Page 37 of The Hitman’s Final Job

Today I have two things to achieve: Search the house for clues for anything or anyone who might want to hurt Vaughn, and spend the day in the garden. Vaughn doesn’t know it yet, but he’s growing a contender that could win a prize in the Big Veggie Dick competition.

After I dry off, I grab a pair of shorts, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and go downstairs.

Vaughn should be gone by now, but I find him in the kitchen, standing by the sink, staring out the window with his truck keys in his hand.

He’s staring out like he’s lost in thought, but when my bare feet make the floorboards creak, he turns.

His eyes move over me like he wants me gone but also naked in his bed.

Fuck the rules, I need to touch him, so I close the distance between us and step into his embrace. He’s warm and smells like a fresh shower. His arms are solid around me, and I close my eyes for a moment and let myself have this.

When I step back, I clear my throat.

“Maybe I should leave,” I say. “Go back to Atlanta. This is … this is too hard on both of us.”

His expression is impossible to read. So much for all my training.

“Stay,” he says.

“Vaughn—”

“I know it’s hard,” he says. “It’s hard for me too. But I like having you here. I like it more than I should. I know that, and I’m asking you to stay anyway.”

“You like torture.”

“Apparently,” he says, his expression shifting into something softer, and he reaches up to touch my face.

Just his hand against my jaw and his thumb near the corner of my mouth.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says, that thumb tracing the edge of my bottom lip where skin meets beard.

“In a different world, do you think we’d have had a chance?”

“Absolutely yes,” he says, without hesitation.

“Even with the age gap?”

“You’re thirty-five,” he says. “It doesn’t matter to me. You’re old enough to make your own decisions.”

I gaze into his blue eyes. The same Rowan has. My skin feels like it’s burning with his touch.

“Can I have one kiss?” I ask. “Just one. Something to remember when I’m out in the garden talking to your dick … vegetables.”

He laughs and shakes his head slowly, the smile still there. “It’s bound to happen anyway, so fuck it.”

His mouth finds mine in a slow kiss, the kind you give when you’ve been wanting for a long time and want to get right. His hand moves from my jaw to the back of my neck, and I reach for his waist because I need to be closer.

He exhales against my mouth, and it’s like something releases in him. The kiss becomes hungry, desperate, and absolutely fucking perfect. He tastes of toothpaste and smells of his shower soap. His tongue is soft and seeking.

I don’t want this to ever stop because I know it won’t happen again.

Eventually we break apart, breathing like we’ve been running.

“What the hell do we do now?” he asks.

I study him. His mouth, wet from the kiss. His face, bearing an expression I’ve never seen on him before. Open. Undone.

“What we’ve both just done in the shower,” I say.