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“That thug was hired by Petrovich to abduct you.” Tears pool in her eyes, and when she lifts her chin, I know she’s determined to listen without getting overly emotional. “The intel Wren obtained told us that they were going to take you to a secondary location and get Dani’s location from you.”
She swallows several times before she speaks. “I don’t know where Dani is.”
“They didn’t know that.”
“They were going to hurt me then what? Let me go?”
I shake my head. “They weren’t going to let you go. It’s very rare someone survives being taken to a different location.”
“You were gone for a week.” I know she’s not trying to accuse me of leaving her unsafe, but her tone is riddled with it.
I set my glass on the porch to the side of my rocking chair so I can give her my undivided attention.
“We raided a compound in West Africa where Petrovich spends most of his time. We didn’t hurt anyone in the house, but it landed us on the Russians’ radar. You weren’t in any danger while I was gone. I put you in danger when I returned.” My eyes search hers, and I pray she can see the anguish filling them for doing that to her. “One of Petrovich’s men followed me back to the hotel that night. If I had stayed away, it never would’ve happened.”
“Deacon, I—”
“It’s dangerous around me. My life is dangerous.”
She cuts her eyes away, and I have to grip the arm of the rocking chair to keep from reaching for her.
“Are we safe here?” she asks on a whisper.
“We are,” I assure her. “Wren buried this property under so much paperwork, unless the Russians know the elderly lady working at the courthouse, they’ll never find this place.”
She nods, but I can see the distance she’s putting between us. It’s exactly what we both need, but it still cuts me like a knife. I’ve never been so damn indecisive in my entire life.
“I’m going to go to bed,” Anna says as she stands, and I don’t stop her.
Hopefully, the truth scared her enough that she keeps her distance, because God knows I’m running out of the will to do so myself.
I wait to leave the porch until I’m certain she’s safely shut away in her room. I even somehow manage to keep my eyes on my own bedroom door by the time I make it up there. Even with those steps taken, I keep the door cracked, a fucked-up invitation for her to join me again tonight.
It makes no sense. Getting involved with Anna is literally the worst thing I could possibly do, but when that bedroom door creaks open a couple of hours later, I’m grateful. Much the same way it happened the night before, I wait until she’s settled before I turn over and wrap my arms around her. This time she clings to my forearm as she cries, and the only thing whispered into the night is my assurance that she’s going to be okay.Chapter 26Anna
I scrunch my eyes against the sunlight, wanting to yell at Deacon for not having the wherewithal to buy blackout drapes. When I try to roll over, I realize I’m still pinned to him with his arm banded around my back.
I’m no longer on my side, the little spoon in the bed, but sprawled all the way across Deacon’s chest with my nose buried in his neck.
My heart begins to pound, more at the possibility of him waking and leaving the room, than the fact that I’m plastered to his side like a second skin when I didn’t have any business even coming in here last night in the first place. I can’t help the whimper that rumbles deep in my chest when his fingers begin to trail up and down my back, the hope that he was still sleeping flying out the damn window.
Unsure if I’m in the middle of a dream, I lift my head to find him looking down at me. He isn’t smiling. There isn’t a knowing glint in his eyes or a teasing lift to his lips. The serious face I saw in his office after going over eight years without seeing each other is familiar and makes me feel like a gnat he’s getting ready to swat away.
I shift to rise off of him but his other hand caresses my cheek, the one around my back holding me close. My eyes flutter closed before I can stop them, then his lips are on mine, his tongue urging my mouth open.
My fingers clench against his bare chest, nails digging into his skin, and it seems to activate some primal animal in him because the next thing I know, I’m flat on my back and he’s hovering above me, mouth still pressed to mine with an insistence ten times greater than what I felt when he kissed me at the hotel. My skin catches on fire, heat spreading like wildfire over every inch of my body.
