Chapter 12

Isabella sits quietly in the passenger seat as I drive, the twin headlights of my ‘real’ vehicle stabbing the night. I enjoy this Range Rover a lot more than the nondescript throwaway truck I’ve been using as a work truck, if only for the ride.

It’s interesting to see Isabella tense, then relax as I accelerate out of Roseboro. I suspect she’s been riding that scooter for so long that she’s forgotten what sixty miles an hour feels like as the lights of the city pass us in a blur.

Or maybe her intermittent stiffness is because of me. I have to remember that while I know everything about her, both from her lips and from her file, I’m a virtually unknown entity to her. I’m sure that’s weighing on her as much as the speed with which we’re racing out of town.

We get to the parking area closest to the secluded spot I found, and I come around, opening the door for her. I help her step down, warning, “Careful, it’s a bit of a drop.” The words resonate in my head like warning bells, but I refocus on here and now, on Bella.

Looking in the back of my Rover, I grab a military surplus parka out of the back, nothing fancy but something I keep for bad weather... although the camo print has proven useful once or twice for surveillance.

Bella smiles as I shake it out flamboyantly, unzipping it and slipping it over her shoulders. “Nice.”

“Thanks,” I reply, zipping the coat up the front of her, watching as her curves disappear beneath the coat. The oversized parka almost swallows her. She looks... adorable, and it makes my heart twist in my chest. “I got it for rainstorms. You know how they can sometimes spring up and catch you unaware.”

“Not just weather. Life does that too,” Bella says, adjusting the cuffs and zipper, and truer words have never been spoken. She certainly caught me unaware, is still surprising me at every turn. “So, where are we going?”

“It’s not far. We’ll take the easy route,” I say, reaching out and taking her hand.

She pulls me back, her voice sassing in the dimness, “I don’t need the easy route.”

This woman, challenging me when she doesn’t even need to, scared to let something be comfortable because she’s so used to fighting for every scrap and morsel she gets, and accustomed to life being hard for no sensible reason.

I shrug like that doesn’t gut me and ask straight-faced, “Suit yourself. I guess that means you’re an experienced nighttime free-climber then?”

Her eyes shoot wide open as her jaw drops. “A night what? Climbing what?” I can see her backpedaling literally as she takes a step closer to the SUV like she’s going to hop back inside.

“The spot I want to show you, it’s accessible two ways. One, by the short, easy hiking path I planned. Or two, by climbing up the rock face from the valley below. Your call, just let me know if I should grab my gear. I have two sets. I follow the Boy Scout motto of ‘Be prepared.’ ” I wait patiently, curious how she’s going to back out of this because she obviously has no desire to rock climb, especially by the light of the midnight moon.

After the span of two slow breaths, I let her off the hook and offer an easy grin. “Hike sounds best to me. Never know what creepy crawlies might be on the rock face at night.”

She shudders, obviously not liking the idea of nocturnal insects or other animals. “Fine. If you’d rather hike, we can do that.”

I laugh loudly that she’s still not admitting that she can’t do the climb but is instead sticking with using me as her out. She glares at me, shooting daggers, but then cracks up too. Our laughter echoes through the trees, disturbing some night fliers, judging by the sound of flapping wings.

Bella steps a bit closer to me and I whisper in her ear, “No worries. I’ll protect you from the bugs.”

I let my thumb trace a circle on her hand, feeling the soft satin of her skin. She nods and finally, we’re off.

Using a flashlight from my gear pack, we walk up the hill, listening to the sound of the waterfall get closer and closer. When we emerge around a bend in the trail, I stop, looking over the scene. We’re both silent, taking it all in.

“It’s beautiful.”

Bella’s hand comes to her chest, and I can understand. The moon’s broken through the clouds that have been peppering the sky all night, and now it’s in its full glory, huge and silver as it shines down on the forest below. The whole scene looks ethereally frosted, not frozen but like it was crafted out of ebony and velvet, dusted with diamonds, and lit from within by the slowly pulsing heart of the forest itself.

“Gabe, this is amazing,” Bella whispers, her voice choking. She walks to the edge, gasping again. “I can see most of Roseboro from here!”

I come up behind her, placing my hands on her waist. Even through the parka, I can feel the flare of her hip, the nip in at her midriff.

