Page 15 of Live for Me

Why hadn’t I said anything?

I could’ve thanked him for trusting me with his background. I could’ve told him that I was so impressed by his ability to just accept what was and leave it in the past so he could have a life separate from all the bad behind him. I could’ve asked what technique he’d obviously mastered where he had this ability to tap into that dangerous and disconnected part of him that allowed him to do our kind of work, but then to snap right back out of it whenever he wanted.

Anything.

I could’ve fucking saidanything.

Instead, I’d nodded.

I leaned back against my door once it closed and tried to blow out all the air in my body.

I didn’t feel any better about the way we’d left that last encounter even after I’d showered and tried to physically wash it away.

I painted my fingernails.

And then my toenails.

I opened my computer, thinking I’d start on the search for the next Judge/Executioner team. After staring at the collage of pictures of Jersey and Trista, Indy, and Utah that made up my laptop wallpaper now, I closed it again almost instantly and went to the hallway.

I stared at Utah’s door for another few minutes before I worked up the nerve to knock. I already knew the man walked around in just basketball shorts once he was in for the night, so I kept my eyes on the floor when he opened the door.

“You okay?” he asked before he even had it open all the way.

“Yeah. I just—I—I don’t really know why I came over here.”

I forced myself to look up at his face just in time to see him try to hide a grin.

“Would you like me to close the door? Give you a chance to try again in a couple seconds?” He asked.

“Yes, please.”

He almost choked on the laugh he was trying to hold in while he really did close the fucking door. I shook my head at my own dumbassery and tried to breathe.

The all-out smile on his face when that monster opened the door the second time was so much worse.

“I kind of expected you to be gone,” he laughed. “Figured you’d take that chance to run and hide.”

I took a deep breath and tried to focus. “Utah, I’m really sorry that I just sat there like a statue after you told me about your childhood. I’m sorry your parents were assholes. I’m sorry you were in a position where murder felt like the only way out for you.”

His smile faded a little more with each word out of my mouth, and I started to think that maybe I could ask him to close the door another time to try again. Then I really would run and hide like he’d suggested.

“Come on in here, angel.”

He stepped off to the side to let me walk by and into his room.

“I’m really not afraid of you either,” I said quietly. “I’m not worried about being in this hotel with you.”

The logical side of me knew there was absolutely no chance that Utah would hurt me, but I was very much afraid of the other ways that he was starting to feel dangerous to me.

My eyes usually focused pretty hard on the muscle that covered the man’s top half, but when he walked by me that time, I could only see the scars. I couldn’t begin to guess what he’d lived through while he was so young ifallof those scars came from the time before he killed his father.

CHAPTER EIGHT

utah

Icouldn’t hear anything over the sound of my own heartbeat hammering away at full force, like I’d just sprinted ten miles at the highest possible pace for the entire duration.

What in the fucking hell was I supposed to do with her in my hotel room while she was half-fucking-naked?

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