Page 113 of Tempted By Poison

She eyes me with a tease. “Or perhaps to bring backsomethingelse for some privacy.”

“Dead bodies?”

Her face dulls.

“To torture?”

She snickers, then her expression shifts and it's serious this time. “No. Other lovers. Women to fuck.”

It's my turn to get serious. “No. You're the first woman I fucked in a while.”

Her brow lifts. “What's a while?”

“Five years.”

Her eyes widen, as if she's seen a ghost, then she squints, puckering those sexy pitch-black lips. “I find it hard to believe a man as gorgeous as you weren't getting some frequently.”

“Wait. You think I’m gorgeous?” I hood my eyes at her with a wink.

“Is that all you heard?”

“Yes. Because you're the one I’m fucking now and nothing else matters.”

She hums and lifts the wine glass to her lips. “I wasn't jealous or anything, if that's what you're thinking.”

Seconds roll over, and she eyes through the rim, then lowers it to the table. “So, what's her name, social, and address, and do you prefer I chop her up or...?”

Right then a chuckle from deep inside my chest comes out, and I’m laughing, a real laugh that I don't think I have experienced in what feels like ages. Anita clutches her chest, and she's giggling along with me.

It's a harmonious sound for the two of us, and when I look at her, it only makes me want to keep getting to know her. I want to know everything from when our worlds changed to the night she came back to me.

Our laughing dies down gradually. “Tell me more about you and your father,” I ask, stabbing my salad. That's one way to start it off. Bring up our fucked up parents and past.

Anita drinks her wine again. “Hmm. Another twenty-one questions?”

I curl my lips. “I guess it is.”

She intakes a slow breath. “What number is this?”

I don't have to think about it. “Six.”

Anita licks her lips, smacking them lightly from the wine. She quiets for a second before titling her head at me. “What happens when we get to the last question?”

The last question...Will I be able to ask her all the questions I can before she leaves? I remove the thought because it only makes me dread that moment. “I guess we’ll have to see when that time comes.”

She nods, holding her glass now lazily at the rim. “Then, what do you want to know?”

“How did you become an assassin? Was it because of him?” I remember her father very well, I saw him as dad more than my own, and to hear he turned on me the minute Carter died leaves a somber grip in my chest and a sick taste in my mouth. I hope he would forgive me, too.

She sucks in a light breath and places her elbows on the table with her fingers clasped. “Was your father a good man?”

I feel my chest tighten in a way that it hasn't since the night started. I blink, losing my focus for a second, then I look back at her. I admit honestly, “No. He chose to speak with his fist, his words, and other objects.” The back of my hands tingle with phantom sensations at the mention of it.

Anita tilts her head, studying me. “I’m sorry.”

I shake my head slowly, swallowing my food. “Me too.”

She sighs. “With me, I enlisted in the marines after being sent to an all—exclusive military bootcamp. My father was head of it because he was in the special forces and connected to the CIA.”

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