Chapter 4
Talia
The sound is tiny, but it might as well be a bomb.
I spin away from the table and lunge for it.
Shadow moves too, but I’m closer. I snatch it off the charger, the screen finally glowing weakly to life.
One message.
Brianna.
My heart stops, then starts wrong.
Stop looking for me.
Four words. No heart. No explanation.
No “T.”
My knees go soft.
“She’s alive,” I whisper. “I think… I mean, of course she is.”
Shadow’s hand closes over the phone before I can hit call.
I jerk back. “Don’t.”
“You call, they trace, record, listen, or bait you into saying exactly where you are.”
“It’s Brianna.”
“Maybe.”
The word slaps harder than I expect.
Maybe.
I grip the phone tighter. “Give it back.”
His eyes hold mine, steady and grim.
“No.”
Anger cuts through the panic so fast I almost welcome it.
“She told me to stop looking for her.”
“I can read.”
“She’s scared.”
“Maybe.”
“Stop saying that.”
His jaw flexes. “Then stop treating a text like proof.”
The screen glows between us.
Stop looking for me.
Four words.
And somehow, they scare me more than the gunfire.
My vision blurs.
I blink hard, but it only makes everything worse.
“No,” I whisper, and I hate how broken it sounds. “No, she wouldn’t just tell me to stop. Not like that. She knows I won’t. She knows…”
My throat closes.
She knows I always come.
That’s the thought I can’t say.
Shadow sees it anyway.
His hand loosens around the phone, but he doesn’t let go. “Talia.”
“No.” I shove at his chest with my free hand. It’s useless. He doesn’t move. “Don’t say my name like that. Don’t make me sound stupid for wanting to believe my sister is alive and well.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. Every time you say maybe, you are.”
“I’m trying to keep you safe, to find out answers. The truth.”
“The truth?” I laugh, and it comes out too sharp. “The truth is I went there, I got shot at, I ran, and now I’m standing in a motel room with a man I don’t know while my sister texts me to abandon her.”
His expression turns dark. “You didn’t abandon her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you went into Salazar’s yard alone for her.”
“And left with nothing.”
“You left breathing.”
“That doesn’t feel like enough.”
The words fall between us.
Ugly.
Honest.
Too big for the little room.
Shadow goes still.
Then his hand comes up, slow enough that I could move away if I wanted to.
I don’t.
His palm cups the side of my face, rough and warm, thumb brushing just under my cheekbone.
“Breathe,” he says.
“I am breathing.”
“No, you’re fighting not to break.”
That does it.
A tear slips free.
I hate it.
He catches it with his thumb like it offends him that the world put it there.
“I don’t know what to do,” I whisper.
His gaze drops to my mouth.
Just once.
A flicker.
A mistake.
A warning.
I feel it everywhere.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I say.
His voice goes rough. “Like what?”
“Like you’re about to make this worse.”
His eyes come back to mine.
“Wouldn’t be worse.”
My breath catches.
Then I’m moving.
Or he is.
Maybe both.
The phone slips from both our hands onto the bed beside us, the screen still glowing, and Shadow’s mouth comes down on mine.
It isn’t soft.
Good.
I don’t need soft right now.
I need something solid enough to hit back against the fear. Something hot enough to burn through the sound of gunfire still trapped in my head.
He kisses like he does everything else. Controlled until he isn’t. One hand at my jaw. The other at my waist, pulling me in without asking permission my body has already given. I grab his cut because I need to hold on to something, and leather creaks under my fingers.
He tastes like cold air and danger.
Like a bad idea with a heartbeat.
I make a sound I don’t recognize, and he answers with a low growl that rolls through me straight to my knees.
Then he stops.
Just stops.
His forehead rests against mine. His breathing is rough. Mine is worse.
“Not like this,” he says.
I should be embarrassed.
I should step back.
Instead, I clutch his cut tighter.
“Like what?”
“Scared. Hurting. Looking for something to make it stop.”
My chest aches.
The worst part is, he’s right.
The even worse part is, I still want him.
Not because he’s safe.
He isn’t.
Not because I’m fine.
I’m not.
I want him because everything in me is shaking apart and he’s the only thing in this room that feels steady. Because his hand on my face makes the panic quieter. Because when he looks at me, I don’t feel stupid for being scared.
I feel seen.
I lift my chin, my fingers still twisted in his cut.
“Then don’t make it stop,” I whisper.
His eyes flare.
“Talia.”
“My name is not a warning label.”
“It is when you say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you don’t know what you’re asking for.”
I lean closer, close enough that my mouth brushes his when I speak.
“I know exactly what I’m asking for.”
Something rough moves through him. I feel it in the hand at my waist, in the way his fingers flex once, hard enough to make my breath catch.
“Careful, little hellcat.”
The nickname should annoy me.
It doesn’t.
It does something much, much worse.
It makes me want to prove him right.
So I kiss him.
This time, I’m the one who starts it.
And Shadow doesn’t stay controlled for long.
His hand slides from my jaw into my hair, rough fingers threading through the tangled strands, holding me still while his mouth takes mine deeper. The other hand tightens at my waist, dragging me against him until there’s no space left between us.
Hard muscle.
Warm leather.
My soft body pressed to every dangerous inch of him.
My breath breaks.
His does too.
The sound of it goes straight through me, hot and reckless. I rise on my toes, chasing more, and he gives it to me with a low growl that feels less like a sound and more like a claim.
His hand drops to my hip.
Big.
Possessive.
Fingers digging into denim as he turns me away from the bed and walks me backward until my spine meets the wall beside it. The impact is soft, controlled, his palm already behind my head so I don’t hit too hard.
Even like this, even with his body pinning me in place and his mouth rough on mine, he’s careful.
That should not make me hotter.
It does.
His beard scrapes my cheek. My jaw. The sensitive place under my ear. I gasp, and his mouth moves lower, dragging heat down my throat until my head tips back all on its own.
“Jayce,” I breathe.
He goes still.
Completely still.
Then his forehead drops to my shoulder.
“Fuck.”
The word is quiet.
Ragged.
Final.
My hands are still gripping his cut. My body is still pressed to his. Every part of me is awake and shaking and furious that he stopped.
“Seriously?” I whisper.
A rough laugh leaves him, but there’s no humor in it. “Yeah, love. Seriously.”
A second nickname.
Love.
The word lands low and warm and unfair.
He lifts his head, and his eyes are darker than before. Less gray now. More storm.
“If I keep going, I’m not stopping at kissing.”
My mouth goes dry.
Oh.
Oh, that does not help.
He sees the thought cross my face. His jaw tightens like restraint physically hurts.
“And that,” he says, voice rough enough to scrape, “is exactly why I’m stopping.”