Page 67 of Torched Spades
The one I get up every morning and pretend doesn’t exist.
From the moment I walked into this office, I’ve been systematically ticking off boxes, ensuring I self-destruct. Now, I’ve dragged her into my darkness, and I know I should feel remorse, but I don’t.
I should’ve listened to my gut that first day and walked away. Now I’ve hiked halfway up this mountain, only to realize it’s a goddamn volcano.
Becca Brennan is my volcano.
And now that I’ve marked her, I realize it won’t matter whether I repel back down or continue to the top. It’s still going to erupt and burn everything to the ground.
Chapter Twenty-One
BECCA
Johnny zipshis pants while eyeing me cautiously. “Say something.”
I slide off the desk and tug my skirt down, smoothing the material in place as if his cum isn’t dripping down the inside of my thighs. “It’s five o’clock,” I point out. An asinine statement, considering what we just did. Who cares that his allotted appointment time is over? What the hell am I supposed to do; charge him a co-pay before scheduling his referral?
There’s a name for that. It’s called prostitution, and it’s illegal.
Then again, Providencedoeshave a sliding scale of justice. It’s not what you do but who you are that determines which end tips in your favor.
“So?”
“So?” I repeat, blinking in shock at his unbothered attitude. “What the hell do you mean, ‘so?’ You can’t just expect to hang around my office after we…”
“Fucked,” he finishes, that damn arrogant smirk tugging at his mouth again.
Something in my head explodes. “You’re crude.”
“And you’re not getting off that easy.” His eyes lower to my skirt, darkening with a deadly mix of heat and insolence as he licks his bottom lip. “Well, not this time anyway.”
Ugh.
Taking a deep breath, I shrug what’s left of my blouse off my shoulders and stomp around my desk, tugging my suit jacket from the back of my chair. “What do you want from me?” I snap, punctuating the words by shoving my arms through the sleeve. “Didn’t you get what you came for?”
“If you’re waiting for me to apologize, don’t. I’m not sorry.I’ve wanted you since the first day I walked into your office.”
Retrieving my panties, I toss both ruined pieces of clothing in the trash and roll my eyes. Typical male. His dick wasn’t hard out of lust for me. It was a manifestation of his guilt—for being an arsonistanda stalker.
I’m about to tell him just that when he holds up his hand. “And before you spout off some symbolic psychobabble, my attraction to you has nothing to do with any disorder, real or otherwise. You remind me of someone.”
“I do?”
He nods, a solemn look softening the hard lines etched in his olive skin. “Someone I used to know back in New Jersey. Someone who was good and smart like you. She was always helping others. Even surrounded by people like me, she keptthispure.” His voice catches, and he presses his palm to his heart. I’m trapped in this rare moment of raw honesty, afraid if I breathe it’ll disappear. So, I hold it in, my chest burning along with my resolve as raw pain fills his eyes. “She had this light around her, you know? People couldn’t help but be drawn to her. Even men with the blackest of souls wanted to be near her, as if a moment in her presence would burn away their sins.”
That son of a bitch.
I’m supposed to remain impartial. Objective. Unbiased. However, with a few unfiltered words, he’s ripped my heart out, turned it inside out, and dumped it in my hand.What now?Am I supposed to just shove it back in, hoping it remembers how it beat before he decided to become human? Before uttering the most honest words he’s given me in weeks.
“You loved this woman.”
A curtain falls over Johnny’s dark eyes, and the vulnerability in his expression is replaced by a smug smirk. Lifting his hand from his chest, he brushes the back of his fingers across my chin. “I’ve loved a lot of women, Becca. Occasionally, at the same time.”
We stare in silence, but for once, it’s not because I’m nervous or tongue-tied. It’s because his mask has cracked, and I see the scarred layer buried beneath. After all these weeks, I finally notice the conflict in his eyes. I recognize the duplicity of his actions. But mostly, I hear the regret in his contradictory words—the ones he uses as a bandage.
“You’re shocked.”
“No, I’m intrigued,” I counter. “You accuse me of being two people, when you have so many versions inside you; I’m not sureyouknow which one is real anymore.”
