Dirty Rich Secrets: Part Two
Author: Lisa Renee Jones
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Table of Contents

- DEAR READERS
- CHAPTER ONE
- CHAPTER TWO
- CHAPTER THREE
- CHAPTER FOUR
- CHAPTER FIVE
- CHAPTER SIX
- CHAPTER SEVEN
- CHAPTER EIGHT
- CHAPTER NINE
- CHAPTER TEN
- CHAPTER ELEVEN
- CHAPTER TWELVE
- CHAPTER THIRTEEN
- CHAPTER FOURTEEN
- CHAPTER FIFTEEN
- CHAPTER SIXTEEN
- THE NAKED TRILOGY
- THE SAVAGE TRILOGY
- ALSO BY LISA RENEE JONES
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the supplier and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at lisareneejones.com/contact

All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination. www.lisareneejones.com.

DIRTY RICH SECRETS

PART TWO

LISA RENEE JONES

BE THE FIRST TO KNOW!

The best way to be informed of all upcoming books, sales, giveaways, televisions news (there’s some coming soon!), and to get a FREE EBOOK, be sure you’re signed up for my newsletter list!

SIGN-UP HERE:  http://lisareneejones.com/newsletter-sign-up/

Another surefire way to be in the know is to follow me on BookBub:

FOLLOW ME HERE: http://bookbub.com/authors/lisa-renee-jones

DEAR READERS

Thank you so much for picking up DIRTY RICH SECRET: PART TWO! Please be sure you’ve read Part One prior to diving into this book, because they do need to be read in order. Ashley and Aaron’s story continues right where we left off with the mystery man coming out of the shower. Who do you think it is? Turn the page to see!

xoxo,

Lisa

CHAPTER ONE

Ashley…

I stare at the naked man in the shower, rippling muscles licked by droplets of water, and for a moment, I can’t breathe. He’s perfect. He’s deadly. He’s Noah, not Aaron, and this man will never be Aaron to me, no matter how many times I use that name.

He’s alive.

We’re alive.

We’re together.

I launch myself toward him, and the minute I’m at the edge of the tub, he grabs me, lifts me, and pulls me into it. “I thought you were dead,” I whisper. “I thought—”

His mouth slants over mine, and oh God, he tastes like him, like Noah, like the man I love in every possible way: earthy, raw, and yes, lethal. I realize now that he was always lethal, that I always knew this, that it turned me on, that it called to me. “Noah,” I whisper against his lips.

He doesn’t even try to correct me. “Yeah, baby,” he whispers, “I’m right here.” He turns me and presses me against the wall. “Which I thought you knew two days ago. Obviously, your concussion was worse than I knew.”

“Two days?”

“Two days,” he says, the thick line of his cock pressed to my hip. “And if you don’t remember that, I haven’t fucked you as perfectly as I should have.” And just that fast, he’s kissing me again, has me refusing to ask another question. He’s going to fuck me perfectly. Yes. Please.

I reach down and wrap my hand around his shaft and say just that. “Yes. Please. Make me remember.”

A low growl escapes his throat, and he goes from devouring me with another kiss to dragging my shirt off of me and dropping it in the puddle of water at our feet. It’s barely gone, and he’s turning me to face the wall as his hands cover my breasts.

“Noah,” I plead.

“That’s right, baby,” he says, his fingers playing with my nipples and pinching them to the point of erotic pain. “Noah, and you’re the only one who knows that.” He teases my nipples again, pinching and repeating the deliciously painful action over and over until I can’t take it any longer.

“Why are you not inside me?” I demand.

“You’re going to remember this time,” he promises. “You don’t get to forget me ever.” He unsnaps my jeans and pulls them off. “Understand?”

“Why would I need to? Why would I want to?”

“Remember you said that,” he says, turning me around and backing me up against the shower wall with him caging me in, my sex clenching with the idea that he will soon be inside me.

Yes.

Please.

I could say those words, think those words, a hundred times with this man with no regret. I have no regrets with him. I’m tired of pretending otherwise. He was almost gone again. He was almost dead this time, and now he’s standing in front of me again. I wrap my arms around him and hug him, pressing my breasts to his chest and offering him my mouth, my trust, my heart.

He cups my head, claims my mouth, and in that kiss, there is possession, heat, need. We need. He needs. God, I need. Take me. Fuck me. Own me. Love me. Those are the things I try to tell him with every lick of my tongue and then he’s inside me; I don’t even know how it happens, but he’s inside me, stretching me, filling me, in all those ways that I need to be filled.

