Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 114819 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114819 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Cash shook his head and rolled his eyes.
Rolled his eyes. What the fuck?
“We need to get on the road before they suspect something’s wrong and come looking for us,” Cash instructed and turned his face to look out his side window. Ignoring him a-fucking-gain.
“Riddle me this one, mister. What’s gonna fuckin’ happen when this case is done? How soon will you be reassigned? A fuckin’ day? A week?” Dev asked, letting Cash know he was in fact thinking long term and didn’t like what he saw. Just because he had a hard time confessing his love didn’t mean it wasn’t fucking there. Even as dire as his outlook was, he considered the idea of planting daisies in a house where Cash and he lived. He had secret dreams.
“Don’t use imagined excuses to hide behind. It’s beneath you,” Cash muttered, his peepers still turned away.
Hide behind?
Dev’s brain exploded behind his eyelids.
He had never hidden from anything a single day in his life, and there was no plan to start now. “Okay, Mr. Over-communicator, wanna tell me about the dreams you keep havin’?” He graciously gave Cash about six seconds to answer. When he didn’t, Dev shot back a very disgruntled and disgusted, “Yeah, didn’t think so.”
“You keep dying. Is that what you want to hear?” Cash asked, angrily whipping his head toward Dev. “I’m there every single time. Your girls are there. We’re all together in many different scenarios and you die by gunfire every single dream. A blow to your chest, your heart. It plays like a premonition in my head. I can’t ever save you.”
Cash shook his head. Anguish flitted across his brow. The pain of the dream was real for Cash. Dev could see it. As genuine as if it had happened in real time.
“Now that you know, what’re the answers since you have them all?”
He only stared at Cash, digesting the words in both his head and his heart. His mind raced, absorbing not only the idea but Cash’s raw emotion that laced the uttered confession.
In the eight hundred different possibilities he’d conjured about Cash’s dreams, he’d not once considered his death was causing such suffering. As crazy as it sounded, he blurted the first question that came to mind. “Are you happy bein’ there with my girls? You never really say anything about them.”
The second question shot out before Cash had time to answer.
“Does it matter to you that I die?”
Cash gave a sudden rushed exhale of breath. His perfect lips parted as he gave a small shake to his head and closed his eyes. The reaction and tone he used wrung of pure grief when Cash answered, “It destroys me. My heart shatters every single time. But the dream’s warning me you aren’t safe. I’m not enough to protect you.” His brows knitted together, the hard line Dev usually loved to see was there but not in a good way. Cash’s confession had Dev wanting to offer comfort. He reached for Cash, but he turned away.
There was so much to unpack. Even Dev was left helpless to process all the ins and outs of the nightmare, so he stopped trying and went to the bottom line. Cash was hurting because he died. By Dev’s best legit estimation, he had about a fifty/fifty split that he came out of this case standing on his own two feet.
Instead of trying to offer any answers, Dev grabbed a fist full of Cash’s dress shirt and silk tie and pulled Cash toward him.
He leaned over as far as he could, the center console digging into his hip. More in Cash’s seat than the middle of the car, Dev crushed his lips against his agent’s. He thrust his tongue forward, pushing through Cash’s barely parted lips as he moved his free hand to the back of Cash’s head, keeping him locked in place.
Cash didn’t fight to break contact. The exact opposite. His strong hands reached for Dev, pulling them chest to chest as he tilted his head, driving his tongue forward to meet Dev’s. These rare moments of privacy, where it was just him and Cash, released the tight hold Cash held over himself, and that never happened while they were in public. Their fates aligned, they were in sync again, becoming one.
Their existence intertwined in perfect unison. Never knowing where Dev began or Cash ended.
The powerful passion that always drove Cash during their private times stoked Dev’s hefty need to constantly have Cash define their relationship. Even as he understood he was keeping his return commitment left unsaid. It was selfish, but necessary for the tightrope he balanced on every single day.
If he gave into all this feeling, he was certain to lose the grip he had on his reality.
Fuck his fucking life.
Where Dev gave was in his actions. He had to show what his words couldn’t say.