Page 85 of Carnal Wagers

She massaged my trapezius muscles, her forehead pressed to my nape. Her breath skittered down my skin, leaving behind little sparks of electrical charge.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

What was there to say? She awakened a part of me I’d thought long dead, yet I couldn’t fucking have her. One night with her hadn’t been enough, and she needed to go before I did something I’d regret, but damn it, it wasn’t what I wanted.

A wry chuckle escaped me. “Do you ever ask yourself if anything we’re doing even matters?”

The responding press of her mouth to my throat was nearly painful with the restraint it took not to move. It was punishing and lashed me with a reality I wasn’t ready to admit.

“Sometimes.” She laid her head against my shoulder. “I spent years creating and nourishing my businesses. Now I’m successful, rich, and still in my prime. I should be happy, but it has always felt like something is missing. As if I’m empty, here”—she reached over to tap over my heart—“like I’m performing the motions required, but there is no substance to it.”

Her words hit me with the force of a freight train. My teeth gritted, and my nostrils flared. I lay back down and dragged her with me, her head against my chest.

“Happiness is simply the precursor to pain,” I muttered.

“How perfectly cynical of you.”

“Everything can get taken away. Better to cut out the disease before it spreads.”

“That’s not living,” she whispered, tracing the tattoos on my pectoral. “People need more than that, you know. I know exactly what I need, but it’s always out of reach. Does that make sense?”

I rested a hand behind my head and glared at fluctuating shadows overhead to stop myself from looking at her. “More than you know.”

“But I’m not giving up. I’ve decided to obtain it, and I will. There’s no withdrawing, not when I’m this close.”

“And if you can’t? If it doesn’t depend on you?”

“If I can’t, then I’m not trying hard enough, or it’s not worth doing.”

Those words stuck with me as her head grew heavy and she fell asleep against my chest.

She deserved to live and achieve her goals, and I’d make sure she would.

Alice’s camera still transmitted, up in the corner of the room, right where she’d placed it. I stared at it.

The Love Knot Killer somehow always knew when an O’Leary entertained a woman. We’d found cameras, then disabled them. We’d found bugs and gotten rid of them. Yet, no matter what we did, the killer just knew.

For once, I found myself hoping she breached my privacy again. That she hacked into that camera and saw tonight for what it was. Innocent kisses and a hug, nothing more. Not a second sexual bout. Not a reason to kill the woman lying across me like she belonged. This woman felt like she was mine to hold, protect, and care for, but I couldn’t keep her if I wanted her alive.

My phone buzzed, skipping across the furniture. Four in the morning flashed on the screen, and I still hadn’t slept a wink.

“What?” I whisper-yelled as I untangled myself from Alice.

“Our bar on Broadway got broken into, boss,” Smiles said. “There’s lots of broken shit. The bar top’s been flambéed. Bastards went after the piping, flooded the damn place. They left you a message too. A personal one.”

“Who?”

“Sosa’s men.”

I rubbed my tired eyes. “Fecking eejits.”

Sosa was going to get himself a war if he kept this up.

“Good news though. We caught two.”

“Bring them to the Back Door and start working them.” It was what we called the basement of the O’Leary boxing gym.

“Already on it. You want to inspect them or the bar first?”