“Damn it, woman, you undo me,” he whispers, and my back hits the wall again, his hands on my breasts, fingers plucking at my nipples, his kiss devouring me. Then, I’m no longer on the ground. I’m no longer against the wall. He’s lifted me while my legs have found his waist. And just that fast, he’s pumping into me, thrusting, and I’m not sure if he’s pulling me down on top of him, or if I’m pushing against him. I’m not even sure how I lean back, but I don’t fear falling. I know he has me. I think I’ve always known that he has me. As if promising that to be true, his arm wraps around my waist, his big, beautiful, powerful body holding all of my weight.

His eyes meet mine, lowering to rake hotly over my naked, bouncing breasts, and I am all about this moment. About showing him trust. About taking what he offers and that is him, that is pleasure and with that decision is freedom to just be here, live this, take him as he is. I push into him, groan with how hard and thick he is. For me. He is hard and thick for me, and I want him to want me. We are wild, and I watch his face, the hard lines, his perfect lips that I know can be deliciously punishing, and for reasons I can’t explain, just the idea of that mouth is what undoes me.

I shatter into orgasm, and it’s not just any orgasm.

It ripples through me with such sudden force that my body stiffens and clenches, my sex clamping down on his shaft. He groans low and deep, and his reaction, his pleasure, is everything to me. He is everything to me, and I can feel the warm, hot heat of his release, I can see the pleasure ripple over his features, and that is almost enough to make me orgasm all over again. He is masculinity personified, a perfect man to me, and it’s that thought that seems to wrap us up and drug me in the final moments of his release.

He molds me close and holds me, his face pressed to my face, and for longs moments, a full minute, I think, he doesn’t put me down. He doesn’t move. He just stands there, seeming to inhale me, to drink us in, and I do the same. I don’t want to return to the rest of the world. I don’t want to fight for our lives and fight for a world where we can be together. I just want this moment to last forever.

Slowly, he slides me to my feet and strokes my cheek. “Don’t forget me ever again.”

“Don’t give me the chance,” I order. “I thought—I thought you were dead.”

He cuts his stare, his gaze lifting skyward, his jaw clenching, and when he looks at me, his expression is all hard lines and torment. “I know,” is all he says, and then he’s releasing me, stepping out of the shower.

He grabs a towel and hands it to me and then wraps another one around his waist. There’s something going on that I don’t know, which is really a stupid thought. There’s a lot going on that I don’t know, but right now, what I care about is whatever it is that just made Noah pull away from me.

I wrap the towel around myself, and by the time I’m out of the shower, Noah has both hands pressed to the sink, his chin on his chest. Whatever is wrong is big. Whatever it is, he doesn’t want to tell me. Dread fills me. His silence stretches out, and all those thoughts I had about trust and us and no longer denying how much I love him seem to mock me.

“Noah,” I whisper. “Talk to me. I need you to talk to me.”

He pushes off the counter and turns to face me. “I’m not Noah. You need to figure that out and do it now.” And with that contradiction to what he just said in the shower, he walks out of the bathroom. Angry. He’s angry with me, and now I’m angry. I pursue him; I’m done with secrets and lies. It all ends here and now.

CHAPTER TWO

Ashley…

I don’t know what just happened to set him off, but I can guess that being attacked back there by that cabin has something to do with it. He’s on edge and pushing me away, just as he had momentarily done during that snowstorm. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit. Needing some semblance of control I search for clothes, scavenging a couple of shopping bags. I find options, lots of options because this man knows me. I know him, too, I tell myself. I pull on jeans, a tee, and Converse, brushing my hair and that’s all the patience I have. He is making me crazy.

I charge after Noah, or Aaron, or whatever the heck I’m supposed to call him at present, I round the corner and bring the room into view. And Lord help me, he gives me his back as he drops his towel, his perfect backside now gaining my full attention. My God, this is an unfair play, which sums up everything with this man.

He starts pulling on his pants, sans any damn underwear.

“You’re killing me,” I hiss. “Everything about you is killing me.”

He whirls around to face me, his hair around his handsome face somehow accenting the anger in his eyes. “I’m keeping you alive.”

“I wouldn’t need to be kept alive if you wouldn’t have—”

“Come into your life?”

“I shouldn’t have said that,” I say quickly. “I didn’t mean that. I’m emotional, and it just came out.”

“Because it’s what’s in your head.” He snatches a shirt up. “I’m crystal clear on that point, but I did and that means you need to stop fucking calling me Noah.” He pulls the shirt over his head. “That name can get us both killed.”

I swallow hard with the harshness of his tone. “Then you shouldn’t have told me—”

“I get it,” he says. “I shouldn’t have done a lot of things, Ashley, but I did. Burying me in your hate in this room doesn’t help me make sure we don’t both end up buried somewhere else.”

“Do you want me to hate you?”