Part of me wants to pull her from the edge, hold her closer and grind on her until our bodies demand more.

I’m ashamed to say there’s a tiny part, fractionally small, that hisses I could do it here, shove her over the edge into the black valley, fast and painless, and that the camo jacket I gave her out of kindness would likely hide her body until I could get safely out of town. That tiny bit even argues that it’d lead to too many questions because several people saw me leave with her tonight, and that’d make me suspect number one in her disappearance.

But even with the automatic response slithering through my psyche, I know it’s not happening. I’ve already made up my mind. I blink slowly, staring into the stars above us.

Sorry, Jer, I can’t. Not her.

There’s no response, but I’d like to think he understands. There’s got to be a way. A different way.

“This place is magical,” Bella says, breaking into my dark thoughts as she leans back against me, pulling my arms around her. “How’d you find it? Did you really rock climb up here?”

I swallow, inhaling the scent of her hair and holding her more tightly, betraying my contracted word but honoring my loyalty to myself in a way I haven’t in a long time. “I did. It’s not as crazy as it sounds.” I’m hedging. It’s absolutely as insane as it seems, but that’s why I love it. “Honestly? I’ve always been an outdoors kind of guy. This place kind of reminds me of when I was a kid.”

“I’d like that story,” Bella says, rubbing my arm to keep me warm since she’s bundled in the one coat, but I think it’s also because she’s tracing the muscles in my forearm. Arm porn girl, I think with a cocky grin she can’t see. I flex a bit, squeezing her jacket and popping the muscles for her. Though her eyes stay locked on the amazing view, I feel her legs move like she’s trying to subtly rub her thighs together for relief, and heat blooms in my balls.

“Or do you bring all of your conquests into the woods like a wild man?” I can hear what she’s truly asking disguised in the joking question. This sweet woman, who never takes care of herself but is choosing to spend her precious time with me tonight, wants to know if this is as special to me as it is to her.

“You’re the first,” I reply, and I feel Bella’s chuckle before I hear it, her back bouncing against my chest. “What?”

“I seriously doubt I’m your first anything, Gabe.”

I lean down and bury my nose in her hair before nuzzling her ear. “Point taken. I mean the first here. I just found it a few days ago, and I wanted to share it with you.”

What the fuck am I doing?

It’s one thing to fail a contract, to go back on my word and refuse it mid-agreement by not killing her. It’s quite another to bring my work into my personal life. But unwittingly, that’s exactly what I’ve done. Isabella Turner hasn’t been a job for a while now. She’s been something else entirely. I’m not sure what it is, exactly, but I want to know everything about her, protect her at all costs, even from herself, and somehow make her every dream come true.

Nothing big or major or hard about any of that, I think sarcastically. Should be able to get that checked off the to-do list in no time.

But self-recriminations aside, it’s the truth of what I want. And I don’t have the first fucking clue about what to do about it, especially when the safest thing for me to do is to bail, to hit the highway and just run pell-mell back to a life where every day is the same, a cold existence where my primary focus is tracking down my brother’s killer.

Bella looks over her shoulder, smiling wryly. “Does that mean I’m special?” Disbelief drips from her tone, like it’s the cheesiest of distasteful pickup lines. Like off-brand Velveeta in word form.

One look in her eyes, and I feel my resolve crumble. I’m not going to kill her like I was hired to do, and I’m not going to walk away like I should do.

Instead, I answer honestly, from my heart and my gut. “Bella, you’re far more special than you realize, more than I dreamed.”

I can tell she doesn’t believe me. “You... you confuse me.”

I turn her around, wrapping my arms around her waist again and pulling her tight to me, where she gulps when she feels the rising thickness of my cock against her belly. “Is that so?”

“You’re not the first to hit on me at the diner. But usually, they wanted just one thing. You... you’re different.”

I touch my forehead to hers. “You have no idea.”

She sighs, and I feel the heated breath whisper across my mouth. I lick my lips, trying to taste her.

Her voice is a hoarse whisper, softly rasping in my ear. “You’re right. I barely know anything about you, but I feel like this is right. Tell me about you, Gabe.”

