Page 71 of Cast in Shadow
“I missed you,” he murmured against her lips.
“I missed you too.”
“Want to get out of here?”
Her eyes flashed with a familiar heat, and she licked her lips, now slightly red and swollen. “What about my tattoo?”
“Later,” he growled, grabbing her hand and tugging her out of the shop with Cass looking on in amusement.
They made it as far as the sidewalk before he backed her up against the building and kissed her again.
“I have a hotel room a block away,” she said breathlessly.
“Works for me.”
* * *
An hour later, Aggie lay beside him, half-draped over his body, petting his chest with soft, gentle strokes.
“Déjà vu,” she said. “You, me, a hotel room.”
He kissed the top of her head and pulled her tighter against him. “I guess we did spend a lot of time in hotel rooms and moving vehicles, huh?”
“Story of my life,” she said on an exhale. “Neither one of us is content to stay in one place for very long.”
“No,” he agreed.
“Zeke?”
“Yeah?”
“Why did you leave?”
He’d asked himself the same thing time and time again, and he’d kept coming back to the same answer.
“You have this whole other life, Aggie, and I couldn’t figure out where I fit into it, if at all.”
“Seems pretty obvious to me.”
“Enlighten me.”
She crawled on top of him, and then she folded her arms under her chin and pierced him with those haunting eyes. She fit so perfectly, her delicate, soft curves molding to his harder planes.
“By my side. On top of me. Beneath me. In my kitchen, making me breakfast.”
He smiled and placed his large palms over her rounded backside, then sobered again. “I’m serious, Aggie. You don’t need me.”
“Need is such a subjective word, isn’t it?” she mused. “I mean, can I continue to exist without you in my life? Sure. But I don’t want to.”
He knew exactly what she meant because he felt the same way. Without Aggie, he’d continued to function, but it hadn’t been a happy existence. He had done what he needed to do, nothing more, nothing less.
“You’re beautiful. Smart. Compassionate. Wealthy as fuck and part of a powerful network. What could you possibly want from me?”
Her eyes softened. “Don’t you know?”
He had a pretty good idea, but he needed to hear her say it. “Tell me.”
“You’re my croie.”
