Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 98561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Of having teammates again. Of fighting for something again. I felt that tug, stronger than before.
Then I crushed it. That wasn’t me, not anymore. I shook my head.
“It’s a second chance,” said Kian urgently. “That’s more than most—”
“Not interested,” I told him. And I went to hang up the phone.
Kian jerked his tie loose and started unbuttoning his shirt. When the buttons wouldn’t cooperate, he growled in frustration and ripped them free, then awkwardly peeled his suit jacket and shirt back to reveal his shoulder. I stared at the eagle, globe and anchor tattoo. I hadn’t realized he was a Marine, before he was in the Secret Service.
“This means something,” he snapped. “It used to mean something to you, too. I’ve seen your file. You were a good man. You cared about—”
“I told you, you got the wrong guy.” I stood up. “I’m not a soldier anymore. And the only person I care about is myself.”
I hung up the phone and stalked out of the room without looking back.
3
OLIVIA
I checked the clock on the wall again. His wound check appointment was for nine am and it was two minutes after. Any minute now, the door buzzer would buzz. Any minute.
This is crazy. He was a prisoner. A criminal. My patient. But this morning, I’d spent twenty minutes deciding which blouse to wear.
It had been a busy week. As well as all the routine check-ups and medication reviews, we’d had a guard who’d passed out from heatstroke. Then an inmate had tried to get himself a hospital visit by drinking a bottle of White-out stolen from the admin office. Finally, someone had been brewing prison hooch: I’d had three inmates with serious alcohol poisoning and the guards were now tearing the prison apart trying to find the still before someone went blind.
And yet whenever things had quietened down for a moment, my mind slid straight back to Gabriel Kain. To those glittering, hazel eyes that felt like they knew my every secret. To that rich, warm growl of a voice that made every syllable vibrate through my body. It wasn’t just thinking about him, either. I kept seeing him. Sometimes it was in the admin area, when I went out there to sign for a delivery or talk to one of the guards. Gabriel seemed to be there more than any inmate had a right to be. Sometimes it was around the prison, when I got called out because someone was too ill to safely move. And sometimes…
Sometimes, I’d go to the window in the back room of the infirmary, the one that looks out over the yard, and I’d watch him lifting weights, his muscles pumping in slow rhythm, his bare chest gleaming with sweat.
Get a hold of yourself! But I couldn’t forget him. He’d invaded my mind and, at night, he ruled my dreams. I woke each morning, panties damp, still feeling his hands on my breasts, his hips between my thighs.
I had to know more about him. I’d gotten in contact with the Marine Corps to request his file, but they kept bouncing my request around different departments and I wasn’t sure they were ever going to get back to me.
I told myself that I’d built him up too much in my mind, after that first meeting. He’d become a fantasy, a folk legend. When I see him again, it’ll be a letdown.
The door buzzer buzzed. I whirled around, startled, and my arm swept a stack of papers off my desk. They drifted down like snow, littering half the room. Shit! I crouch-ran in a zigzag to the door, grabbing papers as I went. “Yep?” I asked, breathless.
“Gabriel Kain for his wound check.”
I swallowed. Self-consciously smoothed my hair. I pressed the door release, the guard pushed open the door and—
It wasn’t a letdown.
Gabriel strolled in from the hallway and he didn’t look like a prisoner being transported by a guard. He looked like a rock star arriving at a gig, accompanied by his security. He was utterly relaxed, coolly appraising everything around him. God, the man had presence. You couldn’t not look at him and when he walked into a room, the room was suddenly full.
Then he turned and looked at me and—
Those beautiful, hazel eyes lit up. I felt that thing in my chest lift and swell again, rising skyward. Reality caught up and tried to tug it back down to earth but it bobbed out of reach. He was looking at me like I was the best thing he’d ever seen.
Then he did something he hadn’t done before. He looked away for a second and drew a breath, almost as if he was trying to control himself. But this was Gabriel: I couldn’t imagine him ever being out of control.
He looked at me a second time and this time it was different. This time it was smoldering and hypnotic. I felt like I was being dragged towards him: it took everything I had just to stay in the same spot. The look he was giving me flared hotter and hotter, until it felt like my clothes were being burned right off my body.