“We’ve had this discussion. No, I don’t fucking want you to hate me, Ashley.”

“Then stop acting like a dick. I get it. You’re worried. You blame yourself for all of this, but I don’t. I knew what you were. I felt it. I liked it. And don’t ask me to explain that right now. Right now, I just need to know where I am and how I got here.”

He studies me several long beats, his expression unreadable, but the air is thick, the charge between us crackling. “One of the assholes who attacked us hit you on the head. I killed them all and brought you here, to New York City.”

He killed them all. I swear he speaks those words like he’s baiting me, pushing me, trying to get a reaction. I don’t give it to him. I focus on our location. “Back to where this all started, back to where I was forced into protection. I assume that’s to find out how and who started it all. What now?”

He doesn’t pop out an answer. He scrubs his jaw and turns away, pressing his hands to the wall. Seconds tick by and then stretch to a full minute.

“Aaron?” I prod softly.

He pushes off the wall and faces me. “What now? I get you out of this.”

He doesn’t know what comes next. I feel that in him and he’s lost the only person he trusted.

“I have people we can trust,” I offer.

“They’ll end up dead. Is that the price you want them to pay for being trustworthy?”

“I’m not talking about friends. I’m talking about people with skills. Before I was taken into protective custody, a man from Walker Security guarded me. His entire team is made up of Special Forces and FBI and every agency in existence, even CIA.”

“And you just made the case for why we can’t trust them. They’re connected to the CIA.”

“I trust Smith.”

His eyes narrow on me, a fizzle of something in their depths that is dark and dangerous. But then I’ve always known he was dark and dangerous. “Do you now? Because I remember you being someone who doesn’t trust easily, and I haven’t been gone long enough for you to trust him that much. Not without some intimate time spent with him.”

“I didn’t fuck him if that’s what you’re suggesting,” I snap, angry with him now. So very angry. “But I had the right. You left.”

“I had no choice.”

“There is always a choice. He protected me from you. That’s the irony here. I was being told that you were a monster, and he was protecting me from the man I loved.”

His eyes narrow, and he closes the space between us, his hand coming down on my arm, heat shooting through me as he drags me to him. “Loved?”

My hand flattens on his chest, and his heart thunders under my palm. He’s furious now. “You know I love you,” I say, “if I didn’t, I would have ended up with Smith. He’s a good guy. I’d just found out that you weren’t who you said you were. I asked myself over and over why I didn’t just fall into Smith’s arms.”

He stares down at me, his eyes hooded. “And what was your answer?”

“I’d gotten the flowers, which turned out weren’t even from you. They’d promised there was more to the story. That kept me holding on. You wouldn’t let go of me. I wouldn’t let go of you.”

A challenge resonates between us, both of us angry, and the reasons, well, mine at least, are many. He lied. He betrayed me. He stole my life, even without protective custody. He became my everything. He became my heart and soul. I hate him. I love him. His lips thin, and he turns away, his shoulders bunched.

I open my mouth to call him Noah but clamp down on the name before it escapes my lips. “I can’t help it,” I whisper, hugging myself. “You’re Noah to me, and you did that to me. You told me—”

He turns to face me. “I know every sin I committed against you, Ashley. And right now, I want to strip you naked again, take you to bed, and fuck and love you until you remember I’m still the man you fell in love with, but that doesn’t get us to the endgame.”

“Which is what?” I ask, just needing to hear it again, just needing to know that it hasn’t changed.

“A new beginning.” His hands settle on his hips. “A new life together where I make all of this up to you for the rest of our lives.”

“Unless you talk yourself out of it?” I challenge. “Unless you decide you’re bad for me.”

“Is it my decision to make?”

“It’s our decision, and if we really are a we, that’s how it’s supposed to be. I know that the only person you trusted is gone. I know he turned on you, but I’m not him.” I take a step toward him. “And neither is Smith. Smith is a good man.”

“Who wanted to fuck you.”

“I didn’t—”

“I get it. You wanted him, but loved me too much to fuck him.”

“Stop it.” I wave a hand at him. “Stop pissing me off.” I point at him now. “You should have told me the truth a long time before you did. You should have trusted me. I wouldn’t have let you down.”

“And yet all too quickly, you were thinking about fucking another man.”

“Stop acting jealous. I was scared and alone.”

He lowers his head, chin on his chest again, a deep breath gushing from his lips. “Fuck,” he murmurs and then he’s back in front of me, stroking my cheek, and when he looks into my eyes, this man, this killer, is tormented, vulnerable. Afraid? Of losing me? Of losing everything? Yes. I do believe he is. “The idea of you with another man guts me,” he says. “And I can’t stop that feeling. I can’t stop loving you. I can’t fucking walk away from you, even though, as you said, I did this to you.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“You did, and you’re right. I didn’t step back from you. I didn’t protect you because that’s how I could have protected you. I have no control where you’re concerned, and there is little in my life I can’t control, Ashley.”

