Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 276(@200wpm)___ 221(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 276(@200wpm)___ 221(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
I jerk at our connected wrists. “Get this off. We need our hands free to shoot.”
“I shoot with both hands, sweetheart. You know that.” He steps into me, his hand and gun at my hip, and says, “I left you your right arm, and your weapon in your hand, sweetheart, so either shoot me or let’s move.”
Chapter Eleven
ANA
Luke laces the fingers of our connected wrists. “What are we doing, sweetheart?”
Sweetheart.
The familiar endearment I haven’t heard from him in years, and thought I’d never hear again, sideswipes me with an emotional undoing. My stomach is fluttering like I’m a silly schoolgirl who has my crush standing in front of me, not the FBI agent I am, who’s presently cuffed to my ex while two dead bodies lie at my feet. The ex who took what was precious to me. What kind of sick person am I to still want him?
“He was my brother,” I whisper.
“And there’s not a day of my life that doesn’t eat me alive, Ana,” he promises, “but we can’t do this right now. We don’t have that time. Make a decision. Shoot me and run without me, or don’t, and let’s get the hell out of here.”
I’m not going to shoot him, and he knows it. The night he ended up with a bullet in his gut was complicated, and I was shredded with grief, trembling all over, angry, scared, and careless, when I’m never careless. But as he said, now is not the time, so I simply say, “What’s the plan?”
Relief washes over his chiseled features, and then, with the gun in his hand, he cups my head and kisses me hard and fast on the mouth. “I might not be able to make you love me again, but I’m going to make you want me.”
“Damn you, Lucifer,” I say because right now, he really is the devil.
“Damn me later. I have things to do right now, and so do you.” He’s already pulling me with him to ease around the corner. “Clear,” he says, motioning to the other side of the building as he drags me along with him.
I want to tell him to uncuff me, but I know this man more than I know any other on this planet—or so I once thought—and it’s wasted breath. He made a decision. He’s sticking with it, with stubborn insistence, beyond what is even reasonable. For now, I follow him around like a puppet, trying to help us clear our path when I’d do a much better job with my arm free.
Once we’re certain no one is coming at our back, he leads me toward the shopping center. I don’t tell him it’s risky. One thing I know about this man is that he knows how to stay alive. To the demise of my brother, I think bitterly, but I shove away the thought. We’re on the same team right now, fighting the same enemy, and the truth is that if Darius is involved—which I pray he isn’t—who else might be as well? I’m no fool. Judging from Luke’s earlier company, and as expected, he’s surrounded with talent, and Luke himself, has resources that I alone do not. Not when I don’t know who to trust.
At this point, we’ve cleared the gas station parking lot and are climbing a grassy incline, and I, for one, do so, thankful it’s without a blast of bullets at our back. We round the top, and I dig in my heels and jerk against Luke’s arm at the sight of a vehicle. “Luke.”
“It’s ours,” he says, already pulling me forward toward a black sedan, and soon the hill becomes our bulletproof wall. I should be relieved, however, it’s also the perfect place to be picked off from the top.
Seemingly cognizant of that fact, Luke clicks the locks on the vehicle and unlocks it before we’re even there. Relief finally washes over me as he opens the door, and I slide in, unable to go far with our connected arms.
He joins me and shuts us inside, our legs pressed intimately together even as he uses both of our hands to turn the key that’s already in the ignition. I grimace and tug my arm against his. “Stop this silliness, Luke.”
“Lucifer,” he says, giving me a side-eye. “When you stop believing I’m the devil, then you can call me Luke, and we both know that will be never. And fuck no, I’m not releasing you. I don’t trust you not to jump out when you get the opportunity.”
“I’m not going to jump out of the damn car when it’s the safest place to be right now, but could you drive already?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I should get out and let you leave me here. That’s what you want, right?”
“Damn it, Luke—”
“Lucifer.”
“Drive the car,” I say firmly. “This isn’t a jet or a chopper, and you can’t outfly the next pilot. Roads have limitations that the air does not, at least for you.”