by Elise Faber
“You should name her Luna.”
Jesse’s shoulders stiffened, and she spun around. “What are you talking about?”
“Your owl.”
She frowned.
“I saw you in the moonlight, and it changed my life.”
Shit. I shouldn’t have said that. I opened my mouth to add something else, to take it back, to step behind that barrier in my mind and heart . . . and I found I couldn’t. Just as I couldn’t stop the words from pouring out. “You were beautiful,” I murmured. “You are beautiful. So much so that it takes my breath away, makes me crazy to know that there are people out there who hurt you, who left marks on that beautiful skin.” My fingers clenched on the arms of my chair.
“Leo,” she whispered.
I didn’t dare look at her.
“Yeah, I wanted you to be my friend,” I said, still looking down. “I didn’t want that to change because I know that I can’t give you more. I’m not the type of man—” I broke off before I could say more, could say something that might make this about me.
All of a sudden, my chair was shoved back, and Jesse was in front of me.
“What?” she snapped. “You’re not the type of man who what?”
I was frozen in place, couldn’t dare lift a finger, not when her hands rested on my knees, all but pinning me in place with the barest amount of pressure.
“Answer me,” she snapped. “You’re not the kind of man who what?”
She was so close, and my hands itched to tug her into my lap.
“The type of man who likes a woman like me?” Her brows rose. “The type of man who only likes tiny, curvy little women who are easy to toss around and dominate?”
“What? No!” I exclaimed.
Her body—fuck it, was all I dreamed about. I’d tasted her skin. Once. And the silken, sweet taste was imprinted on my soul.
“Then what? You’re not the type of man who likes a woman who can beat him in an accuracy contest?”
My fingers clenched tighter. The arms of the chair groaned in protest. “No.”
“Then why, Leo? I’ve spent so fucking much of my life thinking I’m not the type of woman who a man like you could love. That I’m too muscular. That my hair is too red. That I’m too quiet. That—”
“You’re none of those things,” I snapped. “None of this is on you. I’ve wanted you for a long time, even when I pretended I didn’t.”
“Why pretend?” Her hands tightened on my knees. “If you wanted me, why would you pretend?”
Something snapped.
I erupted to my feet, grabbing her by the waist and plunking her on the edge of the table, staring into those gorgeous blue eyes, tracking the freckles, the flush trailing across her cheeks. “Because I’m not good enough for you!” I yelled.
“Bullshit!” she yelled back. “I spent my whole life thinking I wasn’t good enough for anyone, that I was fucking worthless, and I’m done with that. Done with other people doing that. Done with you doing that.” Her voice softened. “I know you, Leo. I know what kind of man you are, and it’s a good one. Why do you think I fell in love with you? Why do you think I dreamed about you for so long?”
Her mouth was right there. I could smell her shampoo, could see the freckle on her lip I’d fantasized tracing with my tongue more times than I could count. It would be so easy to take her, to kiss her, to—
“You wouldn’t have dreamed if you knew.”
Her fingers clenched on my shoulders. “Knew what?”
“That I’ll end up killing you.”
I dropped my hands, spun away from her, and moved to the camera. “Let me the fuck out of here, or I’m taking a chair to the window.”
Silence.
Jesse’s phone buzzed.
Then a soft hand dropped onto my back. “It wouldn’t work,” Jess whispered. “The glass is bomb proof.”
The hand left, and I felt a part of myself leave with her.
It was over.
Done.
The truth was out, and—
Screech.
Blinking, I turned in time to see Jess pushing one of the large side cabinets toward the corner with the camera, the pitcher of water sitting on top of it shaking as it moved, liquid sloshing over the top. Before I could grab it, before I could say anything, before I could react other than standing there like a wide-eyed dumbass, she climbed on top, reached for the camera, and yanked it out of the wall.
“There,” she said, calm as can be, tossing it into a nearby trash can before hopping down and wiping her hands together. “Now, tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”
I glanced from her to my own hands, half expecting them to be covered with her blood, with Clem’s blood.
But they were there, unstained, faint scars on the fingers and backs.
Hands that had held another woman I’d considered dear.
Hands that had killed her.
Hands that were then covered by Jesse’s.
I went to snatch them away, unable to see beyond the past and all the things that had happened with Clem, but Jess gripped me tighter, and the only thing my jerking accomplished was to bring her body flush against me.
Flowers in my nose. Curves pressed to my chest.
Eyes staring deeply into mine.
“Leo,” she said, and the gentle in her tone was what got me.
My knees buckled, and I ripped my hands from hers. That night, God, that night, it was washing over me again, and I couldn’t take it, not with Jess so close, not with the memories so vast.
She sank down with me, crawling into my lap and holding me tight.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, “it’s okay. I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me anything.”
I realized I was crying, tears dripping down my cheeks. I hadn’t cried that night. I’d been too numb to do anything more than to stare blankly at my hands, at the blood, knowing that I’d killed Clem, that it was my fault. And I hadn’t cried since, not as the guilt had swallowed me up, and I’d let it keep me beneath the surface.
Not as I’d lost myself in work.
