Page 8 of Together We Burn
A faint vanilla and coconut scent lingered in the air, the most intoxicating smell I had missed for two months and one I would never rid my memory of.
One I’d never want to.
My beautiful, dangerous Stefany. I knew she was here or, at the very least, had been.
“I know you’re here, Stevie,” I said into the darkness, taking a chance and hoping I was right as I pulled my tie from my collar. The click of a gun being cocked echoed, and a shadow moved from the single seat by the window where she was waiting.
“I wasn't trying to be inconspicuous, Jake,” she stated with a hardness to her voice I’d never heard before. I smiled. If I didn’t know any better, she was performing this little act because she was still affected by me.
“Do you know how many floors up we are?” she asked in a deceptively patient tone, and I glanced toward the window as I thought. “Or do you just press the ‘P’ for penthouse in the elevator without a second thought of those below you?”
“We are on the thirteenth floor,” I replied, then chuckled. “Why? Do you want to push me off the balcony? Claim I accidentally slipped and fell and went toppling over the railing to my gruesome death?”
“Oh no.” She chuckled humourlessly. “That’s boring. If I wanted you dead, you would’ve been as soon as your briefcase hit the floor, and it would have been better than you toppling off a balcony. It would have been gruesome and messy and oh-so spectacular that serial killers would have taken note.”
Jesus fuck, she was sexy when she was all murdery.
“I don’t doubt that.”
Pocketing my tie, I shucked off my suit jacket and draped it over the sofa, gripping the back and allowing my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I watched the silhouette of the girl I had broken cross her leg and rest her gun on her knee, the barrel trained on me.
Her long wavy hair hung past her shoulders with the top half piled high on her head in a messy bun. The sleek leather trousers and leather jacket she had matched it with hugged her body and gave her a badass biker babe vibe. She looked fucking vicious.
“Did you know I’m scared of heights?” she queried. I was a little taken aback by her question, glad the room was dark enough to hide my surprise. “But the view is always the prettiest from above, even if it does make me feel dizzy and breathless. But if you fall from that height, it could be disastrous. If not fatal.”
Realisation dawned on me. She wasn’t talking about heights.
She brought a glass to her lips and took a long, slow sip. The faint light cast from the moon allowed me to see her run her tongue along her lower lip, catching every drop of alcohol. The corner of my mouth tugged up with a strange sense of delight at how she had made herself at home in my apartment, and I wondered just how long she had been waiting for me.
I straightened and walked around the sofa.
“What are you doing here, Stevie?” I asked, taking a final step forward so we were face to face.
Uncrossing her legs, she stood and placed her glass on my coffee table. That energy I could feel from the moment I stepped into the room intensified as she stood within reaching distance of me.
“I need you to pass on a message to mommy dearest,” she said sarcastically and pushed the barrel of her gun to my chest. I hadn’t even noticed her close the gap as the urge to grab this impossibly sexy woman standing in front of me with a loaded gun pressed into my sternum had my cock twitching in my pants.
“I don't know if I can get a message to her,” I replied, and she scoffed, pushing the gun in harder, making me groan.
“Cut the crap, Jake. The game was over the moment Alex and Mac rescued me. You lost.”
“And how do you think Alex and Mac found you?” I growled, wrapping a hand around the wrist that held her gun so she couldn't escape me. Her eyes widened before she schooled her features, drawing her eyebrows together instead. “That's right, Stevie, you don't even know the game you're playing. You don't know all the players, and you think I've lost? The game has barely begun.”
My grip tightened to almost painful, and Stevie’s breathing hitched. This was not how I expected our reunion to go. Two months of not seeing her had made me irrational. The speech I’d rehearsed for this exact moment gone from my mind.
“You're lying,” she whispered. “You're fucking lying.”
“Am I?” I questioned, unable to keep the bitterness from my tone. “Did you ever ask Alex how he managed to find you?”
Her lips parted, but she didn't speak. Her blue eyes flared as I grazed my thumb across the inside of her wrist, and I didn't fail to miss the shudder her body released at my contact.
“Come on, you're not stupid, Stefany,” I continued, and again noticed the exceedingly small intake of air as I called her by her full name. With my hand not gripping her wrist, I reached up and pushed back a short black strand off her forehead. “Think about it. I know you don't know much about where you were held, but it was a black site owned by your mom on the outskirts of Kelso Bay. No one knew you were there. You got taken from my apartment,thisapartment, and you didn't have your cell phone. There was no way for them to know where you were.”
Her eyes darted back and forth between mine as she processed what I was telling her. I could see her mind working endlessly to tie the loose ends together for this puzzle to make sense. It was apparent that fucker Alex had not told her any of the events following her abduction.
And now it was up to me. But if I told her, I could lose everything. Not only push her away completely, but risk the very thing I’ve worked so damn hard to get. The thing that had me agreeing to this mess in the first place.
Then I’d find another way. Stefany was worth the risk. But moreover, shedeservedto know the truth. Lies are deadly and this one almost killed her.
