28. Chapter 28
Chapter twenty-eight
Ashley
I have questions, so many questions, but Aaron’s mouth is on my mouth, his tongue stroking deep, drugging me with a long lick, the taste of him tormented. He doesn’t want to tell me about Mick. He still thinks I can’t handle the truth of who he is and what he’s done. His fingers tighten in my hair, and he deepens the kiss. I don’t fight him for answers. I don’t fight him for conversation. What he doesn’t seem to understand is how much I know him, how much I understand him. How much knowing him reaches deeper than his name, his job. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be here right now.
He pushes me against the door, his big body framing mine, caging me between him and the hard surface behind me. “You don’t need to hold me captive,” I whisper against his mouth. “I’m here because I want to be here.”
“Until you’re not,” he says, his mouth already back on mine, his kiss hungry.
I grab the hem of his T-shirt and shove my hands under it, pressing my hands to his hot, hard abs and leaning into him. We’re going to talk, but he needs to take the edge off. He needs to work through this, and if that means while naked, I’m not complaining. He tears his mouth from mine, his hands pressing to the hard surface on either side of me, his breathing ragged, his eyes swimming with that torment I’d tasted.
“Aren’t you going to demand answers?”
“No. You’re going to give them to me when you’re ready because you love me and because you can trust me with anything.”
“The way you trust me?”
“I do trust you.”
“Funny. That isn’t what you said a few days ago.”
“You know the situation. You know I had a right to be on edge, to be shocked.”
“And yet, a few fucks and you trust me?”
“Fucks? Is that what this is?” Now I’m angry. I try to duck under his arm, but his leg captures mine.
“Running?”
“Moving away from the asshole standing in front of me. Would you prefer I give you a good knee before I do so?”
“I’d prefer you trusted me from the beginning.”
“I’d prefer that you told me the truth from the beginning. Quid pro quo as we say in the legal world. This for that. You get what you give. You got what you gave. And why are we having this discussion yet again? We’ve been down this path. Forward, Aaron. Not backward, which is why I’m not calling you Noah anymore. You can’t be him anymore.”
“Just that easily?”
“There is nothing easy about any of this, including the fact that you and Blake know what I don’t know, like who Mick is to you. Which I just told myself was fine. You need to get some dark energy burned, you need to fuck, but right now, I’m second guessing that way of thinking. The bottom line isn’t about me not trusting you. You don’t trust me . You don’t believe that I can handle whatever it is that you need me to handle. So why did you even bother to come for me?”
“They would have killed you.”
“Oh.” I feel like he just stabbed me in the heart. “Right. So this is about protecting me while getting a fuck in here or there. What do you want me to do? Undress? Bend over? Then we can both forget this is just about protection and deal with how we both move on when this is over.”
He scoops me to him, grasping my backside with one hand, the other flat between my shoulder blades, fingers splayed. “That’s exactly what this should be. That’s what any smart man would make it. We fuck. We hide. We run. You stay out of the details. The less you know, the better.”
“Fine. Fuck me then.”
“I am. I will. But that’s not all this is and you know it.” He doesn’t give me time to reply. His mouth closes down on mine, a demand, a possession, a perfect kiss that is imperfect in all that it represents. He wants to own me. He wants to control me. He wants me to be the woman who accepted him without question and that isn’t even who I should be, it’s not who I should have ever been.
“We’re in this together, eyes open, one hundred percent trust, or not at all. Walker can protect me. Walker will—”
“Smith. You mean fucking Smith.” He releases me and steps back, staring at me, anger and steel in his gaze. “I’m a fucking fool.” He scrubs the back of his neck and then reaches in his pocket, pulling out a phone as he steps to me again and presses it in my hand. “I’m taking a walk. Call Smith and let him tell you who Mick is to me, but know this, I don’t give a fuck how much you hate me when you find out. You are my responsibility. I will not walk away until you’re safe.” He tries to turn away.
My heart lurches, and I catch his arm. “What are you doing? No. You’re not leaving, and I’m not calling Smith. You tell me what you did. You trust me enough to tell me yourself.”
“All right. You want trust? You want to know who I am and why Smith hates me? I killed Mick’s family. Cold blooded killed his family. It was an assignment. I was a fucking assassin for the CIA, and when I had a target, I never missed.”
My throat constricts. “What does that even mean? Killed his family?”
“I was told my target, a very dangerous man—Mick—was at a particular address in Bermuda. He has done things you can’t imagine. I put a bomb in the house. I sat and waited for Mick to show up, and he didn’t. His wife and two kids did. I tried to stop it, but it was too late. They fucking died.”
It feels as if a clamp comes down on my chest. “You didn’t mean to kill them,” I whisper.
“A woman and two children died that day. I didn’t mean to isn’t an excuse. I should have planned better. I should have executed the kill more professionally.”
“You tried. I know you tried and—”
“Stop making excuses for me that you won’t make when you have time to really think about this. When you wake up and hate me.”
“I won’t. I don’t.”
“You will when you wake up. I won’t let you die. Mick is behind all of this. I knew the minute I heard his name. He framed me, and he plans to kill you. Which means I have to kill him first. I’ll kill him, and it won’t be gentle or fast.”