Wasted Lust - JA Huss Page 0,26

in the real world can be like. You’re hiding, Sasha. You’ve locked yourself away in this prison of your own making, and it’s killing you. I can see it in your eyes. You live in the past when the present is all around you. Let me take it away for one night and I promise, I will fill in all those blank years for you in the morning. And when that’s over, I’ll ask you again if you’d like to help me. If you say no, I’ll pack up and leave.”

She takes the photograph and I give her the time she needs to look it over. I let her yearn for him. I let her imagine all the answers to all her questions. I let her soak it up and wish for more.

And then she nods. “OK. One night out with you and in the morning I want answers. But I’m telling you right now, Jax”—hearing her say my name without the formal Agent in front makes me smile immediately—”I’m not interested in you.” She nods down at the picture. “I’m not interested in him that way either. I just—” She stops and lets out a long sigh. It’s filled with emotion. Sadness and loneliness and maybe even regret. “I just need to know more.”

“I understand.” And I do. I need to know more as well. I have followed the lives of Company kids since I was a kid myself. I’m obsessed with them. With her, specifically. Everything I’ve done for the past four months is proof of how bad I have it. “But Sasha,” I say with an edge to my voice, forcing her to focus her attention on me, “leave that photograph at home when you step outside.”

She swallows hard and nods. And then she takes the dress from my hand, disappears inside, and closes the door with a soft click.

I grab the bag of food and walk across the street and up the path that leads to the apartments where I’ve been living for the past few months. Madrid is just pulling up in the parking lot with the car we hired. I walk towards her and hand her the bag of Indian food just as she steps out of the car.

“We’ve got it wired,” she says, taking the food and inhaling the aroma of her favorite Indian dish. She walks off to her own car, sighing a little as she peeks into the bag and says, “Yum.”

I go upstairs and change into my black Armani wool suit paired with a crisp white shirt and a dark-gray striped tie. I comb my dark-blond hair back and then put on a pair of cufflinks that will catch Sasha’s eye.

It’s been a long while since I’ve been interested in a girl. And even though I know I’m not supposed to be interested in Sasha Cherlin… I am.

I’m interested. And that kiss on the stairs at her school was just a tease.

I need more from her. It kills me to have to dangle Nick Tate in front of her face to get it. But I’m a man who gets what I want, no matter what it takes.

I walk over to the couch and take a seat near the lamp. My eyes never leave the image of Nick in my hand. He looks like my Nick from years gone by, except he has a tattoo on his upper arm. He’s wearing a white t-shirt that hugs the well-defined muscles of his chest in a way that leaves little to the imagination. My heart is suddenly heavy with sadness.

I stare into his brown eyes. I can’t see them well—the picture is mostly of his upper body, with the frayed edge of some faded jeans giving me a hint of his waist. But I don’t need to see them in this picture to imagine them.

But dear God, I want more.

My eyes wander to the front door, beyond which is an evening with Jax. Going out with him tonight is not a big deal. Not when I can get more images of Nick and answers to my questions about what he’s been doing. I’ve imagined all kinds of scenarios after he went off with Matias, the drug lord from Honduras who traded the lives of me, James, and Harper for Nick.

He traded himself so we could get away and start a new life far removed from the people who raised us into killers.

So he said, anyway.

I think he did it to get away from