Page 73 of Fuse

I know, without a doubt, that if fate brings me face-to-face with Faline Garand today, I won’t hesitate to blow hers right off her hideous neck.

Chapter Three

Reece

“Do you like it?”

Her eyes are fucking breathtaking in the glow from the candles and twinkle lights surrounding us in the gazebo table at the Inn of the Seventh Ray. “I love it, Mr. Richards.”

I snap the clasp of the tennis bracelet around her wrist. It sparkles in the special lighting too—but still isn’t as stunning as those twin pools of turquoise. She damn near makes me forget I have a tongue in my mouth, let alone how to use it to lay a passionate kiss meant to zap her down to her toes.

Why am I remembering this? Right now?

Is this a memory?

It feels so real. It feels so real and perfect and joyous, that if it isn’t, I’m sure whatever I’ve escaped isn’t worth returning to. Not yet. Not right now.

“It’s so stunning, baby.” She shakes her head, her forehead furrowing. “But…”

I frown. “But what?”

“It’s so much. It’s too much.”

“Emmalina Paisley.” The growl is at once a rebuke.

“Reece Andrew!” she retorts.

“It’s Valentine’s Day.” I snatch up her hand and press fervent kisses to her knuckles. “It’s Valentine’s Day. Our first Valentine’s Day.” Then, because I can’t help myself, I lean in and press my lips to hers again. Savoring the feel. Relishing all her tastes. She’s salty, like our caviar appetizer, but sweet as the white wine we’ve been sipping. Her sigh sounds like heaven, and her tongue feels like nirvana.

But as thoroughly as I’d like to ravish her like this all night long, there are still words I’ve got to say. Important ones. “Our first…of what needs to be many. So, so many.”

She lifts her free hand to my face and scrapes the tips through my stubble, while the mists of fucking Avalon itself join the magic in her eyes. I’m not referring to the teeny island town twenty-six miles away on Catalina island, either. “It will be, my love. It will be.”

But when the bracelet catches the light again, she’s back to peering at it like she expects it to turn into real mist any second. And I had to go and evoke a book about Arthurian legend.

“Are you sure you like it, Bunny?”

“Oh, my God.” She laughs and kisses me again. “Baby, it’s incredible.”

I nip my lips at the corners of her delectable bow of a mouth. “And so are you.”

“I just thought that the Glock was my present. You told me that it was for Valentine’s Day—”

“I lied.” A fresh smirk, infused with every insolent cell in my body. “I said that because you wouldn’t have accepted it otherwise.”

Rosy circles invade the high cheeks beneath her teasing glower. “You’re probably right.”

“Tell you what. Let’s say the bracelet’s for you but the gun is for me, okay?” I give her a needed moment for contemplation and take an appreciative sip of my wine. “I’m going to rest a lot better knowing that if I’m ever not around, you have the means to protect yourself.”

She scoffs. “Like you’re ever not going to be around?”

I deliberately focus my stare on my wine. “You know what we’re dealing with here, Velvet,” I level, wishing like hell we could be talking about how sweet her cleavage looks in that red dress or how thoroughly I long to drag her out into the lush woods around this place, slam her up against a tree, and take her in complete caveman style. Instead, I have to continue with, “That bitch thought nothing of throwing you and Lydia into a net, with the full intent of feeding you into a jet turbine while I watched. She wants to earn that Consortium achievement patch for retrieving Alpha Two, no matter how many girlfriends she has to murder.”

“And if the girlfriend is ready to murder her first…”

“Not an achievement patch you should be aiming for.”

“Not unless she fucks with you first.”