Page 14

Jaime: Don’t tempt me.

Matteo: You know where to find me if you want to talk. Do it here. No wire. No weapons. Those are my terms. It’s up to you, princess. Come and get me.

Chapter

Four

MATTEO

Jamie Moriarty no longer interests me romantically.

But I’m still human. I still look at her long legs and her wicked smile and remember the low roar of her groan.

Fuck, baby. I need you.

The way she purred when I ran my fingers over her spine⁠—

My veins buzz. I want to slap silver bracelets around her wrists. And throw her on my bed and fuck her senseless.

I want to watch her climb on top and come on my cock.

We were well-matched as lovers.

The rest of our relationship?

I don’t know. And I don’t know how I missed it.

The woman introduced herself to me as the villain in a Sherlock Holmes story. My parents wanted a boy. That’s why they named me Jamie. I’ll never be the James Moriarty they wanted.

As soon as I mentioned my job, she jumped on it. I’m writing a play about two spies who are after each other. Do you think I could pick your brain about it sometime? Just work, I swear. Though I have always wanted to see a man who’s this in-control take off his tie and wrap it around my wrists. Oh, shit, I’m so sorry. I turn off my inhibitions in writing mode.

She practically wrote it in the sky. I’m not who you think I am.

I’m not an innocent playwright.

There’s more to me than my puckish smile and my soft curves.

I noticed all that. But I never looked closer.

She was gorgeous and charming and witty. I couldn’t believe my luck, that someone so warm wanted someone like me for more than a few nights. (Plenty of women want to fuck James Bond. Not many want him as a boyfriend).

I was too busy giving her the moral high ground to ask why an artist was so comfortable with an armed boyfriend.

Oh really, Matteo? You think YOU have the moral high ground, because I kill for money and you kill for “country”?

In the end, we have the same job.

We do what our bosses say.

Sure, your boss doesn’t usually order you to shoot someone in the heart. But when he does, you don’t blink.

What’s the difference between us, really?

Let’s work them out horizontally, huh?

Damn. I'm already having conversations with her in my mind, and they're already turning dirty.

She's saying all that as she unbuttons her blouse, daring me to resist her.