Page 260 of Vicious Temptation

That fear has followed me all the way to Miami, but lying here with his heartbeat beneath my ear finally forces me to acknowledge what comes with wanting a future with him.

Thiago deserves to know who he’s building it with.

As his thumb traces slowly along my back, my eyes begin to sting. I close them, hoping the feeling will pass, but a tear slips free and lands on his chest.

His hand stills. “Remi…” he whispers.

“Thiago,” I say before he can ask what’s wrong.

He pushes himself up slightly. “Baby, what is it?”

I tighten my arms around him. “Just give me one more minute.”

He doesn’t push. Instead, his arms close around me, and I stay there until I trust myself enough to pull away. Then I sit beside him, and when I finally meet his eyes, concern fills his expression.

“When we met, I hadn’t been in a relationship for years, since Ryuji.”

“Okay...”

I look down at my hands. “But I never told you the whole truth, the reason dating has never been easy for me or something I could ever treat casually.” I rub my thumb across my palm, trying to figure out where to begin. “My life isn’t normal, Thiago. It never has been.”

He sits up. “Remi, whatever this is, you can tell me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know how I feel about you.”

“That’s exactly why I’m scared.”

Saying it makes everything I’m risking feel more real, but I’ve already decided I can’t leave this room without telling him.

“I can’t keep moving forward with you while hiding this part of myself. You deserve to know who you’re with and to decide for yourself whether it changes anything.”

His expression shifts so subtly that I almost miss it.

“But I trust you, Thiago. I trust you with everything I love most in this world.” Reaching for his hand, I place it over my heart. “And I trust you with this. I just need you to guard it with yours.”

For a few seconds, he says nothing. There’s something in the way he looks at me that I can’t decipher. It disappears before I can make sense of it, leaving me wondering whether my nerves put it there in the first place.

“I will.” The certainty in his voice gives me enough courage to keep going.

“My family does Sunday dinners, birthday parties, Christmas mornings, bedtime stories...everything you’d expect.”

A small smile tugs at my lips as I think about them, but it doesn’t last.

“They also taught me how to line up a shot from four hundred yards, how to defend myself, and more ways to kill a man than anyone should know.”

Thiago watches me closely, without interrupting.

“They didn’t teach me those things because they loved guns or fighting. They taught me because they knew a day might come when I’d need those skills to survive.” I lace my fingers through his. “The world you think you know is far darker than the one most people ever see.”

He draws in a slow breath, but I keep going before he can respond. If I give myself too much time to think about what I’m about to tell him, I might lose the courage to say it.

“I’ve done things, Thiago. Some of them, I’m not proud of, but there are others I would do again without hesitation because the people I love are alive because of them.”

His hand comes to my face, and he brushes a loose strand of hair back behind my ear. “What have you done, Remi?”

This is the part I’ve been dreading. I hold his gaze.