I look over my shoulder, finding more than a couple of the people watching us.
“You’re absolutely gorgeous,” he says in a tone that’s too low for anyone else to hear.
“The pain you’re in must be making you loopy.”
I look up from our hands to give him a teasing smile, but the second my face is angled up, his lips are on mine. It’s not a hurried kiss or one filled with obscene passion. It’s soft yet claiming.
I grin against his lips before I can stop myself.
“I don’t want any of the single guys thinking you’re fair game,” he whispers against my lips.
“Come on,” I say, urging him with a tug of my hand to head back down the hallway. “I know you’re tired, and for the record, not one of the guys here has so much as looked at me twice or made a suggestive remark.”
“And another one bites the dust,” someone says behind us as we walk away.
“What were you ladies over there talking about?” he asks as we step into the room, wincing in pain as he tries to pull his button-down shirt off.
I reach to help him but don’t offer up any information. Maybe he didn’t touch the women at the parties Gigi mentioned because he wouldn’t be able to control himself. Maybe the men around here wouldn’t appreciate the way he likes to take women.
I pull his shirt down his arms, making sure the fabric doesn’t catch on any of his stitches and take a step back.
“They told me that you never touched any of the women at the orgies you guys have.”
I expect him to get defensive or lie, but he slowly turns around to face me. I busy myself folding his shirt because I need to focus on something besides how he may be looking at me right now.
“I was working when I was here. It wouldn’t have been right.”
I want to open my mouth to remind him he was working when he had sex twice with Lauren, but I just don’t have the courage. Even in my head that sounds petty and chocked-full of jealousy. Besides, that was a different job than Cerberus, so maybe the rules are different. God, what happens when he takes another, and he’s forced to do the same thing?
And that makes me question why I’m even concerned. Javier isn’t mine. We aren’t a thing. We can’t ever be anything.
“You had sex with Lauren,” bubbles out of my mouth, shocking me that I couldn’t just let it go.
“I’m not trying to make excuses, but if I hadn’t, then Angel and I would’ve been dead on the spot, and you and the other women would’ve been sold to the next highest bidder.”
“And what would you have done if Lauren wasn’t there? If you didn’t get lucky that another agent, one you had a previous sexual relationship with was there?”
He sits down on the edge of the bed, his eyes full of anguish, and I have my answer.
“That’s an impossible situation.”
“What would you have done?” I ask again, my throat threatening to seize.
“I would’ve done the same thing.” He sounds broken when he answers.
When he reaches for me, I take another step back.
“I won’t lie to you to make myself look good. I’m not happy with the things I’ve done. It eats me from the inside out. I never claimed not to be a monster, and I know it’s little penitence that I was FBI when all of it was happening.”
“I can appreciate your honesty, but regardless of this chemistry between us, we can never happen.”
“I understand. I know it would be too much for any woman to deal with.”
“I probably shouldn’t, but I understand why you did what you did. I guess we can both be grateful you didn’t have to violate someone else. That would be horrible, and I don’t want that for you, but I watched some of that video of you with Lauren, and that type of sex… I’ll never be into that. I don’t fantasize about someone talking to me that way or hurting me. I just can’t see myself—”
“Hold on,” he says, making a timeout sign with his hands. “That kind of sex?”
“Violent and abusive, degrading.”
His laugh is like a slap in the face, and I take another step back. “Wait, no. I’m not laughing at you. Lauren and I didn’t work out because that’s not who I am either. She craves that sort of thing, not me. Yeah, I went along with it for a while, but I can’t imagine any horny guy right out of college would’ve turned her down. And just for full disclosure, the sex outside that first night was necessary for everyone’s safety. The sex in the room later was to make sure no one questioned me. I had intended to talk to her, but once I got in there, I realized I hadn’t turned the audio off, so the conversation we needed to have didn’t happen until that following day in a room without audio or video.”