Page 18 of Tattletale

I’m imagining what wedging my cock between Cricket’s full tits would feel like. Heaven, I’m sure. “Nope,” I say. “I’m good. Let’s go eat.”

“Excuse me?”

I laugh for barely a moment before I walk her backward, so she’s braced against the tile wall. Then, my tongue is in her mouth. I’m kissing her like I’m a man stranded in the desert, and she’s the only thing that can quench my thirst. Sweet and tender turn into an aggressive dance between our tongues. She pulls my bottom lip between her teeth, tugging hard.

“How long have you wanted this?”

My hand creeps between her thighs, working my way to her warm pussy. “Way too long.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“I wasn’t ready.” I hunch down, rubbing my lips against her neck, over the thin skin of her throat. I feel her chuckle.

“You needed time to fuck your way through your twenties first, huh?”

I halt, dropping my hand. Looking her right in her emerald eyes, I shake my head. “Is that what you think?”

“I was kidding.” She tries to put her lips back on mine, but I pull away.

“Every single woman I’ve been with has been to keep my mind off of you. You told me it was never going to happen between us. So, I loved you in the way you’d let me…as a friend.”

“You’re Lance.” She shrugs.

“What does that mean?”

“You’re the guy who can make a girl come on your fingers in less than one minute. Not the guy who wants to come home to a wife, have dinner together at the table, cuddle in front of the fireplace, then fall asleep together.”

I guess my reputation precedes itself. But that was before I had hope…before Cricket kissed me. It was like being shocked back to life. I forgot I had an identity outside of being an assassin.

“We’re PALADIN first and foremost. That’s not the life we signed up for,” I say.

She hangs her head. “I know.”

“Look at me.” I lift her chin with one finger. “Is that what you really want?”

Her smile is timid. Normally, Cricket doesn’t do anything with hesitation, but she seems to be having trouble admitting this.

“Tell me what you want,” I reiterate.

“Most days, I accept my fate. But sometimes, I wish I had the life my mother wanted for me. Pappa walking me down the aisle in a white dress. Marrying a gentleman. Having a big family. Mysister, alive and close. I want to watch my children grow, and my beauty fade. I want to see at the end of the road what actually remains—the important things—like the man who built a full life with me and promises to love me until my very last breath.”

“Sounds nice.” And I actually mean it. With Cricket, I could steal away from the world and stay hidden with just this perfect woman as my only company.

“It’s a pipe dream now.”

I pause for a moment to taste her soft lips. I kiss her softly, like a sweet promise. “I’ll get us as close as I can,” I murmur.

“What do you mean?”

“Your family is gone, but you have PALADIN. You can walk down the aisle in a white dress. I’ll be there waiting, in a nice suit, like a gentleman. You know I can’t have children, but there are other ways to be parents if that’s what you want. As for your beauty fading…that’ll never happen. At least not in my eyes.”

She grabs me by my wet shirt, slowly. She undoes the little gray buttons one by one, like she’s savoring every inch of skin she reveals. “It’s sweet, but it’s a bluff, Lancelot,” she murmurs. “You know we can’t get married. The American courthouse requires a birth certificate for identification. They’d be a little shocked to learn that you rose from the dead and suddenly want to get married.”

“What are you insinuating?”

“It’s easy to make promises when you know you can’t keep them. That life wasn’t meant for us. We’re killers.” She pulls my opened shirt off my shoulders and tosses it out of the shower.

“Marry me.”

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