8. Chapter 8
Chapter eight
Ashley
“ I still love you. I still love you so fucking much that I can barely breathe thinking about losing you.”
At the sound of Noah’s voice, I come back to the present, emotion balled low in my belly. I turn to find him standing in the doorway, his missing T-shirt and boots back in place. “I still love you,” he continues, “so damn much that it hurts to think about me without you.”
“And yet you just said—”
“I know what I said.” He closes the space between us, stepping close, but not touching me. “And it’s not about playing games. I know every reason I shouldn’t have ever gotten involved with you. I know every reason I should let you go, but I don’t want to let you go.” He lifts his hands to touch me, but catches himself, his jaw flexing before he lowers them. “Don’t touch you, right?”
“I don’t think clearly when you touch me.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“Based on present circumstances, it’s hard to see it any other way.”
“Right. It’s hard for you not to see me as the biggest fucking mistake of your life.”
That emotion in my chest expands, and I think back to that first coffee date. “Maybe we should start again, this time, with hot chocolate instead of coffee.”
“You’re telling me to slow down.”
“Yes. I’m telling you to slow down. I need time to think.”
His hands come down on my arms, his forehead pressed to mine. “I don’t have a slow button with you.”
I think of the past, of the kiss in the bar bathroom, and a part of me smiles. “I noticed.” My fingers curl on his chest, and for the first time since we’ve come back together, I let myself believe that maybe he is the man I know. “But there’s a side of you beyond Noah and beyond the assassin that I need to know.” I pull back to look at him. “Tell me about Aaron.”
“I’m a pretty simple man. I love. I kill. I kill for who I love and that’s you. Does that scare you?”
“And if it does?”
“It should.” He steps into me. “I can’t change what I’ve done, but I can tell you that you have changed me. I promise you, when this ends, you’ll have your freedom, from all of this, including me, if that’s what you choose. I just hope like hell you don’t.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ve made a lot of money; payout from side jobs the CIA contracted me out to perform. Enough that we could live a good life for the rest of our lives, anywhere we want.”
“Anywhere?” I find myself asking, leaning into him.
His eyes soften. “Are you saying you’d go with me?”
“I—I don’t know.” My lashes lower then lift. “I want to trust you.”
“You can trust me, but if we run now, we’ll always be hunted. I don’t want that for you. I don’t want to bring that on you.”
I believe him. God, I believe him. “You really were setup?”
“I swear to you, on everything I am, on everything we are , that I was setup, but fuck, that means nothing to you, I know. How can it? I shouldn’t have ever proposed before I told you.”
“Why did you?”
“There was a part of me that believed when you found out, knowing you had that ring on your finger would matter.” A text dings in his pocket, and he curses. “There’s too much going on for me not to look.”
I nod, and he grabs his cell from his pocket, his gaze brushing the screen, tension radiating off of him. “Change of plans, baby,” he says, shoving his phone back into his pocket. “We’re leaving. Now. The owner of the cabin is on his way here.” He picks up the gun he’d given me and places it in my hand. “Keep that. I brought your purse. You can hide it there like we planned in the past.” He turns and heads toward the living room.
Like we planned in the past . Those words pull me back to him more than any other he’s spoken; they tell me why he wanted me to learn to handle and fire a gun. He never meant to hurt me. He was afraid for me. I race after him and find him tossing two duffle bags on the couch, one that is mine from my apartment.
“The owner?” I ask. “Do you know the owner?”
He rounds the couch and pulls a shoulder holster from under it, fitting it in place.
“He’s my mentor, and one of the few people I’ve ever trusted.”
“Then why are we leaving in the middle of a blizzard?” I ask.
“I don’t like unexpected visitors.” He reaches back under the couch and pulls out not one, but two guns that he attaches to his person.
I step in front of the coffee table. “But you know him. And how was it unexpected? He told you in advance, right?”
“So I wouldn’t shoot him before he walks in the door.” He sets my bag on the table. “I brought some of your clothes. Find your purse and make sure your gun is accessible.”
“What about the blizzard?” I ask again. “And I thought you trusted your mentor?”
“I don’t trust anyone with a price tag on both of our heads.”
I slide my purse strap across my chest and place the gun inside. “If he’s your mentor, is he better than you?”
“Used to be,” he says, zipping his bag.
“Used to be?”
“We’re well-matched now, too well-matched for comfort.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “He’s your mentor. You trust him.”
He moves to stand in front of me, his hands back on my shoulders. “Relax, baby. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“What about you? You can’t save me if you’re dead. I’m sold. Screw the blizzard. Let’s leave.”
“We won’t make it if he doesn’t want us to leave, not without a war. I need you to hide in the bedroom. There’s an extra gun in the nightstand drawer. Use it. Save the bullets in the one in your purse.”
“Am I going to need the bullets?”
“Go hide, baby, and I need you to remember this: trust no one but me. No one. I don’t care who they tell you they are. I don’t care what badge they show you. They come at you, you shoot first and ask questions later.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“I’m preparing you in case something goes wrong. Go, now.” He turns me to face in the opposite direction, and I do as he says. I rush forward, hurrying to the right, down a short hallway, I enter a bedroom, shutting and locking the door and taking in the small space. There’s just a bed, two nightstands, and a small, very small window that’s eye level, which strikes me as by design. No one is breaking in that tiny thing. I rush to the nightstand, where I open the drawer and pull out the gun, grateful for those classes. So much makes sense now.
My mind goes back to the past, to only a few weeks after Noah, no, Aaron and I had met, the two of us sitting on my couch, eating popcorn and watching the new JLo police drama.
“Do you know how to shoot?” he asks, pausing the show.
“I’ve never even touched a gun,” I say, “and I like it that way.”
“No woman should live alone in a city like Houston and not know how to shoot.”
“I’m afraid of guns,” I say. “I’m not shooting one. I don’t want to own one.”
“That’s a problem we need to fix. You learn to handle a gun, you learn to make it your friend, and you’ll stop being afraid.”
I frown. “You know how to shoot that well?”
“Yes,” he says simply. “Very well.”
“Why is a lawyer and financier an expert with a gun?”
He leans in and kisses my neck, whispering near my ear, “You know what a control freak I am.”
Heat rushes through me as I think of just how much of a control freak he is, most certainly when we’re naked. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
He inches back to look at me. “Owning a gun, knowing you can defend yourself, is control.” He brushes a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m going to teach you how to have that kind of control.”
“Then you won’t be in control,” I tease.
His eyes burn hot, and the next thing I know, I’m on my back with his big body on top of me. “Who’s in control?”
“You,” I say, sounding and feeling breathless. “But only because I let you.”
“That’s right, baby. Only because you let me and be careful who you give that power to.”
“Should I be careful with you?” I challenge.
His eyes darken, shadows in their depths, before he murmurs, “It’s too late for that,” and then he kisses me.
My mind comes back to the present, but I’m still remembering that comment: it’s too late for that , and I believe now is why he didn’t just get me a gun. He pushed me to practice using it. I’m a damn good shot now. I could kill him, and he knows it. That didn’t worry him. Me protecting myself from everyone else did though. I scan and find a door that stirs unease in me. I walk toward it and pull it open to find nothing but a small shallow empty closet. I walk back to the door and lean on the surface where I listen and listen hard. There is no sound beyond the wind outside, a gusting sharp wind that seems to rock the house. I listen for voices. I listen for anything at all, but there’s nothing but the storm outside.
The silence suffocates me right up until the moment that I hear a tap on that one single window in the room.