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“Let’s go for a walk,” she said.
“I’m not dressed.”
“It’s after three in the morning. No one’s awake.”
When she stood and made her way down the brick path to the street, he got up, and she knew he would follow her. He’d followed her outside. He’d followed her here from Florida.
He would keep following her until her two weeks were up, and it gave her a sick kind of comfort that she didn’t want to need.
“We won’t go far,” she lied.
She would take him as far as she had to.
She would take him wherever she wanted to go.
The muscles in her legs kept pulling his eyes back from wherever he banished them to. Her calves bunching and releasing. Her ass rising and falling with each step.
Her legs were too skinny, but he couldn’t not look.
Following her was stupid, but he couldn’t not follow.
He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened to her face at the dinner table when he told her he’d visited Susan when she was sick.
A loose cannon, Carmen had called her. Those were the words he’d used to convince himself to go with her wherever it was she was going.
The fact was, they were supposed to be enemies, and he was supposed to be striking blows for his side, but every time he struck one, he felt like someone had punched him in the stomach.
She could get into trouble. Get herself hurt. That was why he was out here. To protect his investment, his future.
He wondered if there was anyone alive dumb enough to believe that.
“Did you ever go cow-tipping?” she asked.
“No. I don’t think people actually do that.”
“I bet they do. I bet they just never invited you.”
“That’s possible.”
“What about petty theft—did you ever break the law and steal something? Pack of gum? A car?”
“No.”
“God, you really are a hundred years old.”
She turned off the road and began walking over the grass, heading downhill toward a pond.
“Where are you going?”
She didn’t say. He went after her, even though he knew he shouldn’t. Even though he knew that in her current frame of mind—in his—going after Ashley wasn’t simply annoying or reckless. It was dangerous.
He followed her, and he watched her, knowing something was about to happen.
She crossed her arms at the waist, grabbed a handful of shirt, and pulled it over her head.
Roman passed it, a lump in the grass, and watched the smooth expanse of her naked back shift with each step. He gazed at the spot at the base of her spine, just above the band of her shorts, where he wanted to put his mouth.
She reached the water’s edge, kicked off her sandals, shoved down her pajama shorts and panties, and stood there in profile, naked in the moonlight.
