Page 43 of Shadow Of Sin

The wrist grab is still in my body. Not the anger. That faded. What’s left is the heat of his grip, the pressure of his thumb, the way everything went silent in my head for those three seconds like the whole world narrowed down to the place where his skin touched mine.

I didn’t like it. I didn’t want it. I told him never to do it again.

But my wrist remembers. And now I’ve seen his knuckles and his scars and his Photoshop-worthy pecs and abs, and the man I’ve been calling Clark Kent just got a hell of a lot more complicated.

“You’re staring again,” he says without looking up.

“I’m thinking.”

“About what?”

“About how many things you’re not telling me.”

He stops typing and looks at me with ice blue eyes that send a rush of warmth into my core.

“A lot,” he says. “I’m not telling you a lot of things.”

“At least you’re honest about being dishonest.”

“I’m trying.”

“That’s not as comforting as you think it is.”

“I know.”

We look at each other. Four inches between our shoulders. His thumb stops tapping. My wrist tingles, and I hate it.

“I should go,” I say, pushing back the chair, the legs scraping against the cheap linoleum floor.

“Yeah.”

I don’t move. He doesn’t move.

“Wolfe.”

“Yeah.”

“The debt. The forty-two-thousand dollars.”

“Yeah.” His eyes never move from my face.

“Thank you,” I murmur.

He doesn’t say you’re welcome. He doesn’t say it was nothing. He just looks at me with that deep-set gaze that see everything and says, “Sal shouldn’t have to carry that.”

“No,” I say. “He shouldn’t.”

I stand up and walk fast toward the door. I stop with my hand on the handle and glance at him over my shoulder.

“The knuckles,” I say. “And the scars. And the brothers who taught you to fight.”

“What about them?”

I shake my head. “You’re not who I thought you were.”

“Is that good or bad?”

Biting down on my lower lip, I stare at him before answering. “I haven’t decided yet.”