She was going to have to follow through with this plan, Lasarín decided with a firm nod that somehow caused her to stumble until the large man that had fallen for her disguise reached over and palmed the top of her head and held her still. Once he was assured that she wasn’t about to trip over her own two feet again, Shayne dropped his arm aside as he ran his eyes over her, taking in what was left of her beautiful blonde hair, the smudges that she’d placed strategically on her face to make herself look more like a boy and the tunic she’d taken from a village two day’s walk from here before he took in her arms and legs, which, admittedly, were smaller than the other lads that had been sent to the king to train and frowned.
Nodding, Shayne followed her gaze to the king’s house and-
“Ye want ta tell me why yer dressing like a lad, lass?” Shayne asked as his gaze cut back to her, making everything inside her go still.
“I’d rather not say,” Lasarín said as she sent a wistful glance back towards the woods.
“This is usually the part where ye make a run for it, lass,” Shayne drawled as she heaved a sigh.
“My legs stopped working,” Lasarín admitted, gesturing for him to get on with it, knowing that there was no point in trying to run at this point.
“That’s unfortunate, lass,” Shayne said as he reached for her and-
Granite Falls, New Hampshire
Present Day
This had to stop,Ashlyn thought on a groan as she blindly reached over to shut her alarm clock off only to remember that she’d never made it past the couch last night.
God, she was tired.
Between this last case and the dreams that she’d been having for the past month, she was running on fumes. She needed sleep, but every time she closed her eyes, she dreamt abouthimand when she wasn’t dreaming about him, she was thinking about him and she had no idea why.
The only thing she knew was that she needed it to stop.
She needed to stop dreaming about him, thinking about him, and more than anything, she needed this feeling, thisdesperate need, to go to him to stop. She didn’t want him, didn’t need him, but no matter how many times she told herself that, Ashlyn couldn’t stop thinking about the deeply disturbed man that she found naked in the emergency room a little over a month ago. Every day was worse than the last, leaving her feeling on edge. She’d hoped by finding out everything that she could about Shayne that she would be able to move on and forget about him, but unfortunately for her, it just left her with more questions.
Questions that she didn’t have time for, Ashlyn reminded herself as she reluctantly got up and made her way across her studio apartment, pausing along the way to shut off her alarm clock before she grabbed her kit from the closet. She carried the plastic box into the bathroom and placed it on the counter as she looked at herself in the mirror, taking in her short black hair, the tattoos marking her neck and arms, the piercings lining each ear before taking in the one on her lip and-
“That might have been overkill,” Ashlyn said, sighing heavily as she reached up and carefully removed the fake lip ring and tossed it on the counter.
That was followed by all the fake earrings lining her ears as well as the fake belly button ring before she reached up andbegan the long process of removing her wig. She removed the clips one by one before working the wig free from her scalp, leaving behind the makeup that she’d used to blend the edge of the wig with her skin. Once she removed the wig, she tossed it on the counter and began removing the cap, revealing the loose Dutch braids that she’d secured to her scalp.
Thirty minutes later, she’d managed to remove all the bobby pins and combed out her long blonde hair before pulling it up into a loose bun at the back of her head and grabbed the hand sanitizer from her kit along with a facecloth and set to work scrubbing off the tattoos that she’d airbrushed onto her skin. After she scrubbed them with hand sanitizer, she grabbed the bottle of makeup remover and went over her neck and arms again before removing the makeup on her face.
Once she’d scrubbed the rest of the makeup off, she removed the contact lenses that turned her eyes blue along with the bandage that she’d used to bind her breasts to make them appear smaller before making her way to the small shower stall in the corner. She turned the hot water up all the way before pulling off the rest of her clothes and stepping inside as she went over everything that she needed to do today.
She needed to send her report to the insurance company along with her final bill, check her email, and finally track down the elusive Detective Black. It had been two weeks since he was released from the hospital and she really needed to-
Stop thinking about his brother.
“Stop fucking judging me!”
“It’s a stupid show!”
“It’s misunderstood!”
“It was supposed to be a three-hour tour. Why the hell did they need all that fucking luggage?”
Shayne glared at Finn as he pointed towards his bedroom door. “I told ye never to bring that up again!”
“Because it’s a stupid show,” Finn muttered with a shrug before he disappeared.
“Yer dead to me, ye bastard!” Shayne yelled after the confused bastard.
It was a great show, damn it!
“How are they supposed to make banana cream pie on a deserted island without milk, flour, or butter?” Declean demanded from the comfort of Shayne’s bed.
