and accepted the facts. Not that it mattered. Logic had nothing to do with it. Not while worry ruled, making her act like an idiot.
One with a terrible headache. And no sense.
Exhaling a pent-up breath, J.?J. turned another page and scanned the typewritten text, seeing it, but not really. She didn’t understand it. The draw. The pull. The ridiculous yearning she felt every time she thought of him. Which, God help her, was a lot. She scowled at a dark smudge on the corner of the folder. Two days. A measly forty-eight hours of knowing him. Peanuts. A drop in the bucket on time’s sliding scale, and yet the bond she shared with him was irrefutable. Undeniable. So rock solid she couldn’t resist its tether. But the truly crazy part? As it tied her down and locked her in, she didn’t struggle. She submitted, allowing the magic to flow and the Meridian to have its way. Energy-fuse, love’s holy grail. A seductive elixir, the thing every woman searched for, but rarely found.
Just one problem. Fairy tales happened to other people, not her. Never her. Despite all the hoping and dreaming. Despite what she felt for Wick. Despite everything. It seemed too good to be true, and even though she wanted to believe, J.?J. couldn’t help herself. She kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.
With an audible sigh, she flipped another page.
“You wanna talk about it?”
Surprise made her flinch. J.?J.’s focus snapped to her right. Her gaze traveled across a sea of blue exercise mats. Serious hazel eyes met hers. She blinked and… oh, right. She wasn’t alone. Angela sat just a few feet away. File boxes stacked like Lego blocks behind her, Angela raised a brow. Unease hit J.?J. like a hurricane, blowing the roof off the house where confidence lived. As it escaped into the ether, she nibbled on her fingernail and looked down at the file in her lap.
Alone in a gymnasium with an ex-homicide detective. Oh goody. Every convicted felon’s wet dream.
“You know I don’t give a shit, right?” The question came out soft, the meaning behind it didn’t. Acceptance and more rang in Angela’s tone. Strange—more than a little baffling—considering J.?J.’s history with SPD. “Wick’s not the only one who read your jacket, J.?J. I know what happened. Your ex was an abusive jerk.”
Disbelief made her huff. Hope made her ask, “So you don’t mind that I shot him?”
“I understand the necessity.” Propped against a table leg, Angela rubbed her shoulder against the wooden corner. Done chasing the itch, she crossed one foot over the other and shrugged. “And I’m not judging you for it. Besides, you did your stretch.”
“Paid my debt to society?”
“Something like that.”
“Right,” J.?J. whispered, not quite believing it. If only it were that simple. If only she could forget. If only the pain would leave her alone, let her breathe, stop twisting the screws. Wishful thinking, she knew. Guilt didn’t work that way. It never went away. Like outstanding debt, it stayed until either it was paid off or forgiven. Two things that would never happen for her. “I still have nightmares about it sometimes.”
Angela threw her a startled look.
She didn’t blame her. Her admission surprised her too. Chewing on her bottom lip, J.?J. frowned. What the heck was she doing? Bringing it up. Laying it out. Baring her soul. None of those things fit her usual MO. She never talked about it. Not even with Tania. But for some reason—instinct, the allure of sisterhood, and the need to be understood—J.?J. wanted to tell her. Something told her the ex-cop would understand. Angela had seen things, been a part of
Which, strange as it seemed, put them on equal footing.
Pressure banded around her chest. J.?J. breathed through it. Go hard or go home. There were no in- betweens here. Just straight-up honesty or complete silence. Swallowing, she worked moisture back into her mouth. “Some nights, I wake up in a cold sweat unable to breathe. A scream locked in my throat. The feel of his hands around my neck… squeezing.”
“I’ve had a few of those too.”
And there it was. The detail intuition had told her was there. Unearthed. Deep in the vault. That place where secrets went to die. A shiver crawled down J.?J.’s spine.
“I got caught in the crossfire a couple of months ago.” Haunted. No other word described Angela’s expression, and as J.?J. met her gaze she tried not to flinch. To stay strong in the face of her pain. Her new friend wouldn’t accept pity. Didn’t want sympathy either, but… God. She recognized that look. Had seen it on her own face while looking in the mirror. “I was raped by a Razorback… imprisoned in one of their lairs. Rikar got me out.”
“Oh, Ange, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know,” she said, the admission splitting her wide open. She knew what that felt like: to be cornered, held down, and… forced. That it had happened at the hands of her boyfriend didn’t make the experience any less horrific. Young. Stupid. Naive. She’d trusted him not to hurt her. Instead, he’d torn her apart, obliterating her confidence along with any sense of self. “How long were you there?”
“Not long. Twelve hours, but then…” Angela’s voice cracked. As she regrouped, she flexed her hands, making twin fists. “It doesn’t take long to destroy a person… take their life while leaving them alive… does it?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Shuffling the papers in her lap, Angela cleared her throat. “You should share how you feel with Wick. He’ll help you let go of the pain, along with the past. Rikar does wonders for me.”
J.?J. nodded, believing every word. Wick was power personified. Intense, yet kind. Lethal in a fight, yet gentle with her. Unassuming yet oh-so-hot in bed, he made her want, need, yearn in ways she never had before. An image of him, golden eyes shimmering as he loved her, flared in her mind’s eye. Desire rose on a heated wave. J.?J. shifted on the mat and… yup. Sex kitten tendencies, here she came. Just thinking about him—how he felt against her, inside her, his skin brushing over hers, his taste in her mouth—and…
Good lord. She needed to get a grip. Or hop into a cold shower. Quick. Before she embarrassed herself in front of an ex-cop who missed nothing and—
“Accept it and move on.” A twinkle in her eyes, Angela grinned. “Rikar does that to me too. I get hot just thinking about him.”
“Must make for an interesting scene when he walks through the door each morning.”
“You have no idea.”
“Uh, hello,” she said, making a funny face. “I think I do.”
Angela laughed. J.?J. joined in. God, it felt so good to laugh… seemed normal to share a moment without studying the angles. Without wondering if what she said would get her killed. Or in hot water with the prison guards. But then, that wasn’t her life anymore. She was safe in a place where no one wanted to hurt her. The thought stilled her mind. The realization shifted her perspective, and as it sank deep, so did the idea of freedom.
From everything: the fear, past mistakes, all the pain.
Now she possessed the power to choose a different path and create a new reality. So time to pack up the past and put it away. No good would come from denying the truth. Or fighting what she felt for Wick. He was part of the equation now, and were she honest? Everything she wanted for her future.
The truth tightened her throat, even as it set her free. “Hey, Ange?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Can you read Rikar’s mind?” As her new friend blinked in surprise, J.?J. hurried to explain. “I mean, how powerful is the connection… all the energy-fuse stuff, ’cause I know things about Wick that I shouldn’t. Things he hasn’t told me about his past. I know it sounds weird, but when I’m with him, it’s as though I’m plugged in… being fed information. Images. Experiences. How he feels about both.”
“Welcome to the club,” Angela said. “The connection between mates is a powerful one. I cherry-pick stuff off Rikar’s mind all the time. Thoughts. Worries. The stuff he doesn’t want me to know because he’s trying to protect me. Sometimes, it’s just a feeling… like a vibration. Other times, I get snippets of residual memory.”
