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Right when I'm close to dozing off, Morgan groans in pain and rolls over. My eyes pop open as I sit up on my elbow, forcing the fogginess from my mind to assess the situation. She’s curled up in the fetal position, whimpering in pain, which makes me wonder if she's now feeling more pain from when she was attacked earlier.
I roll over to turn on the lamp on the nightstand and assess her. "Are you okay?" I ask. I can't see any physical trauma or bruises on her aside from what's on her face, but with the way she holds her stomach, it worries me that she may have had something internal going on.
"Just having really bad cramps. It always happens the day before I'm due to get my period," she explains with a whimper. "Do you have any painkillers?"
"Yeah, one second," I say. I make my way to the kitchen and grab her a glass of water before fishing the first-aid kit from underneath the sink. Shaking out a couple of pills, I put everything back where it belongs before going back to thebedroom. She winces as she sits up, looking at the pills in my hand with a raised brow. I sigh inwardly as she hesitates to take them, probably still not trusting me. "It's just ibuprofen."
She finally takes the pills and water from me and downs them quickly before putting the glass of unfinished water on the nightstand. "Thanks," she murmurs.
I nod and move back over to my side of the bed, turning off the lamp to cast the bedroom back into darkness. Neither of us says anything for a long while, the awkward silence weighing on my chest as I lie there. In the time that we've been hanging out, things have never been awkward or tense between us, so this is definitely odd. I roll over onto my side and wrap an arm around her, rubbing small circles on her stomach. She doesn't pull away from me, but she does stiffen just a little.
"You're so confusing," she finally murmurs into the darkness.
"How so?" I ask, genuinely curious. She shrugs a little.
"Just hours ago, I watched you murder two men in front of me as if it was no big deal, and now you're taking care of me and being sweet. It just...it doesn't feel normal to be able to do that, I guess."
I let her words settle in my mind before I respond. "Yeah, I'm sure that can be jarring for people who've never seen it," I start, my voice low. "I guess I was just trained to be this way."
"Trained to murder people without a second thought?"
"Not exactly." I sigh. "In this line of work, you have to do things that may go against your moral compass if it means saving lives. You learn to compartmentalize things like that and not take the deaths personally. I know it's human nature to want to show compassion or to prevent harming other people, but there are people out there who don't have that and want to hurt others without a second thought. We're simply taught that killing is just a part of the job. We can't take these thingspersonally. Having emotions in the field can be the single difference between life and death for not just us, but many others."
She's quiet for a long moment. "Do you ever feel bad about anyone you've killed?" she asks.
"No," I answer honestly. "Like I said, it's just a job for me now. Anyone who has died has deserved to for one reason or another. We don't take hits lightly, hence why I wanted to investigate your situation further because things didn't feel right on first glance." I paused for a moment. "I'll never feel bad for eliminating someone if it means saving someone else's life. There's a difference between getting rid of an actual bad guy and being responsible for the death of an innocent."
She turns in my arms, facing me. "When you put it that way, I guess I can understand." Her fingers trace circles on my pec. "I'm still trying to process everything. It's just a lot to learn that a guy I like is a killer and that he's been lying to me from the day we met."
"I understand. But at the end of the day, I still have a job to do. If I didn't do what I did, you'd be dead right now."
"So did you purposely orchestrate when we bumped into each other the first time we met?" she asks.
I nod. "Yeah, mostly," I answer honestly.
"How long have you been watching me?" She pulls back a little, and even in the darkness, I can see a hint of a frown on her face.
"Not too long," I say. "Prior to bumping into you, I'd only been doing surveillance on you for a couple of hours before I picked up that something wasn't right." I blow out a breath. "Interacting with our targets isn't something we usually do, mostly because once someone is assigned to the contract, all of the evidence and research has been found and confirmed, andall that's left is executing the hit. But if my gut says something is off, I listen."
"I'm guessing that's why we're lying here now instead of my father planning a funeral," she murmurs.
"Yeah," I say. Silence cloaks the room once again before Morgan speaks.
"Even though I'm still a little upset about how we got to this point, I do want to thank you," she says softly. "It's so easy to be so absorbed in the things going on in my life to the point that I didn't even see the dangers around me. It's so unsettling to know how close I was to death. Even now, it's still scary to think about." She sniffles and wipes her face. "Even after this situation is resolved, I don't think I'll be able to live normally. Now, I'll always be afraid that someone may be after me, someone else wanting to kill me for one reason or another, and next time, you may not be around to protect me from that."
I move my hand to her cheek, a tear wetting the pad of my thumb as I brush it away. "You'll be able to live your normal life once we get this resolved. Don't let these people kill your spirit and force you to live in fear. If you do that, it only means they've won."
"Maybe they have," she mutters bitterly.
"But they haven't," I remind her. "You have your whole life ahead of you, Morgan. This is only just a bump in the road that won't matter next year or even next month once the threat is eliminated." I caressed her cheek. "You're a ray of sunshine that deserves to continue burning bright in this life. And I'll do everything in my power to make sure to get you to the other side of this safely. I promise."
She nods. "Thank you," she says, a multitude of emotions tangled in the two words. Before I can even respond, her mouth crashes against mine in a fiery kiss as her fingers tangle into my hair. The tension once plaguing my body quickly melts witheach passing second. When she finally pulls back, she pushes out a soft breath before timid eyes look up at me. "I just want to forget about all this for a little while."
"We can stop talking about it if you want," I offer, but she slightly shakes her head.
"I..." She searches for what she wants to say. "I...want to feel something else but fear right now. I just want to feel good."
I'm usually not one to pass up an opportunity for sex, but I know it isn't what she needs. The last thing I want is for her to wake up with any regrets as she did when she learned the truth a few hours ago. I kiss her gently as I unbutton her shorts. She rolls onto her back when I slip my hand beyond the lacy material of her panties as my fingers seek out her needy clit. The moment my fingers connect with it, she whimpers against my lips while rolling her hips against my hand.
