Burned Deep (Burned 1)

He didn’t turn back. As though he couldn’t look at me. He put another hole in the wall.

I sucked in a breath.

Then he stalked into the bathroom. When he returned, he handed over a pill. “Ibuprofen, eight hundred milligrams.” He offered me a glass of water to wash it down, then took a pill of his own. I noticed his bloodied knuckles.

“Trying to feel my pain?” I asked.

“I can’t feel your pain,” he said in a tight tone. “You won’t let me.”

He set the glass on the nightstand.

My eyes squeezed shut for a moment. Then I said, “Doesn’t that put us at an impasse?”

“No impasse. You’re in danger. I’m going to end it.”

“Dane—”

“You know how I feel about you, Ari. You mean everything to me.”

“So does the Lux,” I said. “It means so much to you. And it means something to me, too—because it’s yours.”

I got to my feet, just to prove to him that I could. That I could reach past the scorpion sting to prove a point. “I will do whatever you and Amano ask. I won’t go anywhere without him, or you. You have my word. You know I would never do anything to make you worry about me or put myself in further jeopardy.”

I tormented him. I saw it in his agonized gaze.

“Dane,” I pleaded. “Trust me. Please.”

“I do.” He swept his good hand through my hair. “This is killing me, baby. Thinking you might be harmed because of my involvement in something that was supposed to be legit. Goddamn it.”

I felt his anger. His regret. “You had no idea this would all happen. You’ve been so careful about us at work and even in public. But someone has obviously been paying very close attention. Is it possible it’s not even the axed investors at all?”

“I’m convinced it is. But you’re right. It’s almost as though they knew about you from the beginning.”

He took me in his arms. I knew he contemplated who might know about us and how or why they’d use that knowledge to their advantage.

“You can go with me to the hotel in the morning,” he eventually conceded. “But you’re with Amano or myself at all times. At the very least—” His tension mounted as he nearly squeezed the air out of me. “Kyle.”

Whoa. Now we were getting serious. To resort to approving of Kyle sticking close to me?

I had to do something to break the strain between us. “That’ll make stops in the ladies’ restroom awkward.”

“Damn it, Ari.”

“Dane. You’re just scaring me more. You realize that, right?”

Releasing me, he stared into my eyes. “I love you.”

I smiled, despite it all. “Lucky me.”

With a sharp shake of his head, he said, “Maybe not.”

“Dane.” I gripped his shoulder with my good hand, my fingertips curling into his hard muscles and heat. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that. My whole life has changed since the moment I met you. Even the not-so-pleasant stuff has made me open my eyes and see that I was just going through the motions until you came along.”

His brow furrowed.

I rushed on. “I lived vicariously through happy couples, convinced I’d turn out like my parents and grandparents if I dared to try to have a relationship. Beyond that, I never experienced any sort of impossible to resist attraction the way I did the instant I saw you. It was like—I suddenly woke up.”

Sleeping Beauty coming to life even before that first kiss. The fucked-up part was that she, too, had to contend with an evil force.