Page 68 of Ballistic

“The guy tells me to get out of the car, so I do, and as he’s holding the gun to my temple, he tells me to drop my pants and put my hands on the hood.” Dax thumbed at his nose before clearing his throat, and I could feel my heart pounding against my chest, beating inside my ears to the nervous rhythm. “So I did. He kept that gun to my head the whole fucking time. Must’ve taken maybe three minutes, max.” He puffed his blunt again, holding the smoke in his lungs as he twisted the cylinder around, studying the end of it, then exhaled. “I just went numb. All I could think about was how the bullet would feel if he accidentally shot it. Wondered if I’d even feel anything.” Dax shook his head. “Motherfucker drove me home after, as if he knew I wouldn’t tell anyone. And I didn’t. Not until I got older. I kept that shit bottled inside of me for years. And anyone who even came close to doing me wrong after that got the business end of my fist.”

Any other woman might’ve wrapped her arms around him, probably cried for him. But I knew from my own experiences crying would only make him feel weaker. Instead, I kissed his chest, over his heart. It made sense to me right then, why he’d risk his life to find me. My abduction was another injustice to him. Another predator staking claim on a defenseless lamb. “I’m sorry this happened to you. Trying to survive a bad situation isn’t weakness.”

“Story doesn’t even bother me anymore. Too many therapists trying to crack into my head, trying to justify what I do. Like I need a reason to seek out these sick fucks.” His tongue swept over his lips, leaving a wet shine across them. “Maybe I’ve just become the stronger species. Every bastard I meet up with is one less kid who has to live with that shit. Yet, people like this therapist think that I’m the bad guy.” Pipe still dangling from his fingertips, he prodded his thumb against his chest. “I’m the one messing with the food chain. Even if the cops wanted to track these assholes down, their hands are tied. These depraved little pricks get nothing but a slap on the wrist. Ones who’re out to fuck kids, but I’m the bad guy for finding them first.”

“People will misjudge you. But don’t let them change who you are.” The words echoed in my head with a staggering familiarity, and I screwed my eyes shut to will away the surfacing memory.

With a chuffed laugh, he shook his head. “You should write fortune cookies, you know that? Seriously. That’s like … the best advice I’ve ever been given.” He patted my thigh, setting the blunt down on the nightstand. “C’mon. Get dressed. I need to show you something.”

It baffled me the way Dax could so easily distract me from my thoughts. For so many years, I’d struggled with the cyclical nature of them, a never-ending loop of falling, trapped inside my own memories and nightmares. The mere sound of his voice peeled me out of an emotional hurricane brewing inside my head.

“What do you need to show me?” I asked him.

With his tight butt mere inches from my face as he stood from the bed, he glanced over his shoulder. “Just get your ass dressed.”

* * *

Wind whipped through my hair as I stepped out onto the rooftop of Book Tower, the lightheadedness from the weed giving way to the view ahead.

I’d always felt like I had a pretty good handle when faced with terrifying moments, but staring off at the never-ending horizon had me questioning my experiences up until that point.

The sun had begun to set over the west side of the city, making its slow descent into the shadows of nearby buildings. My heart thumped an unnatural rhythm as I scanned over the tops of buildings below us, ones considered some of the city’s most notable skyscrapers.

Dax leaped onto the parapet, sending my heart rushing up into my throat.

“What are you doing?” The nervous wobble in my voice exposed the fear hammering through my veins.

“Ten years of therapy. Fights. Medications. All I had to do was come up here for everything to make sense again.”

“You’re not going to jump, are you? ‘Cause I’m not going after you, if you do.”

His chuckle sounded deeper than before, raspier. “I’ve found myself a number of reasons not to jump, as of late.” He hopped down from the edge, sending my heartrate back to normal, and strode across the gravel toward me. “So, that thing I wanted to show you … you gotta promise to hold very still and keep your eyes toward the sunset. No matter what.”

“I don’t like where this is going.”

“You will.” But his eyes and the bewitching grin that stretched across his face told me I was in deep shit, whatever he had in mind. “You’ll do as I say, yeah?”

“You’re not going to throw me over the edge?”

“Ah, I don’t know if I can answer that, but I promise you’ll enjoy every minute of it.” Hands planted against my ass, he backed me into the wall and lay the kind of kiss that left me weak in the knees on my lips—the kind that made it hard to say no. The soft, but demanding kind, with his tongue in my mouth and a rumble in his chest, telling me he was ravenous for something.

He dragged my bottom lip between his teeth, the possession in his movements rendering me unsteady, stunned by the aftereffects. “Will you trust me?” he asked.

In the seconds that followed, my mind teased out the complicated equation of instinct over experience, adding a new variable to the mix: the unknown. “Okay.”

At that, his eyes lit up like a kid at a candy buffet. The cold stonewall scraped across my palms, as Dax positioned my hands flat at either side of me. “You keep your hands to your side at all times.” He stood in front of me, shadowing me, and leaned in to my ear. “I want you to watch that sunset. Commit it to memory. And never once take your eyes off it. Hear?”

“Where are you going?”

No sooner had the question tumbled from my lips than Dax dropped down to his knees in front of me, his eyes rapt on mine during the chore of unbuttoning my jeans. Cool air hit my thighs, as he tugged them and my panties down to my shins and shifted his gaze to my exposed half.

“Wait.” I set my hand on his shoulder, which he promptly flattened against the wall once more without so much as looking up at me.

“Keep your hands on the wall, and your eyes on the sunset.” The way his tongue swept across his lips reminded me of a wolf, and when he pressed his thumbs at either side of my pussy, putting my still-tender clit on display, I sucked in a sharp breath, ignoring at least half his directives.

“I told you … I’m not … I don’t do foreplay.”

“Well, it’s time you did. And if you don’t like it, you can tell me to stop. I promise I will.”