Without Remorse

He leaned over the trunk. She couldn’t see what he was doing. It was wigging her out enough to have the door open and be looking out into the larger world.

Dr. Noah used to have her do exposure therapy back home where she’d spend time with the front door open looking out on to the front yard. She’d had a hard time with that. And now here she was, God only knew where, watching one gangster lock another one up in a trunk. Right after being kidnapped by the aforementioned gangster in order to protect her from the other gang or mob or whatever she’d accidently gotten herself caught up with—

“I need to sit down,” she said to Ramona. Except as soon as she did, that crawl out of her skin feeling hit again and she sprang back up. “Nope, gotta move, gotta move,” she said manically, petting Ramona so hard accidently that she yowled and started scratching to get away. “Oh no, honey, sorry,” Sloane said in dismay, looking down at her.

But thankfully, Nicholas was just then slamming the trunk shut on Olly and heading back inside. Sloane let Ramona down as soon as he closed the door behind him.

“What now?” she exclaimed, her hands going to her head. “Oh my God, what am I going to do now?”

Nicholas was annoyingly calm as he walked towards her. “You aren’t going to do anything. Nothing’s changed. We stick to the plan.”

“The plan? What plan?” Sloane flew towards him and slammed him in the chest. “The plan where you just come in and uproot my entire life and take me off to New York to do what? It’s not like I can start my business again if they tracked me down that way in the first place!”

Nicholas gazed down at her, his jaw locking. “Did you really want to be doing that your whole life anyway?”

Sloane glared at him, throwing a finger in his face. “Don’t you dare shame me for what I had to do to get by. It was honest work and lots of—”

“That’s not what I meant—”

“Didn’t you?”

He huffed out a frustrated breath. “I just mean that you’re better than that. You’re more than just your beautiful body and getting assholes on the internet off.”

“What the hell else am I supposed to do?” The adrenaline rushing through Sloane’s veins had loosened her tongue and her inhibitions. “I don’t have a college education. I couldn’t finish since I couldn’t exactly stay on campus and go to class.”

“You could finish online.”

“And then do what?” she all but yelled, even though the last thing they needed was to bring attention on to themselves.

“Anything you wanted to.” He stepped into her space. “You sell yourself short and it’s bullshit. You could do anything you set your mind to. The fact that you became a successful business woman from nothing. I’m sure lots of girls try to make a living camming but how many of them make the kind of money you did?”

She shrugged, waving his words away. “Well it takes time, but if you’re disciplined and learn the game—”

He shook his head, seeming frustrated with her. “Exactly. You’re smart. And friendly. I bet it was your personality more than anything that kept people depositing those tokens. You make people feel—”

“What?” she asked, her heartbeat racing for reasons she couldn’t fully understand. The adrenaline, she told herself. It was just the shot of adrenaline, that was all. It had nothing to do with how close he was standing. “How do I make people feel?” It was a cop out for asking, How do I make you feel? But he answered anyway.

He took another step forward, making her swallow and back up a little, except there was a wall behind her. He didn’t stop though, and when he next spoke, she could feel his minty breath on her face.

“You make people feel crazy,” he said, his voice gruff, “and alive, and like all they want is another minute with you, and then another, because maybe then they can keep feeling all those feelings for just a little bit longer.”

It was the adrenaline that made her do it—that was what she’d tell herself later. She thought that even as she reached up and flung her arms around his neck.

But she knew that was a lie, because she’d been wanting to do this from almost the very first day she’d met this infuriating enigma of a man. He was so tall she had to go up on tip toes. But when his arms came around her waist, he helped hike her up to meet his body.

And then their lips crashed together.

Oh holy—

How many times had she described this kind of passionate kissing online? A hundred times? A thousand?

But this, here, right now—the meeting of his hot lips against hers. She dug her fingers into his scalp and then dragged them down. He growled into her mouth and dropped his hands under her thighs. She got the message. She jumped up and wrapped her legs around his waist and he pinned her against the wall.