Dusk (Dangerous Web #1) - Aleatha Romig Page 0,33

locomotive heading downhill. I would probably crash at the bottom, but right now I was picking up speed.

He didn’t answer as he lifted the suitcases and stepped through the threshold into the common area.

I quickly followed. “Because of you, my last memory of my brother is his hurt. My last...” The damn tears were back. “I’d deceived him. We had trust, he and I, and because of you—”

In the middle of the common area, Reid dropped all of the luggage to the floor and turned. The fire was back in his eyes, blazing out of control. “Because of me?” He came closer. “Sure, Lorna. If it will make it easier for you to sleep at night, I’ll take the blame. I’ll take it all.” His hands were again on my shoulders, his grip intensifying with every word, to the point of pain. “I’m not going to argue with you over whose decision it was to keep our relationship a secret from Mason. Blame me. I can fucking take it.”

“Relationship?” I yelled. “A screw? A piece of meat? What was I exactly to you, Reid? Was it a thrill to know you were banging your friend’s sister?”

One hand left my shoulder as it simultaneously gripped my chin. His breathing deepened as strain showed in his taut features. “Is that what you think?”

The truth was that I hadn’t thought that, not until this minute. Not until he was throwing me out too. I couldn’t speak, not with his grip. Instead, I made a half-hearted attempt to nod.

Reid walked me backward until I couldn’t walk any farther. There was a wall or a door—I didn’t know. All I knew was that I was caught between an immovable force of nature and an unmoving structure.

“Listen to me.”

Did I have a choice?

“We can argue for the next fifty years over when we should have told Mason. I don’t give a fuck. He was one of my best friends, so if you think I’m standing here without remorse, you’re wrong. But not an ounce...” His voice rose. “Not one fucking ounce of that remorse has anything to do with us. You, Lorna Pierce, are not any of the things you said. For the record, I don’t randomly screw. And a piece of meat?” His dark glare went from my head to my toes. “Sweetheart, you’re barely a chicken nugget. But that doesn’t stop the way I feel about you.”

I found my voice. “You feel like you want me gone, just like everyone else.”

“Everyone doesn’t want you gone.”

I took a deep breath, straightening my neck. “The only one who matters does.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

Before I could answer, his lips were on mine.

Strong, powerful, and possessive.

It was our first real kiss in a week. It was the first kiss that didn’t offer sympathy. This kiss took unapologetically. The force bruised my lips as his tongue demanded entrance. This kiss was as far from sympathy as one could get. It was the blaze I’d seen in his eyes transformed into our connection. The fire blazing in his dark orbs had needed an outlet, and this kiss was it. Each punishing assault of his lips on mine was an out-of-control fire brimming with heat, passion, and desire.

My body lost rigidity as I melted toward him. This connection was an unmanageable wildfire ravaging everything in its path. A whimper turned to a moan. My arms moved up to his shoulders as the uncontainable heat filled me, twisting my insides, and dampening my core.

When Reid pulled away, he asked, “Do you know why you’re wrong?”

Wrong?

I wasn’t sure what he meant or was talking about. I couldn’t think straight. “What?”

His strong body pressed against me, pushing me into the wall. Even through his blue jeans and mine, I could feel his hard and angry desire pressed against my belly. Along with all the passion, sadness and uncertainty wavered in the air, shimmering under the lights as his voice deepened. The tenor lowered. “I matter.”

I tilted my head, trying to understand.

“You matter. My opinion, Lorna, it matters.”

It was coming back. The reason I was leaving. “But...h-he said not to tell you.”

“You didn’t. I figured it out. I figured it out before I came up here. And before I came up here, I made one thing clear to Sparrow: for me to stay a part of this outfit, a part of our team, and a part of the Sparrow success, you are staying too.”

A lump came to my throat as Reid’s proclamation reverberated through me.