“I need—” I say, my voice trailing off, my thoughts tumbling into the mesmerizing deep blue sea of his potent stare.
He leans forward, his hands settling firmly, possessively, on my hips, his touch weakening my knees. “What do you need?”
Him, I think. I need him and nothing else. I need to be lost. I need to escape. And I think he needs the same. That need drives me to be daring, or perhaps it’s this man who drives me to be daring. That darkness in him is loneliness. He’s alone. I don’t know how I know this, but I know. And I don’t know where this leads—I suspect heartache—but tonight, he’s not alone. Tonight, he’s wanted and needed and I intend for him to know this without question.
I tear my shirt over my head and toss it aside, my bra following, the air between us charging with instant sexual heat. His eyes rake over my body, appreciation in their depths, but when I climb onto his lap, straddling him, he is not wicked and wild. He is not all about sex. He’s tender and gentle. His hands slide over my body, up my back and he whispers, “What if I never let you go?”
I know this is a moment of passion, a question not to be taken literally, but when Rick Savage kisses me after he speaks it, when he drinks me in and makes love to me with his kiss, it’s hard to want this to end. And it’s easy, at least for right now, to hope he doesn’t ever let me go.
THE PRESENT
CHAPTER SEVEN
Savage
Present day—San Antonio, TX
San Antonio might as well be a third-world country. It’s hot as fuck, the mosquitoes are the size of birds, and my bastard father lives here. On the plus side—it does have plus sides—the eating is damn good, and the Mexican food comes with all the “fuck you” tequila you can afford. And she’s here. Candace is still here, which I know because I’ve made sure I know. I’ve kept tabs on her location when I’ve wanted to keep tabs on a whole lot more. But I didn’t. I couldn’t, and so I stayed away. Just the idea of her hands on another man’s body, and his on hers, is still, to this day, enough to drive me fucking nuts.
But here I am, in her place, her city, and that isn’t an accident. It’s by way of obvious design. Me, her, my past, and this job, all collide in one way: Tag. Tag chose me for whatever the hell this hit is because he knew he could use Candace to control me. I’m no fool. That means whoever I’m supposed to hit is going to be a problem for me. A big fucking problem.
My chartered plane hits the runway in Texas at three in the afternoon, the day after Tag fucked my life ten times over. It took that long to book the plane under a fake businessman, a millionaire asshole named Steve Winter, just one of the many identities at my disposal thanks to Walker Security. I then rent a high-end BMW under the same fake name. The one I choose doesn’t matter. That it’s untraceable does. Not that this hides me from Tag, who’ll be watching Candace, waiting on me to find her, too. No, the name isn’t about Tag at all. It’s about sheltering myself from the hit itself.
I drive the black beast of a machine straight to my old stomping grounds, registering at Hotel Emma, a five-star joint a few blocks from Candace’s neighborhood. My neighborhood, too, considering I lived with her for a year. The best damn year of my life. I open my suitcase and remove a Glock and shove it into the back of my pants, under my shirt. A Ruger goes under my black jeans and inside my boot, a blade inside my second boot. I grab a thin black jacket from my bag, that despite the wicked-fast approach of the holiday, really isn’t needed, but it’s better camouflage for that Glock than my shirt.
My cellphone rings with Blake Walker’s number. I scrub the rough two-day stubble on my jaw and sit on the kickass bed. “What the fuck is going on? I know where you are and what name you’re using. Start fucking talking and tell me why you’ve gone rogue?”
“I’m doing clean-up,” I reply, sitting down on the bed. “The kind that you can’t afford for me not to do.”
He knows what that means. He knew the risk of my past when he brought me on. And all he says is, “What do you need?”
His loyalty leaves me with only one answer. “For you to stay the hell away so this doesn’t touch you.” I hang up and head for the door, listening to my gut that brought me to Alamo Heights. Candace is my weakness and apparently so was thinking I could drink vodka around Tag or he wouldn’t know Candace still matters to me. Staying away from her to protect her no longer works.