Page 133 of I Know Your Secret
“And after all this is over?” she asks. “After the dust settles?”
“I don’t know. I can’t promise you roses and boxes of chocolates, but I never could.”
Her eyes fill with hope. “So, we handle business first, and we table the rest until it’s time to deal with it.”
“Look, Greer, I don’t want you getting your hopes up about a future with me. That was not the intent of my kidnapping you…” She silences me with a finger over my lips, and the burn that works into my skin has me annoyed at how easily she affects me.
“We’ll figure it out later.”
I want to agree with her, but playing house until then is only going to skew things for both of us and make it worse when everything around us comes crashing down.
“I need you to prepare for the reality of everything coming.”
She turns on my lap, straddling me. “I will. But today, can I just be grateful you’re back?”
Her lips hover closely to mine, her shallow breaths inching me forward.
Knowing I affect her is something I’m becoming addicted to, and I need to stop.
Because if in the end, keeping her safe means letting her go, I have to be strong enough to do so.
But when our mouths collide in a thunderous storm, I wonder if I’m the weakest man alive because there’s no way not to fall into her.
33
Greer
Koen’s behind me, holding my arms steady as the cold metal of the gun warms in my hand. His breath against my ear isn’t helping me focus at all as he instructs me to close one eye to hone in on the target he placed across the way.
“Focus, pretty poison,” he grumbles, and I nearly whimper.
“I can’t. Not with your hand where it is…”
His hand over my thigh, its fingers lingering closely to my sex, has my body burning.
“You’re a fiend.”
“Takes one to know one,” I mock back.
My arms are jelly after this morning’s fighting training that he worked me through in the gym, now he’s got me holding a handgun, practicing shooting it, enough not to be an expert marksmen, but to know my way around the thing if the necessity presents itself.
Old me would’ve been opposed to learning this skill, but the new me, the me who’s become a part of a trained killer’s life, sees the requirement of such a skill.
Before starting this life lesson of his, he stressed the necessity of safety, and he showed me all the fundamental techniques tokeep myself and those around me safe with a gun in my hand, which is laughable, knowing he’s training me to kill if necessary.
He then helped me get into what he called theproper stance.
“Make sure your grip is tight,” he whispers, and a splash of something filled with lust and heat travels my spine.
“I think I need you to step back if you want me to get this right.”
“Mm. I think you need to learn how to shoot under pressure.” His hand slides between my thighs, cupping my sex in a possessive grip that rivals the one I have on the gun in my hands.
My gasp echoes through the woods surrounding us.
We’re on the back of the property, in a clearing that seems to be used for this specific purpose.
His teeth nip the outer shell of my ear. “Aim.”
