Pitch Black

by Parrish, Leslie

  He remained stiff. “You can’t know that.”

  “You wouldn’t hurt me on purpose,” she clarified.

  “Christ, Sam, you could be hurt just by association.”

  She leaned up on tiptoe and brushed her lips against his, feeling his hands move to her hips as if unable to help himself. He didn’t push her away, though his body remained stiff and unyielding. “Do you really think my mother regretted being with my father? That she would change anything, lose the years she had with him, so she could avoid the lonely ones that came afterward?”

  He slowly shook his head.

  “And you think Detective Myers’s wife is right now sitting by his bedside wishing she’d never married him so she wouldn’t have to go through the pain of wondering if he’s going to make it?”

  “Of course not. But—”

  She kissed him again, stopping him from saying more.

  “I know you were shot a few months ago. I know there are risks. And I know the shooting made you question everything about yourself, your job, your future. It made you wonder if you are even worthy of having any of those things.”

  He eyed her in shock, as if wondering how she could know him so well when he hadn’t confided so much in her.

  He hadn’t needed to. She already knew this man well enough to know how his mind worked. The conversations they’d had about the incident had made it very clear that a part of him thought he had deserved to feel those bullets tear through his body.

  “People die. Lily died. And that other agent down in Atlanta. It’s very sad, but it wasn’t your fault.”

  “You don’t know—”

  She put her fingers over his mouth. “I do know. And so do you. Deep down, you know he could just as easily have checked that woman for weapons. Could have asked you to, could have been more suspicious.”

  His reluctant nod confirmed her words.

  “It comes down to this: You didn’t pull the trigger. Just like you didn’t put Ryan and Jason on that ice or trick that poor woman onto that rooftop. None of it was your fault.”

  It seemed to take forever but was probably only half a minute before his tense shoulder muscles eased. His body relaxed against hers, the stiffness in his jaw disappearing. The flint disappeared from his eyes, replaced by tenderness. And gratitude.

  He might not have accepted it entirely, but Alec knew she was right.

  “I’m not proposing here. I’m not saying we’re going to be together forever. But I think I’m falling in love with you.”

  He sucked in a surprised breath that she’d so baldly put the words out there. Heck, she’d almost surprised herself, but she didn’t regret saying them.

  Nor did she regret adding, “I think you’re falling in love with me, too. If I’m wrong, and you’re not, then yes, you should keep that coat on, turn around, and walk out of here.” She leaned up again, stealing another soft kiss, exchanging another tender breath. “If I’m right, though, please tell me you’ll stay so we can figure out what happens next.”

  She didn’t kiss him again. The ball was in his court, their future in his hands. Whether that future included a passionate affair or a lifelong commitment, she didn’t yet know. She knew only that she wanted the chance to find out.

  Alec didn’t reply, not with words, anyway. Instead, he stepped away from her, with a smile on his lips and emotion in his eyes.

  And then he took off his coat.

  Don’t miss the thrilling conclusion to

  the Black CATs trilogy. Turn the page for

  an exclusive sneak peek of

  Black at Heart

  Available now from Signet Eclipse.

  Supervisory Special Agent Wyatt Blackstone, the enigmatic leader of the group, has a reputation for being strong, brilliant, and utterly without fear. Nothing can stop him—not the killers he chases or the bureau officials who want to keep him in his place.

  But something has reached out from Wyatt’s past, shocking this dark and tortured man to his very soul. And it will take his entire team to keep him—and the woman he loves—from falling into a diabolical trap set by a pair of vengeful killers.

  Supervisory Special Agent Wyatt Blackstone had never had to attend the memorial service of one of his own team members before. After today, he hoped to God he never attended another one.

  Especially since it was his fault Lily Fletcher was dead.

  Against his better judgment, he had allowed a woman he knew shouldn’t be in the field to participate in a sting operation with another Cyber Action Team. She’d had no business being there. Lily had been an IT specialist, a computer nerd, young, untried, sweetly enthusiastic. But also haunted by her own demons. Those demons had driven her to secretly work a case she should never have been involved in, had pushed her to be in on the takedown of a suspected pedophile whose twisted cyber fantasies had haunted her dreams.

  And then, everything had gone straight to hell.

  One agent dead on the ground. Lily wounded, trapped, and bleeding to death in a vehicle driven by a desperate madman.

  The thoughts of those awful, desperate hours he knew she had endured still tormented him.

  The service had been small and quiet. The FBI had not made the event a media circus, as they could have. Wyatt hadn’t wanted it that way; none of the group had. Because of the fuckups that had led to her death, and his team’s recent successful capture of a serial killer known as the Professor, the bureau acceded to his demands.

  She’d had no surviving family, few nonwork friends. And though many agents and FBI supervisors had attended the service in the nondenominational chapel, few had continued on to the cemetery. Rather than at Arlington, Lily’s grave was at a small, private cemetery, beside her sister’s and her nephew’s, as she would have wanted.

  He hadn’t even realized her parents had died on the same day during Lily’s childhood until he read their headstones, too.

  An entire family. Gone. Plucked off one tragedy at a time.

  The graveside service had been simple and brief. Only Wyatt and the other members of his team, who had formed a pseudo-family of their own, had remained after the chaplain’s final prayer. And then they’d all drifted away, lost in their own sadness, wondering how things might have turned out differently.

  He didn’t think he would ever stop wondering.

  Even now, hours later, as he sat in the dark in his own house, nursing a tumbler full of whiskey, Wyatt found it hard to believe. Sweet, quiet Lily, so eager to please despite being so visibly wounded by the horrors that had befallen her, was gone. Senselessly killed by someone who hadn’t been fit to touch a single strand of her golden hair.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured, lifting his glass to his mouth. “I should have protected you.”

  He sipped once. Then again. He needed the fire to spread through his body, burning out the anger, the helpless frustration. The sadness.

  Wyatt never allowed himself to grieve. He’d learned as a child how futile it was to wish someone back from the dead, to ask why horrible things happened, to give in to sorrow.

  But Lily? He could grieve for Lily.

  Realizing it was almost midnight, he finally rose, needing to go to bed. The past several nights had been sleepless ones. Tomorrow was another workday, another chance to keep moving forward, stopping whatever ugliness he possibly could.

  Moving through the familiar darkness of the house, he headed for the stairs. Before he even reached the first one, though, his cell phone rang. Wyatt pulled it from his pocket, wearily flipped it open, and lifted it to his ear.

  “Blackstone.”

  No response at first, but a hollowness told him the line wasn’t dead.

  “Hello?”

  Another long pause. Then a soft voice emerged from the silence like a specter appearing out of his own memories.

  “Wyatt?”

  He froze, haunted by the pain in that one whispered word. “Who is this?”

  “Help me, Wyatt. Please help me.”

/>