Remy pulled the ring from his pocket. “Found this on Tim there—the guy who likes to impersonate a federal agent—when I was searching him.” Remy had taken the liberty of putting the ring in a little plastic bag for the sheriff. “The CIA will be retrieving it as fast as possible, but I assured them it would be safe in your capable hands until they could arrive.”
Dewayne straightened his shoulders. “Hell, yes, it will be.” He took the ring.
Tim wilted. “We’re going to jail forever.”
The sheriff had come with a deputy, and they took Tim and Nate out to the waiting patrol car. Remy followed and watched them from the porch, aware that Jacqueline hadn’t said much at all to the sheriff. In fact, she’d seemed to freeze up during their conversation.
The sheriff promised to come back with questions—at a decent hour. Of course, Remy and Jacqueline wouldn’t be there when he returned, but there was no sense in telling the sheriff that. The CIA—and maybe even some Feds—would be swooping in soon enough on Dewayne’s small town.
“I stole the ring.” Jacqueline spoke up just as the sheriff drove away. “You know that.”
“No, youretrievedthe ring,” Remy corrected her as the stars glittered overhead. Thousands of stars. That was what he liked about being at the cabin. He could look up, and, without the bright lights of a big city, the sky put on a beautiful show for him every single night. “You weren’t the one who stole it from an exiled queen. Or actually, if the rumors are true, she may have used that ring to try and finance the assassination attempt on her ex.”
Jacqueline stumbled back a step.
Afraid she’d fall, he caught her arm.
“This…it’s not real,” she said.
Unfortunately, it was. Jacqueline was in one clusterfuck of an international incident.
“A queen and a ring…and guys shooting at us. This isn’t my life.”
“It is now,” he assured her grimly. Constantine had vanished for a bit. No doubt, he’d gone to check in with his new boss.Working for Wilde.That was probably a good place forhim to be. The Wilde agents were the best, no bullshit, and Remy knew that Eric looked after all his employees.
Constantine—with all his assorted and deadly skills—would fit right in at Wilde. As for Remy, well, there had never been a place where he did fit.
His hand slid down to clasp hers. Jacqueline’s fingers immediately twined with his.Fit.
Remy stiffened.
“I get this is way more than you bargained for,” she said, misinterpreting his tension. “You’ve done enough for me. You’ve gone above and beyond. I get it.”
“It?” Remy repeated as he turned his body toward her.
“I mean to say, I understand if you would rather I slipped out of your life now.”
That was fuckingnotwhat he wanted. “Preston isn’t going to drop his obsession.” No way was Preston going to be that smart. Mostly because…
It’s all linked together. The ring. The missing twenty million. Jacqueline.His back teeth had clenched. Dammit. “There are some things you need to know,” he began.
She surged forward and grabbed his shoulders. In a flash, Jacqueline pulled Remy down to her and pressed a kiss to his lips. “I am going to miss you.” She tried to step back.
He didn’t let her go. “Sweetness, you aren’t going anywhere without me.”
“But—”
This time, he kissed her. A deep, open-mouthed, drugging kiss. One that reminded him that he’dbeeninside her, been in the hot, tight paradise of her sex, and he wanted to be in again. He wanted to feel her come around him. To taste every single inch of her. To make her come for him over and over until theyboth collapsed in exhaustion. Then he wanted to sleep with her in his arms, wake up, and do everything again.
“Ahem.”
But he couldn’t do that. Because his buddy Con had decided this was the best moment to appear once again.
“Just gonna hang out on the porch and make out? That the new plan?” Constantine drawled. “Because, sure, that’s one option, I suppose, but I’m not sure it solves the major problem we all have.”
Remy lifted his head.
“You have the flunkies being taken away by the sheriff—and then, presumably, being handled by some of your mysterious agent friends.” One of the boards on the porch squeaked beneath Constantine’s feet. “But she isn’t going to be safe, not until Preston is the one being driven away in a patrol car.”