Chapter 8 Burning Slowly #3
And under normal circumstances, he'd be perfect for her. A good man, a good agent, someone who shares her values and her world. Someone who could give her a normal life with normal risks and normal happiness.
Someone who isn't a killer.
"Rodriguez is a good man," she says quietly, and I realize she's been watching my face.
"Yes."
"He deserves better than being used as a pawn in our game."
Our game. The phrase makes heat unfurl in my chest despite the context.
"Sometimes good people get used in circumstances beyond their control."
"Is that what you're doing? Using me?"
The question catches me off-guard with its directness. She's looking at me with those amber eyes that see everything, waiting for honesty I'm not sure I'm prepared to give.
Are you using her?
The answer should be simple. I brought her here to keep her alive. I'm working with her to clear both our names. Everything between us is circumstantial, driven by necessity rather than choice.
But the way I watch her sleep suggests otherwise. The way I memorized her coffee preferences and bought clothes in her exact size and felt possessive pride when she chose effectiveness over protocol—none of that is about survival.
"No," I say finally. "I'm not using you."
"Then what is this? What are we doing?"
Crossing lines that should never be crossed. Falling for you when I should be entirely focused on keeping us alive.
"I don't know."
It's the most honest answer I can give, and probably the most dangerous.
Because whatever this is between us, it's not one-sided. I know it’s not. Because we both have found something worth fighting for that has nothing to do with justice or revenge or professional duty.
Because you want me the way I want you.
"That’s not a good answer. You chose this life. I had it forced on me."
Did I choose it? Or did circumstances beyond my control push me into shadows where choice became survival and morality became a luxury I couldn't afford?
"Choice is relative when the alternative is death."
"Is it? Or is that just what we tell ourselves to justify doing things we know are wrong?"
The question hits deeper than I expected. Because she's right. Because fifteen years of telling myself I kill to protect innocent people doesn't change the fact that I've taken twenty-seven lives. Because good intentions don't erase the blood on my hands.
Is that what she sees when she looks at me? A killer making excuses?
"You think I'm wrong," I say. "You think what I do is wrong."
"I think what you do is necessary in a world that's broken." She turns to face me, and the honesty in her expression makes my chest tight. "I think you've sacrificed your soul to protect people who will never know your name, even when that made you the loneliest man I've ever met."
Lonely.
The word cuts straight through me because it's so completely accurate. Fifteen years of isolation, of being feared and hunted and completely alone. Fifteen years of watching other people live normal lives while I existed in the spaces between legal and illegal, moral and necessary.
Until you.
"Loneliness is the price of the work."
"It doesn't have to be."
The words hang between us like an invitation I'm not sure I understand. When she steps closer, close enough that I can see the gold flecks in her amber eyes, my pulse starts racing like I'm facing combat instead of conversation.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying maybe you don't have to do this alone anymore. If you really are not just using me, then maybe we can build a real connection—one that’s not based on circumstances and necessity."
We. The word carries implications that make heat spiral through my chest. Partnership beyond professional necessity. Trust beyond circumstance. Something that looks dangerously like the beginning of a future I never thought I could have.
"Mariana---"
"I know what you are. I know what you've done. I know you're dangerous and probably insane and definitely the kind of man I should run from as fast as possible."
But?
"But I also know you saved my life. I know you're risking everything to help me clear my name. I know you've spent two years protecting my investigation without asking for anything in return."
She reaches up, fingers barely grazing my cheek. The touch sends electricity shooting through my nervous system like lightning.
"I know you make me feel safe, even when we're running from people who want to kill us."
Jesus Christ.
She's looking at me like I'm something worth wanting instead of something to be feared.
Something worth keeping.
The realization hits like a physical blow. And instead of being terrified by that fact, I want to claim her so completely that she never questions the choice.
This is insane.
"You don't know what you're saying."
"I know exactly what I'm saying." She steps closer, close enough that her body is almost touching mine. "The question is whether you feel the same way."
Feel the same way. As if the thought of losing her now that I've found her doesn’t make me want to burn down everyone and everything that threatens her already.
"Mariana—"
"Do you?"
The question hangs between us like a challenge. She's asking me to be honest about feelings I've never acknowledged, asking me to choose.
Do you feel the same way?
The answer is written in every choice I've made since the warehouse and brought her to the one place in the world where I feel completely safe. Maybe even from before.
"Yes," I whisper, and the admission feels like jumping off a cliff. "I feel the same way."
Something shifts in her expression. Relief, maybe. Or recognition of something she already knew but needed to hear confirmed.
"Good," she says, and then she's reaching up to kiss me.
The contact is gentle at first, tentative. Testing boundaries, asking permission. But when I respond—when I slide my hands into her hair and pull her closer—it becomes something fiercer. Something desperate and hungry and two years in the making.
She tastes like wine, and when she makes a soft sound against my mouth, something primal and possessive unfurls in my chest.
Mine.
The thought makes me deepen the kiss. Makes me forget every reason this is dangerous and focus only on the woman in my arms who's choosing me over the life she has known so far.
Little wolf. You have no idea what you've just started.
But when she arches against me, when her hands find the hem of my sweater and slip underneath to explore the scars she traced earlier, I don't want her to stop.
Consequences be damned.
Even if it destroys us both.