Burn (Virtues & Lies 1)

“The Foreign Secretary has better things to worry about.” The sass in her tone is higher pitched than normal under my father’s gaze.

“At least you’re being sensible with your safety. Charles would be impressed.”

“Oh, I’m sure he would be if he—”

Before she can finish what we all know will be a dig at Natalie, Christopher pulls me into his side and says, “Looks like we’re all going!”

My eyes dart to Leo at Christopher’s statement and it’s a big. Fucking. Mistake.

His casual clothes make him seem taller than I remember him to be and the way in which he’s looking at me has my mouth drying and throat swelling as I take him in. The line of his shoulders is broad and full, but the length of his arms balances his streamlined bulk. Making him look sleek like his Maserati.

“I’m heading to the hospital, actually.” It’s obvious he’s talking to Christopher, but his gaze never leaves me.

After spending the last couple of weeks trying to bump into him so he’d have to acknowledge me, I’m finding his gaze a lot more potent than I recall it. It burns through me like a wild fire that is impossible to extinguish. And if I don’t look away, I might disintegrate in front of everyone.

Lowering my eyes, I take in the way his black denim shirt hangs open over his white T-shirt hanging low over his ink black jeans.

It doesn’t matter how hard I’m trying to act like I’m not one breath away from falling apart, I can’t stand here with him and not be affected. I’ve done nothing but think of him, his kiss and his harsh words, and now being here. The need to either shake him until he tells me why I should stay away from him, or kiss him until he wants me half as much as I want him is overwhelming.

“Excuse me.” Shaking Christopher off me I head for the kitchen down the hall.

Stopping to turn the lights on, my whole body shudders when he calls my name, “Cassie.”

Something in the soft, tortured tone of his voice makes me turn towards him and when I’ve managed to take a deep breath and look up at his face, I notice the dark scruff that’s not quite a beard but too long to be considered stubble. His lips are cracked and an angry red, and his eyes are dark. So dark that they look black rather than the green I know they are. It’s almost like all the light has been zapped out of them.

He looks tired and the dark circles surrounding them make the sculpted edges of his face look too sharp.

A little fissure splinters my heart and I hope that he is all right.

As if he doesn’t know what to do with himself, his hands comb through his messy hair before he pushes his sleeves up his forearms until they become stuck around the thick muscle below the crease of his elbow, and my eyes become glued to them.

They trace the chunky black cross that is tattooed on the side of his wrist. A trail of flocking birds disappearing under his sleeve and it’s only when he clears his throat that I look away from him, shaking my head to try and rattle some sense into myself.

“What?” I ask, barely able to control the way my voice pitches up at the end, and before he can say anything I repeat a little harder, “What do you want?”

“Don’t go tonight.” His tone makes me bristle, I’m not sure whether he’s asking or bossing me and after the way he left me…the way he’s ignored me.

“Are you kidding me right now?” Spinning on my heel, I try to get away from him, but I don’t make it far. I barely manage one step before he grabs me, kicking the door shut behind us.

There’s nothing gentle or cautious about the way his hands close around my waist and squeeze, the bite making me shiver. Leo holds me like we have history between us and a world of experience on how to touch one another. We don’t.

However, when we’re this close and alone, it feels like we have forever wrapped around us. A lifetime of experience.

“Listen to me,” he says. The way his voice cracks, it comes across as more of a plea than anything else. “Cassie, you’re walking around with a big fucking bullseye on your head. The people your father is after…”

“What? The people my dad is after what, Leo?”

“They’re out there waiting to get back at him. Don’t make it easy for them.”

The heebie-jeebies come back and mixed with all my frustrations, I can’t think. All I know is that he keeps pushing and pulling and I’m getting more tangled up than a kite in the wind.

“And why do you care?”

His eyes are big, dark, and they make him look unhinged. Like he’s a stone’s throw away from unleashing hell on earth. Or at least his own version of it.

“Am I suddenly important to you?”

He closes his eyes, like he’s partway through a battle and his strength is waning.