This confession, that I’m what shatters his control, steals my heart all over again. “I don’t want you to be okay with me and another man. I just want you to understand how I felt.”

“I do understand, and I’m fucking sorry a hundred times over. I’m going to protect you. I’m going to take care of this. I know I keep saying that, but it’s more than words, and I need you to believe I can make this right.”

“I do, but I also know that Smith can help. I trust him. Trust me, please. Trust me like you didn’t trust me when you held back, when you didn’t tell me who you really were. And, I met the Walker brothers who run the operation he works for; they’re good men.”

“Who think I’m a traitor.”

“Smith can convince them otherwise.”

“Why would Smith believe otherwise?”

“I’ll convince him. We’ll convince him.”

“If he crosses me,” he says tightly, “I might have to kill him. I don’t know if you can live with that as easily as I would.”

“I won’t have to,” I say. “You won’t kill him. You’ll make that promise to me now, before I call him.”

“If he risks your life with a stupid misplaced hero move, I’ll do what I have to do to protect you.”

“He won’t make a stupid move,” I assure him.

“Are you willing to bet his life on that?”

CHAPTER THREE

Ashley…

Am I willing to bet Smith’s life on how much I trust him? That question lingers in the air between myself and Aaron as I flashback to the past. To a night right after Aaron, Noah then, had disappeared, accused of betraying his country. I’d been devastated, and Smith had been the bodyguard assigned to me by Walker Security—the agency hired by my boss and friend, Cole Brooks. I’d been scared. I’d been heartbroken. Broken. I’d been broken in so many ways. I’d still been wearing the ring that is now in a safe deposit box locked away with my heart, right here in this very city.

***

The Past…

Smith and I enter the downtown Manhattan building, complete with fancy tiled floors, a doorman, and only a few miles from my own apartment. I hug myself. “This is a pretty nice building for a safe house. Much nicer than the one we’ve been at the past few nights.”

“Because it’s my place,” he says, his hand settling on my back, awareness between me and this man that I don’t want to feel. I love Noah. I don’t want him to be who they say he is.

I rotate to face Smith. He’s good looking, not so unlike Noah, actually. Tall with brown hair, muscles, and dreamy eyes that speak of worlds of experience and even pain. But he’s not Noah.

“Smith,” I whisper, confused. “We’re—this can’t—we can’t—”

“We’re friends, Ashley. Just friends. And even that’s more than we should be. I brought you here for a reason. Walker Security operates in a building right across the street. The man you love is lethal. I need backup, and because I have it here, we’ll both sleep a little easier tonight.”

“You’re sure? I feel like this invades your privacy. This is your private space.”

“I’m sure.” He motions to the elevator, and I decide not to argue. I want to be safe, and Smith makes me feel safe. We head into the car, and once we’re there, I think of the history he’s shared with me. Ex-Special Forces, his family who died in a fire when he was a teen, and other little tidbits. I’ve learned these things about him in three days, or did I? I thought I knew Noah. But I knew nothing. I can feel the tears begin to prickle my eyes. I love Noah so damn much, but he wasn’t who I thought he was. I love a fantasy. I love a fictional character. Loved. I can’t love him. It’s all past tense.

The elevator dings, and it’s not long until I’m inside Smith’s loft-style apartment with brick walls, steel beams, and dark hardwoods beneath my feet. It’s a beautiful masculine home, but it’s not my home. I’ll never be able to go to my home again.

“Let me show you where the spare bedroom is,” Smith says, and I follow him down a narrow hallway.

“Bathroom to the right. That’s all yours.” He walks into an open door, and I enter a room that has no windows but manages to be cozy with a large bed, a black headboard, and two cozy chairs in a little reading nook. It’s the no windows that gets me. That’s why I’m here. No one can get to me without going through Smith. He sets my bag he’s holding on the bed. My bag with the few things I own right now inside.

“We’ll be here for at least a week,” Smith says. “We’ll go shopping tomorrow.”

“Shopping? Who pays for that? I’m not employed.”

“Cole is handling this, and the government has a budget for witness protection.”

“I’m not in witness protection officially. I don’t want to be in witness protection. Noah isn’t who they say he is. He’s not. I refuse to believe I’m that wrong about him.”

“I know it’s difficult,” Smith says. “I’ve seen some things, the kind of deception that guts you. It’s like you suffered a death. You have to deal with the loss.”

“I don’t want to deal with the loss. I want him back.”

“The man you knew didn’t exist,” Smith says. “He can’t come back.”

