Page 77 of Shadow Of Sin

“Are you sure?”

“No. Come here anyway.”

He crosses the room and stands behind me at the window. He doesn’t touch me until I reach back and take his hand and pull his arm around my waist. He wraps around me, his chest warm against my back. His chin rests on the top of my head, grounding me, and I let myself lean back into him.

Because if I don’t lean into something I’m going to fall.

“Every single person who was supposed to give a shit about me used me instead,” I say. “Daniel used me. Dmitri used me. The goddamn legal system used me. Everyone looked at what I could do and figured out how to point it at someone else and pull the trigger.”

His arm tightens around me. Not a lot. Just enough.

“Not everyone,” he says.

“You’re about to make this about you.” I tilt my head back and gaze up at him.

“No, I’m about to state a fact. I saw what you could do. I didn’t turn it into a weapon. I asked you to use it to fight back.”

Goddamn him.

“That’s a very fine line,” I say.

“I know. I walk it every day.”

I turn fully in his arms to face him. His glasses are slightly crooked, and his eyes are tired, bloodshot, and looking at me like a problem he’s already solved but isn’t ready to say the answer out loud.

I guess I kind of feel that way, too.

“We should keep working,” I say.

“Yeah.”

“We should finish mapping the money trail and put together the counterplay before Ronan loses his patience.”

“Yeah.”

I slide a hand over his stubbly jaw. “But first I need you to kiss me. Because the alternative is putting my fist through your window, and I’d rather not pay for the replacement.”

The corners of his lips lift, and he dips his head. My eyes float closed when his tongue parts my lips and coils with mine. He cups the sides of my face, his thumbs caressing my cheekbones. I taste sugar and honey, and for about ten seconds, my brain shuts the hell up.

Once we pull apart, we stand still together, our foreheads touching.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“You don’t have to thank me,” he says.

“I know. I wanted to.”

His thumb traces my cheekbone one more time. “My brain just went offline for eight seconds. That’s a new record for when we’re just kissing.”

“Beating the kiss on the couch?”

“By three seconds.” He pauses. “You’re trending upward.”

“Did you just give our kiss a performance review?”

“That’s how I process things.”

“You’re so weird.”