Page 86 of Never the Same

What if someone Hollis cared about was out there waiting for a rescue? Or hell, what if they were already dead?

Chapter Thirty

Hollis

Jason’s anger simmered beneath the surface; he was ready to kill. After what Ryder had shared, along with my brother’s call right after, who’d blame him for feeling like this?

He hadn’t said a word to me after Gideon ended the call. Instead, he’d disappeared into his bedroom and changed, then wordlessly stormed into my bedroom with an armful of my stuff from his bathroom. Why he packed his body wash as if our hotel wouldn’t have any was beyond me, but I wasn’t going to object. The citrusy scent had grown on me.

After he’d dumped everything on my bed, he’d breezed into the closet and located my trunk. Not the Prada suitcase that’d apparently had a knife taken to it in Rome, but the bronze hard-shell RIMOWA that Lyra had given me in Surrey to use. He’d urgently pulled my clothes off hangers and opened the dresser drawers to help me pack.

I dropped onto the bed next to where he was currently shoving my clothes into the suitcase like they had offended him. Though he had just stumbled upon my sexy nightgowns, so maybe that scowl had to do with the lace and silk tangled around his fingers.

Hand over my heart, I searched for a deep, calming breath. Only a shallow one that offered no relief came. I opened my mouth wide to try to force a yawn, to see if that’d loosen the achy, acidic pain in my chest, but nothing helped.

“Are we ever going to talk?” I broke the awkward silence lingering between us as he returned to the dresser.

He opened the drawer that held his T-shirts before dropping his hands on the dresser, hanging his head as if I’d just asked him to defy gravity. Then again, didn’t planes do exactly that with the force of lift? “What is there to talk about?” The bitter edge of his tone triggered my nipples to harden.

Great. Now I was distracted by thoughts of where his hands had been in the shower not that long ago. Though it was nice to have my own memories involving this man to think about instead of the ones someone had manufactured and implanted in my head.

“I’d say there’s quite a lot to talk about.” I stood and walked over, waiting for him to turn, to make eye contact. To tell me why he was so angry and who he wanted to kill.

Every visible muscle in his body was tense, and his back rose and fell with deep breaths as if he’d just tried to outrun Ranger and failed. That dog was a living missile, from what I’d seen in the last few days. Born to be special ops. I was going to miss him. Miss this place, too. I wasn’t so sure I was ready to leave the safety of this home, but I needed answers, and from the sounds of it, my brother now had some.

Jason grabbed his shirts out of the drawer, refraining from looking at me as he brought them over to the suitcase.

“Why are you packing—”

“Because you like wearing my shirts.” He began folding them one by one, neat and methodical. “And if it turns out you were with some other guy before . . . well, then you can wear his instead.”

Those words nailed me in place, and full-body chills slid over my skin, so much so I started to tremble. “I wasn’t with someone.” I rested my back against the dresser. “I know in my heart there was no guy—not in that way, at least. Don’t forget, you had Constantine double-check with the people at the hotel if I was with anyone, and I wasn’t.”

“People lie,” he said in a clipped voice, closing the trunk.

“Well, something tells me I wouldn’t have been flirting with you over text if I was secretly seeing someone. I think I’m the loyal type, don’t you? And, um, don’t you dare lie and tell me that we didn’t flirt.” I swallowed, then tossed out one more flimsy detail: “Also, my family said I don’t even do relationships.”

“Yeah, well, I do.” He whirled around. “That’s all I’m looking for, which is yet another reminder why you and I won’t ever work.”

I stepped forward, and he shot his hand up, requesting we return to that three-foot rule as if his tongue hadn’t been in my mouth and I hadn’t gotten off from his hand between my thighs. He’d been careful not to penetrate me, just delicately touched me in the best possible way while I lost control.

My one and only orgasm to date that I could now recall, and it’d been bliss before we were interrupted with news. That news was clearly why he was all fire and brimstone right now. Itching to kill someone while erecting steely walls.

I finally got the synapses in my brain to fire, sending words to my mouth, asking, “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing, just forget what I said.” He pushed at the skin on his forehead, hissing something I couldn’t fully make out under his breath. “All that matters is figuring out what happened to you and why. Getting your memories back. And if there’s some guy out there that you were with, and he’s still alive but in danger, well then—”

“This alleged guy is who you want to kill, yes?”

“With. My. Bare. Hands,” he snapped back, powering up each word as if they could stand on their own.

Breathing hard, he stared at me with dark eyes, like he was trying to convince me he had an equally dark heart.

“Why do you want to hurt this guy?” I closed the space between us, fingers trembling at my sides, aching to reach for him. To let him know my past was my past and I belonged to him now.

He leaned in, jutting his chin forward. “You know why,” he snarled, a possessive need bleeding through his tone, and if that was a red flag, then consider me a bull about to run toward him, because I liked it. I wanted him crazy about me.

I broke that three-foot rule and stopped in front of him, clutching his arm, urging him to lift his hand. He had to help me out. He was too strong.