Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
Outside the motel window, the neon “Vacancy” sign buzzed, half the letters burnt out. The place looked like it had been forgotten by time and remembered only by desperate travelers.
Lucía sat on the edge of one of the twin beds, still dressed, eyes fixed on the soft blue light of her laptop.
She wasn’t working anymore, she was just staring at the code she’d already run, willing it to yield something new.
The cursor blinked like a heartbeat, steady and mocking.
She scrolled through familiar commands, but her thoughts refused to settle.
Her mind wasn’t on the screen.
It was on Ryan, in the shower.
She could hear the water running behind the closed door, the rhythmic hiss and splash of it unnervingly intimate.
Every time she caught the rhythm, she imagined steam curling around his shoulders, tracing the bruises across his ribs.
She’d seen them earlier, when he peeled off his shirt with a wince. Her eyes had lingered too long. Again.
She closed the laptop gently and stood, pacing the cramped length of the room. The window showed nothing but the glowing edge of the sign and a parking lot slick with oil stains. Somewhere nearby, a motorcycle revved and faded into the night.
A buzzing itch of tension had settled into her skin. Restless. Uneasy.
The bathroom door creaked open. Her pulse jumped.
Ryan stepped out, towel around his neck, shirtless and scrubbed clean. His jeans hung low on his hips, revealing the V-cut in his abs that pointed southwards like a goddamn arrow. His hair was damp, curling slightly at the edges. He looked younger. Softer. But no less dangerous.
Lucía tried not to react. She failed.
He caught her eye, then looked away just as fast.
“Your turn,” he said, voice low and rough.
She nodded, edging past him, careful not to touch.
Inside the bathroom, she let the door click closed and exhaled slowly.
Her reflection in the mirror looked like someone she didn’t quite recognize.
Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes a little too wide.
She splashed water on her face, as if cold would burn off the distraction.
When she came out, towel in hand, Ryan was lying on top of the blanket, one arm behind his head, the other draped across his chest. His pistol was on the bed beside him. He was flipping a cartridge in the air, catching it, flipping it again. The motion was hypnotic.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
She squeezed the water out of the ends of her hair with the towel. “You still mad at me?”
He stopped flipping the cartridge. “No.” A pause. “Maybe.”
She crossed to the second bed and sat, elbows on her knees. “I didn’t mean to snap earlier.”
“I know,” he said. “You’re under pressure. So am I.”
A long beat.
“You think we’ll make it out of this?” she asked.
Ryan’s mouth quirked. “I used to. Not so sure anymore.”
She paused for a long beat. “Why are you really on the run?”
He was quiet for a moment, then said, “Surely you must have Googled me by now.”
Lucía gave a faint smile. “Actually, no. Some things I prefer not to turn to the internet for.”
He let out a dry chuckle. “Well, that’s new.”
She waited.
“I was a deputy U.S. marshal,” he said. “Served on a fugitive task force out of Tennessee. I did good work. But I made a mistake. I got compromised, and I put a protected witness in danger. Crossed lines I shouldn’t have.”
Lucía said nothing.
“I let her down. In more ways than one.” There was a long pause. “So I ran.”
“Do you regret it?”
He was quiet again, then said, “Every day.”
“If you could go back,” she said, “would you?”
“To the Marshals?” He snorted. “There’s no going back. Once you cross a line with them, you don’t return.”
She said nothing, letting his words sink in. It was clear he didn’t just mean that the Marshals Service had turned their backs on him. Whatever he had done had caused his whole country to paint him as an enemy.
“You just get better at pretending you were always meant to be here,” he said.
She looked over at him, something flickering in her gaze. “Yeah,” she murmured. “I know that feeling.”
The silence shifted. The air between them seemed to crackle, as if the broken neon sign outside the window was electrifying the air. It felt harder to breathe than usual, and she felt a slow burn ignite low in her belly.
He sat up slightly, wincing as the movement pulled on his ribs.
“You need anything?” she asked quietly.
“Other than a time machine?”
She forced herself to break whatever spell this situation, and his shirtlessness, had cast on her. Walking to the mini fridge, she pulled out a water bottle and tossed it to him. “Hydration, actually. Revolutionary concept.”
He grinned and twisted the cap off, taking a long drink. She watched the movement of his throat as he swallowed, the bob of his Adams apple.
He caught her looking. “You know,” he said, “you don’t have to keep your guard up all the time.”
She arched a brow. “I’m not sure that’s true.”
“You let it down with me. Back in the cabin.”
Her face went still. “That was strategy.”
“Sure,” he said, but his voice was softer now. “And this?” He gestured to the space between them, so narrow now it could be crossed in a breath.
Lucía’s heart pounded. “This is logistics.”
Ryan laughed, a real one this time, warm and weary. He stood and crossed the room, stopping just short of touching her. “You’re a terrible liar.”
She looked up at him, the motel light catching in her eyes. She felt her chest rising and falling, but she couldn’t seem to get oxygen into her lungs. The burn in her belly had become a full-on inferno. “Goodnight,” she whispered.
Ryan didn’t move for a beat. His face was as impassive as ever, but she could swear his eyes had dulled with desire. Then they cleared, and he stepped back. “Night.”
She turned and dimmed the light. The shadows between them stretched like tension cables.
Lucía lay down, eyes open to the dark. She told herself to breathe, to rest, to let it go, but her body wouldn’t listen. Her blood hummed with a nervous electricity, as if something in her had been reawakened after years of quiet.
It scared her, this feeling. This pull toward something she couldn’t control, couldn’t logic her way out of.
Wanting someone was dangerous. Trusting someone was even worse.
She had spent so long building walls, learning to live without this quiver in her belly.
And now here it was, curling beneath her ribs like a live wire.
From the sound of Ryan turning restlessly in the other bed, she wasn’t the only one chasing sleep and failing.