Page 51 of Over the Edge

“Tell me last night meant nothing to you,” I challenged, stepping closer. “Tell me you don’t feel this—whatever the hell this is between us—and I’ll walk away. I’ll back off. We’ll be nothing but colleagues.”

She didn’t respond, her throat working as she swallowed.

“You can’t, can you?” I pressed. “Because you’re lying to yourself.”

“What do you want from me?” she asked on barely a breath of sound.

What did I want? The question hammered against my ribs. I wanted her—not just her body, but all of her. The vulnerability beneath the armor. The woman who fought like a demon and kissed like she was drowning. The one who placed charges with surgical precision and laughed in the face of danger.

“I want you to be honest,” I said finally. “With yourself, if not with me.”

She shook her head, a bitter smile twisting her lips. “Honesty is a luxury in our line of work. You know that better than anyone.”

“Not with each other. Never with each other.” I reached for her, my fingers grazing her cheek. “I don’t do this, Lyric. I don’t stay. I don’t... feel. But with you?—”

“Don’t.” She jerked away from my touch and held up a hand as she backed. “We have a mission to complete. Let’s focus on that.”

She disappeared into the bathroom, the door closing with a decisive click that might as well have been a gunshot. I heard the shower start, water drowning out whatever sounds she might be making in there.

I scrubbed a hand down my face, trying to process what had just happened. Last night, she’d been all fire and need, wrapping herself around me like she couldn’t get close enough. This morning, she was treating me like a regrettable one-night stand.

I knew this dance. I’d choreographed it myself more times than I could count. The morning-after retreat, the casual dismissal, the strategic withdrawal. I was the king of emotional distance.

So why did it feel like my chest was caving in?

CHAPTER16

LYRIC

The morning after always sucks.

That was one of my mother’s favorite lessons—usually muttered while popping aspirin and chasing it with a little hair of the dog.

She was wrong about a lot, but she was right about this.

I turned the shower as hot as I could stand it, hoping the scalding water would wash away the feeling of Flynn’s hands on my skin, his mouth on my neck. Every inch of my body ached—a delicious, bone deep soreness that came from being thoroughly, gloriously fucked.

I closed my eyes, letting the water cascade over me, and tried to forget the look on Flynn’s face when I’d called last night a mistake. The hurt that had flashed through those amber eyes before he’d masked it with anger.

It wasn’t a lie, exactly. It had been a mistake. Just not for the reasons he thought.

The mistake wasn’t the sex. The sex had been mind-blowing—raw and primal and exactly what I’d needed. The mistake was letting myself feel something beyond the physical release. The mistake was the way my chest had tightened when I’d woken up to find him watching me with something dangerously close to tenderness.

The mistake was wanting more.

Men like Flynn Shepherd were temporary by design. They were human wrecking balls, destroying everything in their path, and leaving behind nothing but rubble. My entire career was built on maintaining control, on never giving anyone power over me.

One night with Flynn had already cracked my carefully constructed walls. A second night would shatter them completely.

I couldn’t let that happen. Not when we were knee-deep in a mission that could cost lives if I lost focus. Not when I still had to face Moreau and secure Sentinel. Not when my place on this team was hanging by a thread.

I stepped out of the shower and wrapped myself in a towel, the steam following me in a cloud as I walked back into the bedroom, steeling myself for a fight.

Flynn was gone.

I should have felt relieved. Instead, something hollow opened up in my chest.

No. I’d done the right thing. The only thing. Anything else would’ve been reckless and dangerous. Sloppy.

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