Not as the years had gone by, and I’d been careful to not care.
Drowning in grief until Jess had joined my team in London. Bright red hair, big blue eyes, quiet—so damned quiet that I’d surfaced, had wanted to hear her, wanted to make her smile.
Just as friends.
I’d held tight to that notion because I was really fucking good at pretending.
Her hands came to my cheeks, her thumbs brushing away the tears before she wrapped her arms around me and held me tightly. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’m so sorry.”
My ear rested against her chest, and I could hear her heart pounding against her ribs, feel her pulse skittering against my skin.
A drop of liquid plunked onto my head, and then another and another, until I realized that Jess was crying.
And that—her pain—finally snapped me out of it.
I shifted, taking her into my arms, crushing her against my chest. “Don’t apologize,” I said. “It’s me. It’s me. Please, don’t cry.”
She sniffed, rubbed her face against my chest, and went still.
Both of us were breathing heavily, and I knew I was holding her too tight, knew I should release her.
But my hands didn’t work.
Instead, my voice did.
“I was married,” I whispered. “Young and stupid, and I fell in love with a girl named Clementine.” Jess shifted, sitting up enough to meet my eyes, and I saw they were so damned gentle. “Clem was a redhead.” I ran my fingers through Jesse’s hair, tugged lightly on one strand. “With green eyes to match mine and a temper that was off the charts.”
She smiled gently.
“We weren’t peaceful or calm. We fought all the time. Broke up more often than we were together.” I shook my head. “But we loved each other. For better or worse, we loved each other.”
Jess waited, but the questions were there in her blue eyes, even as I strug
gled to put everything into words.
“It was getting to a point where things were going to end. I was at work all the time, KTS had recruited me, and I was seriously considering accepting the position. But they needed me in London, and Clem didn’t want to leave her job.” I shook my head. “I was a mess. We’d gotten married too young and changed too much.”
“That happens,” Jess murmured when I fell quiet again.
“Yes,” I said, “it does.”
Her hands were on my shoulders, and she squeezed lightly. “What happened, baby?”
I inhaled sharply. “We fought that night, one of the biggest we’d ever had. We both said some stuff that was . . . shitty. Really fucking shitty.” A sigh. “We were immature and lashing out, and she screamed that she was going to leave me.”
And this was the part that I couldn’t get over.
Jesse’s fingers tightened.
“And I told her to go. Despite the fact that she’d been drinking, I told her to get the fuck out. I let her take her keys, her car, allowed her to drive away.” My eyes closed, my voice going hoarse. “By the time I realized what was happening and followed, it was too late.”
I saw the scene like it was right in front of me.
“We lived on a winding road. It was dark and raining, and I turned the corner.”
Jess was so, so still in my arms.
Still, like Clem had been.
“She’d slid off the road, and she hadn’t been wearing her seat belt.”
“Leo,” Jess breathed.
“I found her in the road.” I met Jesse’s stare. “I couldn’t save her. She was . . . gone.” Blood on my hands. Her body so still, so lifeless in my arms. “I hurt her. I let her go, and she died.”
“But you didn’t kill her.”
My jaw clenched. Logically, I knew she was right. But I might as well have driven the car off the road myself. Might as well have unbuckled her seat belt. Poured that wine down her throat.
“Leo, it wasn’t your fault.”
I jumped to my feet, sending Jess tumbling out of my arms, and before I could steady her, she’d found her own stability, her own feet next to me. “Then whose fucking fault was it?”
“No one’s,” she said. “It was a horrible accident.”
That wasn’t good enough.
Not for me. Not for her.
I’d already hurt Jess, nearly gotten her killed on a mission. Yes, I wanted her. But, no, I couldn’t have her, not when I might be responsible for her getting hurt or dying. God, look what I’d already done.
“And let me guess,” she said, and I blinked at the cold tone of her voice. “You’re going to hold on to that guilt, wrap it like a blanket around you, and you don’t even give a shit about what I want.”
“You told me to go.”
“Yes,” she said, stepping back and crossing her arms.
Ask me to stay.
Please, fucking please ask me to stay.
“I did. I told you to go.” Her arms dropped. “And I’m not going to ask you to stay.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jesse
I watched his face fall, and I hated that I’d caused it.
But I meant what I said.
I wasn’t going to beg him to stay for me. I needed him to want to do that for me, to fight for me, to show me that I was worth the battle, the pain, letting go of the guilt and fear.
He turned away, thrust his hands into his hair.
“I can’t fight your guilt and my own,” I whispered. “I can’t bolster my self-worth and yours. I can only be me, trying to move beyond my past, and hoping that you’ll be able to move beyond yours.”
He spun back, agony in those green eyes, and I knew he was where I’d spent the last years—firmly in the grip of the past.
Only Leo could pull himself out.
But perhaps, I could give him a shove.
“Do you know what I thought when I first met you?”
Mutely, he shook his head.
“I thought a man as gorgeous as you would never, ever look twice at a woman like me. Because I thought you had all the value, and I had none.” My voice dipped. “I didn’t think I was worth a second look, let alone someone understanding that I was a woman with real worth.”
