Page 51 of The Fixer

“None.” His answer was whip-fast and serious, danger wound through the tone. His face shifted, as if a shadow passed over him. “Blood or otherwise, we’re all in the business.”

This wasn’t the first time he’d said something cryptic, and it had me dying to dig in, to ask questions I was sure he didn’t want to answer. A wall rose between the two of us even as he held onto my hand. Our waiter returned with our dinners, and it was just as well. I was happy I’d gotten Jet to speak at all. Happy to find where some boundaries lay and where others could be pushed aside.

We ate in relative quiet, Jet prodding me to drink my wine between bites. He was on his third glass of the night, and I’d barely touched my own.

“Do you not drink?” he questioned before dabbing his mouth with his napkin.

And that shriveled-up ball of nothing I’d become unraveled, if only to pull me down. “No,” I admitted. “Not much. Nathan didn’t…”

“I’m sorry.” Jet reached for me, hand wavering before finally settling on my thigh. “I didn’t mean to—”

“No. No, it’s okay. It was a part of my life. I need to learn to deal with it. I just…” I slid my hand over his, and I watched him, begging to catch some reaction. That touch was new territory, one I’d shied away from, and I wanted to know what had changed. “Nathan didn’t like it when I drank. His mother was an alcoholic. A sloppy one. He never wanted me to end up like that. So he’d berate me anytime I had a drink, even as little as the wine at communion. I learned to go without, and now, I don’t know. I guess I’m a lightweight. I don’t handle it very well.”

A squeeze at my thigh. An honest smile sliding across his lips. Those were the reactions I caught, reactions that warmed me as much as my drink.

“I’ll take care of you,” he told me, a whisper laced with a different kind of danger. It pulled laughter free from my chest. Laughter that shifted my body, that caused his hand to slide up my thigh.

Caused him to tug his hand free from mine as he busied himself with the last bites of food on his plate.

“You do it well,” I told him, hand brushing his arm—something I knew caused no adverse reaction. “You’ve been taking care of me since we first met. And I’m glad for it. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

A shift. A sway. A shadow that passed slowly. Silver moons slid across my face, lingering on my cheek, before the corners of his lips tilted up. His tongue swept across his lower lip, then prodded at the corner of his mouth. And suddenly, my heart began to race, as if he might climb out of his chair, intent on devouring me the way he’d eaten his food: like a man who knew the finer things in life and was content to savor every last bite.

I clenched my thighs and though I wanted to look away, I couldn’t. Because there was his honesty. There was the answer to so many of my questions, hidden in the look he gave me. I needed a guide to his moods, to those shifting shadows and those sexy smiles. I needed a map through his secrets so I knew where to step and where to steer clear. I needed to be able to read him as easily as he read me, but I feared that was one thing I could never do.

“What about you?” Jet asked, shifting toward me, his big body closing in as fire lit my skin. “Do you need to go back?”

“Go back?” I asked numbly, my mind fixed on the way his fingers slid between my own. It was a simple gesture, one he’d done so many times. One I couldn’t stop turning into something else.

“To work.” His knee nudged mine under the table. And just like he’d told me to on the mats in my room, I opened my legs to let him into my guard. “Am I keeping you from something you need to do?”

Was it wrong that I wanted him to keep me? That I wanted more from a man who’d already given me too much? His words trickled through my muddled thoughts, and I blinked away the fog of lust that washed over me in waves.

Back.

To work.

Without him.

“No.” My voice was too breathy, as if he’d stolen it along with my ability to think. I cleared my throat and tried again. “No, I don’t need to go back. Not yet.” When he didn’t speak, I felt compelled to fill the silence, to hold onto him for just a little while longer.

“After my father…” Jet squeezed my hand, and I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “I took a leave of absence. I just couldn’t…”

That lump rose above his thumb as it slid along my throat, his long fingers curling around the back of my neck. I was lost. Lost, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever find my way back. Not without him tethering me to the earth.

I reached out, as much to steady myself as to hold him close. I realized my error too late. As the hair that grazed my fingers made promises that, a split-second later, were ripped apart. Jet’s hand fell from my neck, his body jolting back in a smooth slide that would have gone unnoticed by anyone watching nearby. But I felt it like a shockwave, and in his absence, I ached.

His smile was tight. The short distance between us felt cold and stiff. A quiet sigh left me, and I lowered my hands to my lap. My hands, which had broken the spell. That had caused these problems. That had become stronger in the past couple days.

The whole of me had. Mind, body, soul.

And it was because of him.

“I don’t need to go back,” I told him, raising my chin, finding those mercurial moons shadowed by dark secrets. “But, perhaps, we could.”

“What do you mean?” He looked as distraught as I felt when he pulled away from me, and the thought of it had a smile tugging at my lips.

“You’ve helped me so much, Jet,” I told him, reaching for his hand on the table, fingers touching his warm skin without clinging to him the way I wanted to. “And I wonder if we could help them, too.”