...Kaye, please...
“Rough night, Charade?” I sound bolder than I feel. That’s a relief.
“Have you been following me? Or did someone send you?”
My eyelashes brush the edges of my mask as I bat them. “Maybe I’m just lucky.”
Something in him changes. His shoulders slacken, falling just a bit in on himself.
“We don’t have to do this.” His voice is still smooth as silk, but soft. Exhausted. “We don’t have tobethis. No one would ever know if you walked out of here. Just this one time.”
My heart sinks. This isn’t the Charade I know, and that scares me more than I would ever want to admit. I look at this man who is fierce and determined, misguided but always resolute and I see something I’ve never seen before. Something that makes me want to break at his side, if only to see where our edges match.
“What is all this, Charade?” I gesture.
“Is that a no?”
“I can’t just let you go.” I let my own weariness filter into my voice. Allow myself to be vulnerable.
Charade lunges, his expression a vicious snarl. My body moves in a fluid dance of evasion on its own accord, and that probably saves my life. He attempts to corner me with the pallet walls, but I fake a turn and pivot back to his treasure, placing my hand on top of the first page.
“One more step and it goes up in smoke,” I promise.
“You don’t even know what it is.” But he maintains his distance.
Names and addresses fill every corner of the pages until no blank space is left untouched. With the size of the stack, there has to be information on every person in New Malcolm, including me.
“It’s not what you think,” he says.
“You don’t know what I think,” I bite out. All these names—these people. They’re in danger.
I never wanted to hurt you…
I need you to remember…
Energy gathers in my palms, siphoned directly from my body’s reserve. It’s a risk, but there isn’t another source I can get to. My hand is a lit match primed to consume those names.
“No!” The breath knocks out of my lungs as his shoulder collides with my sternum mid-tackle. I grab him, finding purchase on one shoulder.
His suit is silky over the rigid tension of his muscles. It moves around him like cloth, but also like something alive. It hugs him, but still gives him freedom of movement. Like an extension of him.
He rolls off me as I sputter, doubled over, knocking the pages from my grip and quickly smothering the flames with his boot. Smoke clouds through the air. My lungs ache. They’re bruised not broken, but every breath sends a sharp stab that ends with a gulp of ash.
Charade holds the smoking, blackened lump in one hand.
“Once. Just once, Checkmate.” He shakes his head, voice thick and stilted.
He looms over me like a cobra, poised to strike. I slide away, but my back hits a wall of pallets and there’s nowhere else to go. Trapped. My eyes close as another cough rips through me and I wait.
The fabric of his suit makes a shushing noise as he moves. I grit my teeth against the shock of adrenaline pulsing along the frantic heartbeats flowing life through my veins. My nose fills with a new kind of sweetness, almost a relief after this never-ending pine. Sandalwood. Musk. Vanilla. And somethingmasculinethat I can’t pin down.
Focus.
His fingers are warm as they curl around my chin. Long. Musician’s fingers. Lithe, made for fine movement.
For killing.
I wasn’t going to look, to give him the satisfaction of seeing how terrified I am, but I can’t stop myself.
