Page 43 of Reaper's Desire

The rejection stings. The distance hurts. But more than that, I'm frustrated. Angry. I know he wants me just as badly as I want him, and he's choosing to deny us both for reasons he won't explain.

I close my eyes and try to sleep, but all I can think about is the heat in his eyes when he admitted he wanted me… and the cold distance he put between us immediately after.

I'm caught between wanting him and his rejection, between the danger hunting us and the safety I feel in his presence, between fear and desire, and the unknown stretching out in front of us.

And I have no idea how to make any of it stop.

12

JULIAN

The next airport is smaller than I'd like, which means fewer exits and less room to maneuver if something goes wrong. I keep my hand on Isabelle's lower back as we move through the terminal, guiding her toward the rental car desk. She's wearing sunglasses despite the overcast sky visible through the windows, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail that makes her look younger than she is.

She is too young for any of this. But she's handling it better than I expected. No hysterics, no demands to call her father, no threats to go to the police. It tells me she's finally starting to understand how serious the danger is.

I wondered, last night, yet again, if I should just go through with it. The inevitability of her death, and then mine, if I fail, feels the closest late at night, when it's the most difficult to shut out the noise in my brain. I have years of practice quieting my mind to silence, but lately it's felt harder than it has since I was a much younger man.

Among other things.

I shove that thought away. That's not our relationship any longer, and if I'd known who she was from the start, it never would have been.

If I'd known from the start, I would have killed her.

That thought strikes me hard, bringing back the sleepless merry-go-round from last night. What is the point of what I'm doing? Why can't I just kill her and be done with it?

This close, a long-range shot that she'll never see coming isn't an option any longer. But I could still make it quick. I could make sure she only has a second to be frightened before it's all over.

This is who I'm supposed to be.

So why can't I make myself do the rational thing? The thing that would save my life, since hers is all but gone already?

I scan the crowd as we walk, cataloging faces and body language as we go. A middle-aged couple arguing over a map, who look like tourists—no threat to us. A young man in a leather jacket, smoking near the exit, is distracted by his phone. There's a security guard by the bathrooms who looks bored and underpaid. No one watching us. No one following.

Yet.

"You're doing that thing again," Isabelle says quietly, her voice barely audible over the ambient noise of the terminal.

I narrow my eyes at her. "Doing what?"

"That thing where you look at everyone like they might pull a gun." She adjusts her sunglasses, tilting her head toward me. "It's unsettling."

"Good. You should be unsettled." I steer her around a family with screaming children and a mountain of luggage. "Stay alert. Don't make eye contact with anyone. Don't draw attention."

"I'm wearing Chanel sunglasses and a silk blouse in the smallest airport I've ever seen. I think I'm already drawing attention."

She's not wrong. Even dressed down—relatively speaking—Isabelle Montague looks like money. She looks expensive. It's in the way she carries herself, the quality of her clothes, the way she moves as if she has an unconscious expectation that the world will accommodate her. I should have made her change into something cheaper, something that wouldn't mark her as a target for every opportunistic criminal in the Balkans. I'm not sure why I didn't, except that I have a feeling that might be the thing that tips her over the edge into no longer complying. I feel like if I take that last luxury away, strip away her armor, and make her put on something that fits less comfortably, that might be the end of it.

And a part of me likes seeing her like this. The spoiled heiress I fucked until she screamed. I like seeing her and knowing I stripped all that away and made her come undone. I bet no other man has done that. Not like I did.

That line of thinking is dangerous, but it's hard to stifle. Even getting myself off every night in the bathroom or on the couch while she sleeps hasn't been enough to quell my need for her. And a couple of days ago, she almost undid it completely when she confronted me.

I almost made a mistake I couldn't take back. Because fucking her again, knowing who she is, who I am to her, all the lies I've told and all the truth I'm holding back… that would be worse than anything else. That would be unconscionable.

Butfuck, I get hard when she yells at me. Almost as hard as literally any other time I see her.

We reach the rental desk, and I hand over a passport and credit card, both under a name that isn't mine. The clerk barely glances at them before processing the transaction with the boredom of someone who's done this a thousand times. Five minutes later, we're walking toward a nondescript gray sedanin the parking garage. I check the car for tracking devices and explosives while motioning for her to wait some distance off.

"Is that really necessary?" she asks when she notices what I'm doing.