I hug myself and cut my stare, fighting back tears before I look at him. “If he’s innocent, would you help him?”

“Of course. If I had proof that he was innocent. And you should want proof, too.”

“Of course. Right. I just—I love him.”

He closes the space between us and brushes his fingers across my cheek. “And he was a lucky man.” His hand falls away. “If he didn’t know that, he didn’t deserve you.”

I hold up my hand with the giant diamond on it. “No one gives a woman this kind of ring as a cover story.”

“You want me to have it assessed?”

I bristle. “Are you suggesting it’s not real? It’s real.”

“I’m suggesting it’s worth a lot of money—money you might need.”

“Oh. Right.” Sell my ring? No. No. No. I can’t. “I—I’ll think about it.”

“How about pizza? I can order, and we can watch a movie.”

“I think—I need to think.”

He nods. “If you change your mind, I’m in the living room. And the fridge is stocked. Make yourself at home.”

Home.

I’ll never be home again.

***

Present Day…

“Ashley?”

I blink Aaron back into view and me back to the present. “Yes?”

“Do you trust Smith enough to risk his life? Because that’s what you’re risking by involving him.”

“Because you’ll kill him or anyone else?” I challenge.

He narrows his eyes on me. “Are you trying to make me the bad guy, Ashley?” He pulls me to him. “Because that won’t be hard. I’m not a traitor, but I am a killer. I’ve killed. I’ll kill again. That’s who I am.”

“Are you trying to scare me away?”

“If you can be scared, you should be. If you want, I can take you to Smith. I can plant you right there in his arms, and you can let him protect you for the rest of your fucking life. I’m a killer, but I’m also a man who has saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. I didn’t want to lie to you. It was my fucking job. I didn’t want to be setup, but I was. I didn’t want to fall in love with you. It was my fucking heart. So, yes, if you want Smith, I’ll take you to him. I’ll take you right now.” He releases me and walks away.

I swallow hard at the magnitude of his anger, and I realize how much his life has been shaken, just like mine. I realize, too, that he’s a hero, a man who has given everything for his country. A man who lost everything, even before the CIA, trying to take down a drug lord. And I think—I think I sent him mixed messages over Smith. I think I’m scared of being hurt and scared in general, and that betrayal I felt inside me back when I met Smith, when I lost Noah, still eats at me and at us.

Aaron faces me, his eyes dark and turbulent, his jaw set as hard as stone. “What’s it going to be? Smith or me?”

Smith or him?

I’m angry and hurt and angry all over again.

I want to punch him.

I want to kiss him.

I think I might just punch him.

I don’t actually know what I’m going to do, but I launch myself at him.

CHAPTER FOUR

Aaron…

The minute Ashley launches herself at me, I step into her, and right when the crazy fireball of a woman that she is throws her fist at me, I catch her wrist. In a quick move, I turn her and press her against the wall, my legs caging hers. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“You’re an asshole,” she declares, her hair wild in her face, her eyes throwing daggers at me.

“I’m quite aware of that fact.”

“Such a damn asshole.”

“Also aware of that fact. Haven’t we already had this conversation?”

“Well, you can just tolerate the repetition. Maybe it will torture you the way you tortured me by leaving me alone all this time. Leaving me to think you’re some sort of an evil monster.”

“I am an evil monster.”

“A jealous, evil monster,” she snaps back. “I was alone, and you lied to me. I could have fucked Smith ten times over, and you had no say in it.”

“Did you want to fuck him ten times over?”

“I wanted to feel something other than pain. I wanted to make the pain stop. You hurt me, and now you dare to stand here and judge me? You dare to—”

“Yes, I fucking do, because I’m a jealous, evil monster, remember?” And if I stand here another minute with her pressed close to me, I’m going to fuck her while thinking of her fucking some other man. I release her and try to walk away.

She catches my hand and pulls me back to her. “You have no right—”

“I have every right,” I bite out, dragging her to me again. “You’re going to marry me. You’re going to be my wife. You don’t get to fuck anyone else.”

“I didn’t.”

“It damn sure sounds like you thought about it.”

“I did. I thought—”

“Don’t say it again, Ashley. We’ve had this conversation. I know what you thought.”

“Well, you can just hear it again. I need to get this out. I need to get it out now.”

“It was hell knowing someone else told you who I was. It was hell, Ashley.”

“You let that happen.”

“And I’ve lived with what I did to you every fucking day we were apart and hoped like hell you believed in me, in us, enough to know that I would come for you.”

“I wanted to believe you’d come, but—you lied to me. You should have told me.”

“You keep driving that nail in my heart. I know. I fucking know.”