He closed the distance between us, gripped my shoulders. “That’s bullshit. You’re worth so much, Jess. You’re beautiful, and I don’t just mean the package on the outside. I’ve dreamed about you since that night in the moonlight, dreamed of kissing every freckle on your nose and cheeks. I’ve thought about trailing my tongue along your beautiful throat. I’ve been desperate to be between your gorgeous thighs.”
My hands shook, and I lifted them to loosen his hold on my shoulders, his grip growing painfully hard.
He gentled, but his words came fast and furious. “I thought I could just be your friend,” he said. “But then you left and came here, and I had this huge hole in my life. I knew it was better to leave you be, better to keep that hole empty—”
“Leo,” I breathed, my heart hurting for him.
I knew that hole. I’d lived with that hole for too fucking long. I didn’t want that for this man—who’d been kind to me when I’d first joined KTS, who’d been my support and a good friend when I was feeling out of my depth, who’d come here and fought against the same connection I’d fantasized about and run from in equal measures.
“I couldn’t stay away. I applied for the open position as soon as I saw it, kidding myself that it was only because I wanted to find the traitors.”
He didn’t want to find the traitors? I frowned, opened my mouth.
“I want to find them,” he said. “I want to wipe them off the fucking planet, but that wasn’t the real reason I came.”
My heart was pounding now.
“I came for you.” His hands cupped my cheeks. “Even when I didn’t understand what was in my heart and head, I came for you.”
I leaned in, needing to hold him, needing to kiss and touch and stroke him.
But then he dropped his hands and turned away. “But it doesn’t change anything.”
It took me a minute because I couldn’t believe what the fuck he was saying. Leo had just told me all of those beautiful things, and he was still going to walk away? My words stoppered up in my throat, and I stood there frozen for a long moment.
Then I boiled over.
The kind, understanding, sweet Jess left the fucking building and I’d. Had. Enough.
I’d come this far. He’d shared what he had.
And still he was going to walk away?
Fuck that.
“You fucking bastard,” I snapped. Spinning toward him, I gripped his arms and swept my leg between his, knocking him off balance and shoving him back. We collapsed into a heap that took my breath for several heartbeats. Then I was slamming my fists against his chest. “Fuck you. Fuck you for saying that. Fuck you for not fighting for me. Fuck—”
He grabbed my wrists, held them fast, trapping them against him.
“You!” I yelled.
His eyes flared, heat and anger in the depths, and one abrupt movement had me on my back, Leo on top of me, all the heavy lines of his muscled body pressing into mine.
“I know, baby,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”
My lungs were heaving, my wrists still held in his hands, and I shifted, breaking the grip, digging my nails into his chest. “No,” I growled. “You don’t get to be sorry, not when you won’t take a fucking chance and be with me.”
“Sweetheart,” he moaned, resting his forehead against mine. “I can’t.”
“You won’t.”
“I—”
I wrapped my hands around his waist, bringing him flush against me, feeling the hard length of his erection, the heavy weight of his hips.
His breathing accelerated, hot puffs on my lips.
His eyes were on fire, burning up for me.
“You won’t,” I breathed.
“I—”
His breath shuddered out, scattering over my throat, making me shiver, and I don’t know if I moved or if he did, but suddenly—finally—we were kissing.
And it was everything I had ever dreamed.
His tongue slid across my lips, dipped into my mouth as he angled my head so that our kiss drew deeper. Heat was flaring in my abdomen, shooting out through my veins, making my fingers tingle, my pussy ache. Everything was burning up from my toes to my breasts. Even my hair felt like it was on fire.
I clenched my legs tighter, bucked against his cock, and his groan tumbled from his mouth to mine.
Then his lips were trailing over my chin, my jaw, down my throat.
“You smell so fucking good, Jess,” he rasped, releasing my hands to tug the neck of my shirt to the side, his teeth grazing my collarbone.
I couldn’t reply, not when he was touching me like this, when his body was poised over mine, when his lips were on my skin. I couldn’t do anything other than to moan and use my newly freed hands to pull him closer.
But he merely reared back, out of my hold.
The pang of disappointment sliced me to the quick.
Rip.
I gasped, blinking in shock when he tore my T-shirt straight down the front.
“Fuck,” he hissed, and then he was on me again, only his lips bypassed mine, going straight to my newly exposed skin. He yanked my bra up, pushed the halves of my T-shirt to the side, pinning my arms. “You are so fucking beautiful.”
My heart skipped a beat, and I reached for him, wanting to touch him, only my arms were trapped in the material, my breasts out and on full display.
A fact he was very aware of.
His lips lowered and he sucked my nipple into his mouth.
“Shit,” I breathed, arching up, trying to get him to suck me deeper, harder, even as sparks flew through me and my pussy was throbbing.
He switched sides.
I gasped, bucked, and managed to flip us, yanking my shirt off, tugging my bra over my head. I reached for the hem of his shirt, tugging it up, exposing the smooth planes of his stomach, the muscles of his abdomen etched and demanding my tongue. He shifted, trying to take it off, but I was too busy with the skin I’d revealed, too desperate to taste and touch him.