Page 2 of Sinful Promise
“I won’t be mad if you wait outside.” I stop at the top of the stairs and turn just as he closes the gap so our faces meet on the same level.
His sparkling eyes burn into mine, and the week-old stubble he never fully shaves off ripples when the muscles in his jaw move.
Bringing my free hand up, I cup his cheek and lean in to feather my lips over his. “I’ll be done in two minutes. Then we can go home.”
“This was supposed to be date night. Instead, we get burgers in a bar, and murder for dessert.”
My lips curl into a grin that only makes the detective crankier.
So I tell him plainly, “I will not sleep tonight and allow him to live. And I won’t leave this house and risk him fleeing tomorrow. That means I do this now, with or without you.”
“For fuck’s sake.” He scrubs a hand along his jaw so his stubble crackles in response. Then he drops it again and repeats, “In sickness and in health, Mayet. During the good and the bad.”
“That’s right.”
At the thought of ‘the bad,’ I slide my tongue along my lips to wet them. Because, shit, it’s not like I relish the idea of killing a man. I’m a doctor. I made a vow tohelppeople, not to bring them harm.
Aside from that, I sure as hell do not want to be here when I could be tangled in bed with Archer Malone. But I want evenlessto go home to our warm bed right now, only to wake tomorrow to the news that Laramie Fentone has hurt another little girl.
And he will. Everyone knows it.
So I steel myself for what needs to be done. For the actions I must take in the name of justice. The life I take tonight is for the girl who would end up in my autopsy room tomorrow if I do nothing.
Exhaling, I stand taller and nod. “I love you.”
His eyes flicker closed. Frustration. Exhaustion. Impatience.
But loyalty, too, as they open again. Love. Selflessness.
“Fine.” He grabs my arm and gently tugs me to the left, making room for himself to pass again. “Let’s get this shit done. Then we’re going home.”
“Okay.”
In my mind, Laramie’s taunting words play on a loop.
‘Bella asked for her mommy.’
He bragged to me when he thought he could get away with it.
‘She cried, and cried, and cried.’
Those words, and his horrible, smug voice, have taunted me since the day he spoke them. Every time I stop to think, every time I try to relax, every single breath I take, his voice knocks at the back of my consciousness.
I’m hopeful that, when he dies tonight, his disgusting diatribe dies with him.
I keep close to Archer as we creep along the hall in the darkness. His back to the wall so his shirt rustles against chipped paint, and my breath growing louder in my ears. The adrenaline zinging through his veins somehow jumps to mine, like an electrical current we get to share.
Till death do us part.
“Here.” He comes to a stop outside a cracked bedroom door, so the blue light from the television casts a shadow into the hall.
He presses close to the wall and rests his head back, so he can roll it my way and meet my eyes. “You can stay out here—”
“No.” I step around him, too impatient to wait any longer, and push the door open so the television’s glare brings pain to my eyes.
I narrow them to minimize the ache, then step into the room and search from one corner to the next. Cataloging. Understanding. Planning.
An old box television sits atop a rickety dresser drawer, and a lumpy, foul-smelling bed sits on the opposite wall.
