Murder_ A Sinful Secrets Romance - Ella James Page 0,79

soft inhale.

“This is what you do.” I push her hand against me as I say it. When she doesn’t move—in fact, I think her hand rocks up against my aching length—I pull her arm away and bolt up off the couch.

She looks frozen there, her brown eyes wide, her cheeks afire.

“It’s wrong. You don’t need this.” I can feel the color draining from my face at just the thought of what I could do with her. With Gwenna White. If I fucked Gwenna White…

Her lower lip is caught between her teeth. She releases it, licking that succulent lip with the tip of her tongue as my dick throbs and the scene takes on a surreal sheen.

“Maybe I do.” She gives a little laugh. “Maybe I need it even worse than you do.”

Her words make my heart beat hard: it’s like a gong is being hit, and I can feel the vibrations all through me.

I shut my eyes. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know that I’m a wolf in lamb’s clothes. Touching her would be a sin. Would be a lie. I try to think about her eyes—how they would look when she found out.

I rub my hand over my face and try to remember what she said last. Anything but the insistent pounding in between my legs, and in my head. I push my own raw misery aside and replay her lovely words.

“Maybe I need it even worse than you do.”

No.

“With someone else.” I let a long breath out, open my eyes. “Not me.”

I try to read her face, but it’s so still. I can see the fast throb of her jugular in the shifting firelight. “Why not you?” Her voice is tiny.

Gwenna wants me.

I see her grinning over me, her hand curled over my face, her legs straddling me in her yard. And then I have this fucking flash of Landstuhl—nauseating Landstuhl and the room is empty, no more Breck; I can feel this deep sting in my head; my scalp is tight; my eye is blind; my hand. I feel, for just a flash, my heavy body; numb and cold and dead. My mouth is dry, but I’m too tired to speak. I think I’m trapped like Mom was.

Nurses come in, shift me over on my side. Their eyes flit over me. They talk—English or German?—and I want to stop them but can’t get my voice to work. Someone peels the bandage off my back, and I hear words like shock and Ativan and poor guy; days and days and days of white walls and white ceilings, and I think I’m never getting out; but then I do and…why?

I see myself upstairs lying on the floor, the bed skirt in my line of sight, and I can’t even close my eyes and find peace there.

I don’t feel alone; I just feel dead.

And Gwenna looks up at me. I don’t think she’s even breathing.

Answer her, you pussy fuck. My throat thickens. “Because I can’t.”

“But why not? I…don’t get it. Not wanting to…I could see…” Her face loses its blush as she shakes her head. “But can’t?”

My secret snakes through me, it writhes its way around me and it chokes me: dead, the way I’m meant to be.

And I can’t say it. Can—but won’t.

The words come out unplanned. Desperate. Hoped for or dreaded? I don’t know what she will say. I don’t know why I do; I throw the only thing at her that I can think of that might work, besides the truth.

“I’m not a Ranger. I’m a killer. I kill…men, women…and even kids sometimes.” My voice cracks. “That’s what I do. That’s why I’m all fucked up. You want a piece of that?”

NINE

GWENNA

I straighten my spine as shock washes through me, starting in my throat and spreading coolly through my stomach.

I frown up at him. He is wide-eyed, with his hands held out in front of him like he might need to fight, or even turn and run.

“I’m a killer… That’s why I’m all fucked up.”

The rough words echo through my head, but I can’t seem to pin them down or assign meaning to them. I blink slowly.

“Like…in combat?”

He shakes his head. He swallows. Nods. “Usually.” The word is rasped, so soft I barely hear it over the crackling fire.

Usually…but sometimes not? “What does that mean?”

He stares through me, and I feel a bite of fear. Standing there in just those sweatpants, with his arm around his chest and a hand raised to his bowed head, Barrett looks