Tears pool in her eyes. “I didn’t want Smith. I wanted a way to forget the man I loved who I thought was gone forever.”

“I would never leave you behind. You should have known that.”

“You can’t possibly understand what it was like to feel lied to and left behind by the one person in your life you trust and love. I was alone. I was so damn alone.”

Pain radiates through her words crashing into me, cutting me in all the ways I’ve felt cut already but magnified by a hundred. “Everything I’ve done since I left was about getting to you, protecting you, freeing you.”

“From you? Is that where this is headed? You save me and protect me by leaving me again? Because if it is—”

“Never. Damn it, woman. No. I’m not leaving you, and you’re not leaving me. We’re ending this and then we’re going to start a new life together anywhere you want.”

“Then stop going hot and cold on me because that is not what I need from you right now. I need a future. I need something to hold onto.”

“Our future is anywhere you want it to be. Our future, Ashley.”

“Like we were? In Houston?”

That question punches me in the gut. My lips thin, and I release her, the sense of losing her already killing me.

“Aaron?”

Aaron.

God, how I loved being me with her, being Noah. I turn to face her. “It can’t be Houston. We have to pick a place that’s far away. That’s the only way I’ll feel like we’re secure. We need to pick new identities. A new place to start over.”

“But you said we were going to end this.”

“And if there’s just one loose string, we’re dead. You’re dead. I can’t allow that to happen.”

“Right. Okay. That makes sense. Where do we go?”

“Italy. France. Ireland. Pick another country. We’ll travel to all of them until you find a place you love.”

“We love, right?” She closes the space between us. “If this is about us, about surviving and being together, why did you walk away from me? Why did you say you’d help me find a place I love, not a place that we love?” Her hands come down on my chest, a warm shock that slides through my body and thickens my cock. I want her. I love her. I need her. I’ve fucked up her life, and there’s no turning back.

My hands come down on her arms, and I pull her to me. “Because the only thing I need is you. Where I live is with you. It’s not a place. It’s not a country. It’s with you, and one day, sooner than later, you’re going to believe that. You’re going to know that again.”

She wraps her arms around me. “Call Smith. He’ll help us. I promise you. He’ll help. We can trust him.” My hands leave her arms, and she tightens her grip around me. “I’m not letting you push me away. We can trust him. He’s outside of your world, and your world betrayed us.”

I consider her idea, really consider it for the first time. I’ve watched Smith. I’ve watched him with her, and I hate the asshole. He wants her. He’s into her, which is a reason to turn on me, but it’s also a reason to protect her. She’s what matters. I want her safe. I want her protected.

“Do you have his phone number?”

“Yes.”

My hands come back down on her arms. “If we do this, we do it exactly my way. Understand?”

“Yes. Of course, but what does that mean exactly?”

“I’ll let you know as soon as I decide.” I release her, and this time, she lets go of me. “If you want to freshen up I grabbed you all your favorite things.”

“My favorite things? Because you know me.”

“Yes, baby, I do. Knowing you was a choice, but it's also one that helps us stay alive. Know everything about everyone around you. The smallest detail could matter in ways you don't expect.”

She studies me a moment and then nods, before turning away. “Ashley,” I say, not wanting her to read me wrong.

She turns and faces me. “Yes?”

“Every time I learned something about you, I wanted more. So damn much more.”

The shadows in her eyes melt away. “Good. Because you seem to be stuck with me.”

“Never. Every moment I'm with you is a choice, the right choice. I'm going to make you believe that.”

“I hope so,” she says, and this time when she turns I let her go. I spend the next few minutes contemplating her safety, when I want to be thinking about winning her trust, but safety has to come first. When she returns, her lips are glossed, her face lightly touched with makeup. She looks fresh and beautiful, a natural beauty, that has always left me hanging on every word she speaks for no reason but she's the one speaking.

“You weren't kidding,” she says. “You even got my makeup color right. When did you have time to do this?”

I meet her at the door. “I used a delivery service. I have a fake name and debit card with that name as well as backup names and debit cards.”

“Oh,” she says. “I see.”

That’s the problem. She does see and there’s nothing I can do to save her from that now. It’s not even in her best interest, that I try. I grab a jacket and toss her the one I bought her.

Once she puts it on and joins me at the door, I pause and turn to her. “Be aware of everything around you, but don’t make it obvious. You have to learn this skill. I’m going to push you to know everything around you. I’m going to question you, train you to be fully aware.”

“Okay. I can do that. I’m pretty observant.”

“No. You’re not. If you were, you would have figured out more about me and us.”

Her expression tightens. “Right.”

I cup her face. “Baby, I have to keep this real with you. I need you safe. I need you alive and with me.”

“I know. I know. I’ll get over the past once we’re in the future.”

