I came into her room. She’d actually done well in cleaning up. It was messy, and I could see signs that something violent had happened, but it didn’t look like a crime scene anymore. It just looked…regular messy.
I stood in the door frame, let out a long sigh, and gave a small smile. It was the least I could do after killing Snake.
“Can we talk?”
Chapter 23: Emily
For someone so frazzled and so disheveled, Burke looked damn handsome.
I’d decided while he took care of Snake that while I would probably eventually have to see my therapist for all the shit I’d gone through, for at least tonight, I would only feel relief it was over and figure out whatever I needed to with Burke. Suffice to say, he’d shown me that he wanted me around and cared about where we went.
I had no idea what was to be said, but the man had quite literally saved my life twice now, and on top of that, he’d saved my dignity before things got ugly and scarring. I could have lived with my life if I’d been raped, but Burke had thankfully prevented anything worse than an abduction and binding from happening.
“Sure,” I said.
I rose from the crime scene and followed Burke to the living room. I wanted to hold his hand, show my affection in some fashion, but if this talk had anything to do with what I thought it did, I decided erring on the side of distance for now was best. Verbal intimacy, physical distance.
He took a slow, grunting seat on the couch. Though he looked handsome and young, he sounded like an old man when he sat. For what he’d done, though, I was happy to let him do whatever he damn well pleased.
“Well,” he said, “aren’t you glad that’s over with.”
“Understatement,” I said with a tired laugh. “I can’t believe you knew to come and rescue me.”
“I didn’t, not in that I knew something was going to happen, at least. But I knew you were looking for me at the hotel, and I followed you back here, trying to work up the courage to say something.”
“Mission accomplished?” I said.
We both shared a laugh. Suffice to say, it was not quite how we imagined getting to “saying something.”
“But seriously. Thank you for saving me. I…I was a dead woman without you.”
“Don’t thank me. I was just—”
I held a hand up and found myself scooting closer to him.
“Don’t say you were just doing your job,” I said. “Even if you were, your job is ferociously dangerous, far more frightening than anything I would ever want to deal with. And I think you did way more than that. You could have waited to trap me in. For a man that dangerous, I could see you using me as bait.”
There was something that flashed across Burke’s face that suggested that might have been a possibility, or at least something under consideration at one point. But he said nothing more to it.
“Well, Snake aside, which is no easy thing…”
Burke chuckled. He looked so much lighter and relaxed with that man gone.
“It’s just surreal. He’s the reason DOM stayed in business for so long. And now…well, I’ll have to make a call to Scott and Liam it is all said and done.”
Before I had the chance to ask further questions, he turned back to me.
“I know we’ve had a rough go. But let’s just lay it out and face whatever we have to. I’ve felt an enormous attraction to you since the minute I saw you, Emily Lorne.”
The way he said my full name…it sent shivers down my spine.
“When you said you were having twins, I freaked out a bit. I’m not proud of it, I’ll admit that. But I think part of it was just…I think I’ve wanted a family this whole time, and I got scared that it was so real. Not just one kid, but two kids. Like, there’s an element there of…it was so sudden.”
Who was this Burke, speaking so freely and honestly? Gone was the stoic mask that hid his true feelings and emotions, replaced by nothing but honesty and freshness.
It was kind of beautiful.
“I shouldn’t have flipped on you. And I know that that reflects the kind of emotional drama that you don’t need in your life. But I’m here to tell you now that with that man gone and my head cleared, I know what I want. When I was in the hospital, dealing with gunshot wounds, do you know who I thought of? You.”
My heart skipped a beat. I felt warm in my stomach.
“Emily, you’re the person I thought of. I may have even fantasized about some things.”
The very word “fantasized” alone made me think about all the dirty, naughty things we might be doing very soon. Like, very soon. Even with my place a hot mess—maybe because my place was a hot mess—I was especially aroused.
“So I can only speak for me, but I want to give us a shot. I want to see where this goes. I want to try. Tell me what you think.”
And with that, Burke leaned forward, clasping his hands together. The intensity of his gaze…oh, man.
And, I happened to notice, the distance between us was closing rather rapidly.
“You know, I came to the hotel tonight because I’ve been thinking about you all week,” I confessed. “When you left the workplace on Monday, I just…your reaction was different. It made me realize I wasn’t really listening to myself. I was listening to what I thought was best. But now I
