Page 8 of Targeted By Temptation
He froze right in his spot.
“I’m not ready.”
“What aren’t you ready for?” He gave my hand a squeeze.
“I’m not ready to leave you.” I hadn’t realized that was why until the words flew from my mouth.
“Never said I’d leave you. But we need to get out of here.”
“I know.” I wanted to ask if he would leave me or if that was his way of saying he wouldn’t. Growing up, I learned that word choice mattered.
“Do you know how to get out of here?” he asked. “I thought this was the outside door when I came in.”
Which explains how he got here.
“Sort of.” I made the wrong turn too, and at the time, I thought it was the worst mistake ever. But now that I was here, and this man’s touch? I didn’t think so anymore.
“Can you show me the way?”
I nodded. “But you’re not leaving, right? Me, I mean, you’re not leaving me.”
“I’ve got you.”
At least that was what I thought he said. It didn’t make any sense to me. We weren’t talking about getting together, were we? But also, did I have a problem with that? And I wasn’t sure what that said about me, because right now, if he asked me to, I’d press my lips against his and hold him tight and beg him for more.
I shook that thought away. “Come on. Let’s go.”
We got to the storeroom door, and I cracked it open, listening to see if I heard anybody I needed to worry about. I couldn’t even afford for the staff to hear us, because they might ask what we were doing, which would slow us down.
But I didn’t hear anyone, and we went out to the hallway. I looked around, trying to get my bearings.
“This way, I think.”
I went down the hallway, took another turn, and then out the back door, one of them, anyway. There was also one in the kitchen, something I knew from the day I was bolting from a mark, having earned a little too much money from his dart failings.
Would he care? Would Ezra be upset that I sometimes used my skills for money-making fun?
Wait. Why did I even care? My job was to get us to the door. That was it. Why was I suddenly thinking that this person, this man who decided to help me out of a sticky situation, was somehow my everything?
There was no time to think about that now. We needed to leave.
“This way.”
I reached for the door.
5
EZRA
“This way.”
My mate showed me the way out, and I put a finger to my lips as he went to yank open the door. I couldn’t risk the Stravon Beta picking up on the noise. He might also be suspicious because I’d been gone so long and could be poking around outside the bathroom.
I opened the door slowly and peered outside. It was early afternoon and there were people in the street, but none of them scented of shifter, so I tucked my arm in my mate’s and said in a low voice, “Pretend we know one another.”
“So I said to Charlie, are you really going to marry that guy? And do you know what he said?” I chortled which even to me sounded fake. My wolf was less than impressed.
My mate stared at me, open-mouthed, and eventually shook his head as I steered him toward my car.