Once we’re in the future. Not now. I have no choice but to accept that answer. I open the hotel door and check the exterior hall before glancing at her. “You leave or enter no space without checking it first.”

“Yes. Okay.”

I study her, making sure she understands before I exit to the hallway and then allow her to exit. I lock the door and offer her a key. She shoves it in her pocket, and together, we head down the hallway about to take a risk and let an outsider into our world. A man who Ashley trusts. A man who wants to fuck her, and I’m not sure she really understands that yes, I can live with that. But if he fucks us in the process, he dies.

CHAPTER FIVE

Ashley…

Aaron and I take the subway in so many different directions that I barely know if we’re coming or going. Finally, with our fingers linked together, we walk up the stairs from the tunnel to enter Times Square. “Remember what I’ve been telling you.”

“Be aware of everyone around me at all times. I know.”

“Who’s behind us?”

“Behind us? Are you serious? How do I know who’s behind us?”

“Because you plan it. You move to ensure you know exactly who is directly at your back. You need—”

“To be more aware. I know. I will.”

Aaron pulls me right into the crowd, and holds my hand with such a tight grip that it seems he’s certain someone is going to yank me away at any moment. His energy has me on edge, but it also has me practicing the skills he’s been teaching me, cautiously looking around me, and I hope that’s the point of his grip. He’s keeping me aware. I hope it’s that and not some threat he knows about that I don’t.

We cut right again and walk two blocks before entering a T-Mobile store where he buys a collection of disposable phones.

We leave, and he opens one of the phones. We then walk back to the subway and just before I think we’re going back inside, he pulls me to the side of a walkway near a fast food entrance. “Call Smith. Don’t say your name. The conversation needs to go like this: ask him if he knows who he’s talking to but instruct him not to say your name. When he confirms he knows your name, tell him to meet you at the pizzeria on 88th in exactly one hour. Then hang up.”

“What if he’s protecting someone? He won’t be able to come.”

“He has a team to lean on just like I did in the CIA. He’ll make it work.”

I inhale and let it out, nerves suddenly exploding in my stomach when I’m the one who suggested this. I need to do this. This is our backup, our support. What Aaron and I need to get the heck out of this mess. I punch in Smith’s number, and he answers on the first ring. “Smith. Who is this?”

“Me,” I say. “Me. Don’t say my name, but do you know who this is?”

“Yes,” he replies immediately. “I know exactly who this is.”

“I need help. Meet me at the pizza joint on 88th in exactly one hour. Come alone. I don’t trust anyone else.” I hang up.

Aaron’s eyes search mine, looking for some reaction I have to Smith, a connection, a bond. “He’s a friend. Nothing more.”

“That you considered fucking.” He takes the phone from me and drops it to the ground. “Let’s go.” Anger spikes in me, but he’s already snagged my hand and started walking.

“Don’t say that again,” I snap. “You know the story there. I was honest, and you’re being an asshole.”

“Do you have any idea who’s around you right now? Do you know who’s behind you?”

“No, but—”

He stops walking, and his hands come down on my arms. “That was a test. That was a lesson. No matter how pissed you get, no matter how upset you are, you have to be aware of your surroundings. It’s life or death.”

“That was not a test.”

“Do you know—”

“No,” I bite out. “No, I don’t.”

“Figure it out right now. Keep talking to me but take in your surroundings.” He lists off everything around us. A trashcan. A homeless man against a pole. A woman in a red dress talking on a cellphone. “I’m protecting you.”

“By being an asshole?”

“Yes. You have to stay alive, Ashley. I need you alive. You will stay alive. Do you understand?” He’s intense. He’s demanding. The lines of his handsome face harder than I have ever seen them. He’s protecting me. He’s afraid for me.

“Yes, I understand, but for the record, I don’t want Smith. It’s all you. It’s always been you.”

He stares down at me, his look so probing that I think he’s trying to see straight into my soul, but he says nothing. He simply takes my hand and starts walking.

We enter the subway again, and it’s not long before we’re on a car, and we start the cycle we’ve just lived all over. This will be one of many subway routes we take. The difference this time is we manage to get on a train that is nearly vacant when all of the others have been packed. Aaron leads me to the back of the car. He leans against the wall and pulls me to him, my back to his front, his hands settling possessively on my hips.

He leans in, his breath warm against my ear and says, “You’re mine. From the day I met you, you were mine.”

Heat rushes through me with this possessive statement that he’s said to me often in the past, most frequently while we were naked. My reply always the same and as it is now. “Are you mine?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”

The train announcements start, and we begin to move. My body is thrown further into his, and his hand moves to flattens on my belly. My hand covers his, the action meant to tell him that I’m glad he’s here. I am so damn glad that he’s here.