It’s my own question thrown back at me, but whereas she opened up the Pandora’s box of her life story, I can’t. Even if I wanted to, which surprisingly, I do, I can’t tell her. It’s too ugly, too monstrous, and she’d never understand.

So I do the only thing I can. I give her my truth with a kiss, molding my mouth over hers as I truly taste her for the first time and hope it’s enough to answer her reasonable request for more from me.

She responds immediately, moving her lips with mine and allowing me access to dip my tongue into her on a breathy sigh.

I run my fingers into her hair, tilting her head the way I want and diving in for more, wanting all of her, wanting to give her all of me in this kiss.

Jeremy would want this for me. Blackwell can fuck himself. I’ll get the information he’s holding over my head another way. Or maybe not at all?

The thought of losing myself in Bella is somehow soft and hazy, a misty dream I hadn’t fully considered. But when she mewls under me, pulling a groan from my own chest, I let the fantasy of retribution go in favor of the reality right here in my arms.

I’m a monster, but on her lips, I taste absolution.

Forcing my eyes open, I step her backward toward a nearby rock. But instead of pinning her to it, I turn us and lie back on the cold, rough hardness myself, pulling her against me and letting her have some semblance of power. I don’t want to overwhelm her, and I’m barely hanging on to the edge of my control with a white-knuckled grip. Her hands come to my chest, finding the sweatshirt and pulling me in for another kiss.

I slip my hands under the thick parka, cursing it for not letting me feel her nipples pressed to my chest. Instead, I find the belt loops of her jeans and move her hips against me, making her slide along the ridge of my cock to let her know what she’s doing to me.

“Fuck, Bella.”

She bites her lip, white teeth denting the puffy pink fullness and driving me wild. I shift her, spreading her legs around my right thigh and pressing her core to the thick muscle there. Her hips shudder involuntarily at the sensation, and Bella’s eyelashes flutter as her eyes roll back.

I can’t give her everything, can’t take all that I want from her. But I can give her this. A night she deserves, a night to remember. “Ride me, Bella. Use me to get yourself off.”

Her eyes snap to mine, timid hesitancy covering desire. She doesn’t move at first, so I guide her, feeling her heat even through our jeans. But soon, her instincts take over and she starts to roll against my thigh.

“Oh, fuck, Gabe . . . but—”

“Do it, Bella,” I growl in her ear as I reach around and grab her ass, squeezing the firm cheeks and adding to the feelings shooting through her. “Come on me.”

Bella resists for a few seconds, but then the feeling of her clit rubbing against my thigh and my teeth tugging on her ear overwhelm her resistance, and the sound that comes from her is the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. “Fuuuck ...”

I kiss her neck, feeling the flutter of her heartbeat and letting her have control of what she needs. It’s torture, guilt and desire pulsing through me with every beat of my heart. My cock aches. She’s so sexy that I can barely contain myself, but the fact that just minutes ago, that dark voice was encouraging me to kill her makes me want to punish myself, deny myself the pleasure I know she could bring me.

Instead, this is for her, and I take my joy from every sound Bella makes as she dissolves in my arms, lost to an ecstasy she so rarely gets in her rough life.

As her hips speed up and her body starts to tremble harder, I encourage her. “That’s it. Rub that pussy on me.” She moans, and I want to swallow the sound. I keep going, judging that she likes the dirty words pouring from my mouth. “You need this, Bella. Fuck, I need this. I can feel how hot you are, probably messy with your delicious honey. You gonna let me feel you come, then let me lick you clean?”

She loses the rhythm, and I take over, pulling and pushing her back and forth as I flex beneath her. Her hands dig into my shoulders, and then gloriously, her head falls back and she cries her orgasm to the night sky. It’s a symphony of sex, and I love every stunning note, instantly wanting an encore.

“Oh, my God,” Bella rasps when it’s over, and I let her down slowly, the moonlight illuminating her rapturous face. “That was . . .” She searches for words before she meets my gaze, clear-eyed and powerful, demanding, “More.”

That I can do.

And while it’s faint comfort for the pretenses this began under, I’m going to assuage my guilt by devoting myself to giving Bella as much pleasure as she can handle for as long as she wants me. And I’m going to protect her—from Blackwell, from me, and from herself.