I swallowed my butterflies, inhaling his scent and letting it seep into my pores. “Fighting? I’m simply breathing,” I lied.
He regarded me, his gaze long and measured. “You’re not simply breathing. You’re fighting. With every breath you take.”
I sighed. Weary of the conversation, of the situation. Of everything. I got it now, that phrase ‘world-weary.’
“Isn’t that the same thing?” I asked.
His stare was unwavering. “In your world, I guess so. But it shouldn’t be,” he said.
“My world is the only world I’ve got,” I shot back.
He regarded me. “It’s all I’ve got too.”
I swallowed, taking him in, trying to reconcile this Luke with the one who’d been there when I left. “You’ve changed,” I observed. He’d gotten harder. Not just in the muscle department, though he’d changed a lot there too.
But him.
He’d been soft—not in the muscle department—kind, good before.
Now?
He was starting to resemble the men I’d grown up with. The men I called family.
Criminals.
That’s what he was now, I guessed. It was what he’d been since I’d made him that. Made him rip off that badge, take off that uniform that was everything to him. That defined him.
Of all the people I’d killed, causing that little death inside Luke would be the thing that would haunt me to the grave.
His eyes didn’t waver. “So have you.”
My replay reel went to Venezuela. “Yeah,” I agreed.
He moved so he was on top of me. “We’ve got a lot of talkin’ to do, babe. Lot of fightin’, I’m sure. Lot of shit. Complicated. For now, I feel like keeping it simple. Me fucking you. How does that sound?”
His fingers were inside me before I could say anything else, but I didn’t need to give him permission. He’d had my permission since forever.
“Sounds perfect,” I breathed.
Chapter Sixteen
“I’m gonna ask you some questions, and I want the truth.”
We were in the kitchen. It was either very early or very late. We’d ordered Chinese and I was storing it in the fridge, where I’d intend to eat it for leftovers but it’d just sit, spoiling for a week until the smell made me throw it out.
Simple, amazing, breathtaking, life-shattering simple was over.
Not that I wanted it. I just didn’t think I could handle one more orgasm.
And it was time for complicated, it seemed.
I eyed him. “No you don’t.”
“Rosie,” he warned.
I sighed dramatically. “Be careful what you wish for.”
“That’s a yes?”
I raised my eyebrows impatiently in response.
“Where were you? This year.”
Okay, starting with an easy one. “Venezuela. Mostly.”
He narrowed his eyes. “And how is it that you were mostly in Venezuela and there’s no record of you leaving the country?”
I narrowed my own eyes. “You’ve been sneaking into some databases you shouldn’t be. I’m impressed.”
He scowled. “I’ve got friends. Answer the question.”
I shrugged. “Used a fake passport.”
His left eye twitching was the only visual form of his surprise. “You have a fake passport?”
“I have three.” If he wanted honest, I’d give him the dirty, ugly truth. Then I’d look at the Luke-shaped hole in my door once he’d heard it all.
“Three?” he repeated.
I nodded.
“And Cade knows?”
Surprising question, but I went with it. “He knows about one, hence the need for the other two.”
“How did you get them?” It seemed to be asked more out of curiosity than need.
I grinned. “You’re not the only one with friends.”
He didn’t grin back. “What were you doing in Venezuela?”
“Escaping, mostly. Tanning. Drinking. For a start, at least. Stumbled onto something and I started to tan a lot less. Drink some more.”
He caught it, the chilling of my tone, the darkening of my eyes. His hands clenched into fists. “What did you stumble onto?”
I took a breath. “A human trafficking ring.”
He stared at me. For a long time. “Only you would ‘stumble’ onto a human trafficking ring while tanning and drinking.”
“Well, I was in Venezuela. Stumbling onto trouble was inevitable.”
“I don’t think that counts. You could stumble into trouble on a Mormon compound.”
I scowled. “Hey, that priest started it,” I protested.
He narrowed his brow. “Continue.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, I couldn’t very well do nothing—”
“Nothing is exactly what you should’ve done, Rosie. You can’t do anything about something as huge and institutionalized except get yourself killed,” he said sharply.
It was time for a scowl of my own. “Really, Luke? This is what’s coming from you, of all people? I see human beings being abused in the worst ways imaginable and I’m to just walk away? That’s righteous Luke Crawford’s advice.”
“I’ve changed.”
“I’ve noticed.”
His eyes went hard, something flickering behind them. Hurt, maybe. Vulnerability.
“You have too,” he said, little more than a whisper. And that time it wasn’t the same as he’d said it before. I knew his mind was in my bedroom, one year back. I hadn’t visited that memory since it happened. I couldn’t.
I swallowed. “Yeah.”
He ran his hand through his hair. “Rosie, how could you be that stupid? Risking your life, no one knowing where you were. No one to save you—”