Page 19 of Reaper's Desire

What the fuck was that?

I touch my throat, feeling the tender spots where his fingers pressed, and try to make sense of what just happened. He asked my name. I told him. And then he looked at me like I was a ghost. Like I was something terrifying.

He almost choked me to fuckingdeath. I came because of it, and so did he.

And then he left.

I fall back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and try to process it all. Maybe he just doesn't do the whole "staying the night" thing. Maybe last night was a fluke, and this is how he normally operates. Fuck and leave. No strings, no complications. Maybe he got too rough, rougher than he normally does, and he felt guilty about it after he came. Post-nut clarity or whatever the guys call it. He couldn't face me after, too ashamed, and so he ran.

That's fine.I'mfine. He didn't hurt me, and I had another night of incredible sex. That's what I wanted too, right? Wild and reckless and free. No attachments. No feelings.

Except…

Except a small part of me wishes he'd stayed. And that he'd explained whatever the fuck just happened.

I roll onto my side, pulling the sheet up over my body, and close my eyes.

It doesn't matter. He's gone, and I'll probably never see him again. That's how these things work. One-night stands—or in this case, two-night stands—don't turn into anything more. And I'm fine with that.

I am.

6

JULIAN

Ibarely make it back to my hotel before my stomach revolts.

The bathroom door slams against the wall as I stumble inside, dropping to my knees in front of the toilet just in time. Everything comes up, bile and acid burning my throat as my body tries to purge something that can't be vomited away.

Isabelle Montague.

Her name echoes in my head like a death knell, and I retch again, my hands gripping the porcelain so hard my knuckles go white. When there's nothing left, I stay there on my knees, breathing hard, my forehead pressed against my forearm. The tile is cold beneath me. I can't move.

The woman I've been obsessing over for two days, the woman whose body I've mapped in intimate detail, the woman I just fucked for the second time, is my target.

The coincidence is so impossible, so cosmically fucked, that part of me wants to laugh. What are the odds? What are the actual fucking odds that out of all the women in all the clubs in all of Ibiza, I'd end up in bed with the one person I'm being paid to kill?

But I'm not laughing.

I'm kneeling on a bathroom floor in a cheap hotel, trying not to vomit again, because the universe has just played the cruelest joke imaginable.

Finally, I force myself to stand. My legs shake slightly as I move to the sink, gripping the edge of the counter for support. I turn on the tap, cup my hands under the stream, and rinse my mouth out. The water is lukewarm and tastes faintly metallic, but it washes away the acid burn in my throat.

Then I look up at the mirror. A stranger stares back at me.

Same dark hair, same hard jaw, same eyes that have seen too much. But there's something different now, something I don't recognize. A crack in the armor I've spent all these years building, a fissure that's letting something dangerous seep through. Fear, maybe. Or guilt.

Or something worse—something that feels uncomfortably close to caring.

I grip the counter harder, my reflection wavering slightly as my vision blurs. I blink hard, trying to force myself to focus, to think clearly through the panic clawing at my chest.

Isabelle Montague.

I don't have any other information on her. The broker was supposed to be sending it to me when I got to New York. I just have her name for now, but that's all I need to know that this is fucked up beyond belief.

I have no idea why someone wants that girl dead, and I never will. I don't ask questions; I do the job. It makes me an effective killer and means that, when someone wants to know who to go to instead of putting out a contract for anyone to pick up, my name gets thrown out there more often than not.

I never ask questions. That's the rule. That's how I've survived this long in a profession where curiosity gets you killed. Someone wants a target eliminated, they pay me, I dothe job, clean and efficient. No moral considerations, no second-guessing, no attachments.