I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t form the words to speak.
His hooded eyes drew me in, holding me captive, just the slight feel of his warm skin on mine causing desire to bloom deep in my belly.
And then he blinked, severing the charged moment between us.
He eased the glass from my hold and choked out unsteadily, “You’re my guest, Ashley.”
“Guest? It’s more than that.”
He stilled, his hand hovering inside the dishwasher. “You should get some sleep. It’s been a long day.”
I stared at him for a moment, his refusal to make eye contact, to barely acknowledge my presence any longer, feigning great concern with sorting the dishes.
“Ashley,” he ground out. “It’s late.”
“Yeah,” I murmured, dejectedly. “It’s almost nine. Majorly late.”
I saw him tense.
And then he spun around, startling me.
He reached into his back pocket and shoved his phone at me. “If you’re still too wired to go to bed, take the opportunity to call your father.”
At my hesitation, he added, “Before he tears me a new one, considering I promised I’d have you connect with him right away.”
I didn’t want him facing my dad’s wrath, because of me. He didn’t deserve that.
I nodded. “I’ll use my own phone. Thanks, though.”
“Yours is no longer available.”
“What?”
“I tossed it when you took that brief nap in the car.”
“You did what?”
“It wasn’t secure. Mine is.”
I glared at him and snatched his phone. “Unbelievable.”
“The first priority is your safety. That’s going to infringe on your privacy sometimes,” he informed me, clearly wanting to lay down the rules right out of the gate, letting me know how it was going to be. Basically, his way. Period.
What could I really say? He was just doing his job, protecting me. “All right,” I offered. “I get it.”
“Good,” he said, evenly, our gazes clashing.
I couldn’t suppress a frustrated huff, which no doubt made me look like an immature fool, before turning on my heel and getting the hell away.
As soon as I was far enough away to have at least some semblance of privacy, I scrolled through to the only entry in his strange phonebook that was an actual name, rather than a series of numbered and lettered combos. Who coded their phonebook?
My dad’s full name stared back at me.
I dialed and braced myself to deal with yet another stoic, ridiculously secretive, closed-off person.
5
~Wraith~
I RELAXED IN MY ARMCHAIR.
I eyed the bottle of bourbon in hand. The thing was still far too full for my liking.
I chugged back a few more burning gulps.
So much for my plan to stay sober all the while Ashley was here under my care.
Unfortunately, things were far more complicated than that. I just needed one night to sublimate, to get used to all of this.
Being pulled back into this messed-up world.
The killing.
Her.
The alluring beauty was doing a number on me.
Ashley Tate flew in the face of all of my tried and true methods of compartmentalization, my ability to shut down and do only what needed to be done without interference from any sort of emotional bullshit.
She was under my skin.
Hell, the truth was that she had been since she’d played nursemaid to me all those months ago.
She was a knockout, for sure, but it had little to do with that.
There was a jolting earnestness to her that made a closed-off, jaded bastard like me stand up and take notice. She’d seen the darkest parts of life, but she held tight to her innocence. She believed in the best in people, even though she’d experienced the worst that humankind had to offer. And she remained a force of optimism, despite the despair that often surrounded her.
All of that was exactly why I needed to keep my distance.
She was beautifully innocent and that didn’t belong in the hands of a monster like me.
Fuck.
I needed to get a grip.
She was a mission. The stakes were too high to screw around and blur the line between business and pleasure, protection detail and client.
At least she was in the guestroom and down for the night now. It was affording me time to get my head on straight and squash the remnants of the desire that’d flamed between us earlier.
Jesus Christ.
It had been intense. I’d never felt that intensity right off the bat with any woman. Even before I’d become a ghost, it’d always taken me a long time to warm up to people, to let my guard down. Maybe it had a little something to do with the fact that most of the people I’d come into contact with back then had been either full-on psychopaths or straddling the line.
Ashley wasn’t like any of them.
She was pure. Untainted somehow.
Nah, I couldn’t touch that. I couldn’t risk ruining that in her.
I destroyed everything I touched.
What’d gone down earlier was a case in point.
I’d managed to compartmentalize it for a while now, everything that’d happened at that tattoo parlor, in order to stay on task, to keep focused, to ensure Ashley’s safety. But now, without the distraction of Ashley and Scott, with things quiet for the time being, it’d started to replay over and over in my head. Just like those fucking nightmares of my past sins did nearly every night.
It’d been brutal. I’d been brutal.
The blood.
Their shrieks of agony.
Their wide, lifeless eyes when I’d finished them off.
It was a relentless detailed replay of violence, gore, and death.
The bitch of it was that none of that shit used to even touch me before. It was the retiring that’d brought it on, that’d had it catching up to me.
Retirement that I’d never wanted.
The people I’d trusted most in the world had forced me from the only life I’d known.
My own team had fucked me over and sent me on a suicide mission. I’d become a liability when I’d refused to get on board with the shift in their agenda. A shift to taking out innocents. Even for the supposed greater good, I wasn’t on board for that and I never would be. There was always another way. It was
