As I lie on top of James, letting my breathing settle, my fingertip circling his nipple slowly, I try with everything I have to make sense of this. Of him, and of me. Of us. There are a million reasons why I shouldn’t be here. And just one reason why I should.
Peace.
And peace in me trumps all the things. It’s been years since I’ve felt anything other than hate or grief. Years since I’ve recognized myself. “You were top on Mom’s list,” I say, still rising and falling with each expansion of his chest while he works to get his breathing steady.
“I know,” he says, almost sadly. “She said she’d never stop until she had me behind bars. And I knew she wouldn’t.”
I turn my face up to his “How did you know?”
“Because I was looking into her eyes when she said it.”
I gasp, scrambling up on his chest, wincing when I jar my arm.
“Be careful,” he warns.
“She saw you?”
“She never saw me.” He reaches behind him, stretching to get my sling. “No one ever sees me, Beau.” He loops it over my head and gently lifts my arm, easing it into the material.
“Not true,” I whisper, my eyes flitting over every inch of his face. I see him. I see him so clearly. “You kill people,” I say, not accusingly. I’m simply saying it out loud. Saying it and wondering if hearing it will make it any more real. Something has to click soon. My ethics have got to appear and ask me what the fuck I’m doing here with him.
He reaches up and cups my cheek. “I do.”
“Why?” I ask, and his hold moves back to my waist. It’s firm. “Why are you holding me tightly?” I ask, and he loosens his grip. But only a bit.
“I kill them because they deserve to die.”
“According to whom?” I press. “Murder is murder.”
“But justice isn’t always justice,” he fires back quietly, making me pause for a beat. He’s right. Where is justice for my mom? For me? I would happily kill whoever is responsible for her death. Slowly. And, sickly, I know I would take the greatest of pleasure from it. I know I’d feel like a weight was lifted. I know it would bring me peace. More peace than James could ever give me. “I wasn’t born a killer, Beau.”
“Then who were you?”
He looks away, and it’s so painfully obvious how difficult he’s finding this. “I was a son. A brother.” He winces, shying away from the memory. “I had everything until he took it away.”
He.
James frowns, and his head shakes mildly, as if he can physically toss those memories away. Which makes me feel plain awful for needing to know more. And I do need. Really need. I’m in love with an assassin. A vigilante. Anything I can find to justify that, I will gladly take. “Who?”
“The Bear.”
My mouth falls open. The drug smuggler. Human trafficker. Arms dealer. Bomb supplier to endless terrorist organizations. He moved his men in on London to take out the mob kingpin Spencer James. Blew his estate to smithereens. And as soon as The Brit died, he moved in on Miami. I’ll never forget Mom’s face when The Bear first made his presence known in town.
Clarity seems to smack me in the face, and I breathe in, my attention falling to James’s scarred shoulder. British. Explosion. He got caught up in an explosion. Oh my God. His entire family wiped out. I stare at him, stunned. “Your dad was Spencer James,” I murmur, everything clicking into place. “You’re Kellen James.” I go to stand, needing to walk and think, but James locks his hold down on my thighs, keeping me close. “That’s your other name.”
He nods, and the sadness mixed with vengeance is potent. “Everyone’s demons are relative, Beau,” he says, sitting up and circling my waist. “I’m dead.”
“Does The Bear know it’s you who’s killing all of his men?” Jesus, all these bodies that are cropping up all over town is James’s doing? Fucking hell, what madness am I in?
“No. No one knows who I am.”
“Your accent. He’s not connected the dots?”
“Do you know how many people he wiped out along with my father?” He rubs his nose with mine. “You need a bath.”
I need many things. A bath isn’t one of those things. For a start, I could do with someone pinching me, because this has to be some kind of twisted nightmare. I also need a drink, because I’m feeling slightly unstable, but before I can voice my needs, I’m lifted to my feet and being led to the bathroom. “James,” I say, staring at his back, his scars suddenly bigger. Redder. Angrier.
We arrive in the bathroom, and he glances at me, waiting for what I might say. James, what? What do I want to say? I have no idea, my brain failing me, so I remain mute. Blank. He starts to draw a bath, adding lavender oil, and I stand behind him, motionless, naked, and utterly absorbed by his scarred skin. I’m not aching. I’m not sore. I don’t need to soak myself or soothe my muscles. Perhaps my brain, but not my body. And yet I can’t bring myself to challenge him. Not after he’s spilled his tragic history.