lying.

She’d lied about how much she enjoyed the food, her attraction to him…and both times she’d told her story in the Gray Box.

A hot stab of anger sank in his chest, but he ignored it, needing to focus on what part of her story had been untrue. “Why did you go to the Lair on Friday?”

Her shoulders tensed. “What? I already told you.”

“Tell me again.”

“The guys had been working around the clock. As soon as the job was done, I wanted to get rid of Jasper, stop him from creating more problems.”

True.

“Did you know what they were working on?”

If she was complicit with terrorists in any way, he was going to find out right now before he invested more energy and concern.

“No. Not the specifics, but it didn’t feel right. I told them any job for so much money in so little time couldn’t be legal.”