He turns me in his arms, and when our eyes meet, a million words and the charge between us steal my breath. “I can’t see the car,” I warn.

“I’ve got it,” he says. “And you.” And then his fingers are tangled in my hair and he’s kissing me, a wicked, hot claiming, but the taste of desperation on his tongue is something I don’t expect. He’s desperate for more than me. He’s desperate to protect me. Everything he does is about protecting me, even being an asshole. He’s afraid of losing me and the idea that this skilled, powerful man is scared, scares me.

Almost as if he, too, tastes my fear, he pulls back and looks at me. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop. I’ve got you. We’ve got this.” He kisses me again, and I taste those words. He has me. We’ve got this.

He pulls back and strokes my damp bottom lip, before turning me to face forward again.

“I’ve got you, too,” I promise softly, but the train is screeching to a halt, announcements being made again, and I know he can’t hear me. I decide I’ll tell him later when we’re safe and alone. And we will be soon. Smith and his team will help us. This is not going to go wrong unless, of course, whoever Aaron is worried is following us, catches up to us. That idea keeps me alert.

We exit the train, and by the time we head to 88th, I’m in a hat, glasses, and a scarf, and Aaron is wearing a baseball hat and scarf. We approach the pizzeria from the opposite side of the street and take a spot inside a coffee shop to watch the pizzeria. We’re by a window in the corner, waiting for Smith or whoever else might appear. My back is to the door, my gaze on the pizza joint, that is until I feel Aaron’s eyes lift sharply to the door. He grabs my hand. “Don’t turn,” he orders.

CHAPTER SIX

Ashley…

“He’s here?” I question in a low whisper, the smell of coffee and baked goods lifting in the air, while fear settles in my belly. In hindsight, I’m not sure how good of an idea it was to bring Smith to Aaron when Aaron hates him.

“Yes,” Aaron says, “he’s here. I want to watch him for a few minutes.”

“He won’t give you anything to question,” I say. “He’s a good man. I can’t say that enough. Even if he was going to betray you, he wouldn’t make it obvious.”

“There are tells,” Aaron says. “Things I’ll teach you to read. Things you need to know to survive.”

“What is he doing?”

“Looking around. Looking for you.” But Aaron doesn’t look at me. He watches Smith. “Go talk to him,” he finally says. “He’s probably wearing a wire. He’ll lie and say he’s not if you ask him. Assume he is. Always assume the person you’re dealing with is wired. In other words, don’t tell him who I am.”

“Then what do I say?”

“Tell him you want him to meet a friend.”

“But he’ll still be wired. What good will that do?”

“Just do it, baby.”

I inhale and let out my breath before standing up. I turn, and right as I do, Smith steps in front of me. He’s found us and now he’s assessing me and me him. He’s tall, with sandy brown hair and warm brown eyes, just the way I remember him. Today, he’s in a T-shirt and jeans with a leather jacket that I’m sure hides a gun. “Hi, stranger,” I say. “Thanks for coming.”

“Who’s the man?”

“Someone who needs your help. I need your help. I told him we could trust you, which is why I need you to take off the wire I know you’re wearing.”

His eyes narrow. “Tell me you’re not in trouble.”

“I’ve been in trouble. That’s how we met. He’s not my problem. Please, Smith. Pull the wire and show him you did it. Then we’ll tell you everything.”

“Are you afraid for your safety?”

“I’m afraid for both of our safety. That’s why we came to you. Please do this for me.”

He inhales and looks skyward before he yanks out the earpiece he’s wearing. “That’s all I’m wearing. Let’s sit down.”

I nod, and the minute I turn, Aaron is on his feet, taking my hand and pulling me around to his side of the table. He and Smith step to the table, facing each other. “Who are you?” Smith demands, “and why should I trust you?”

“You know who I am, and I stayed away until I got word that they were trying to kill her to get to me. I saved her. And now, I’ve lost the only person outside of her I trusted in the process.”

“Who is they? Who is trying to kill her, if not you?”

“Let’s sit,” Aaron says.

“Yes, please,” I plead. “Let’s sit.”

The two men stare at each other several more beats and then as if they’d agreed when I see no signs that they did so, they sit. Then I sit. “He’s telling the truth,” I say. “He was setup and then his mentor tried to kill me. If Aaron hadn’t come for me—I’d be dead.”

Smith looks at me, eyeing me for several long beats before he looks at Aaron. “What the hell is this?”

“I don’t know. I exposed my real name to Ashley, but that’s not enough to put me on a hit list. All I can think is that this is about a case I was working on before I was setup. I got close to something that hit high levels of the CIA. I needed to be out of the picture.”

“You’re saying the CIA is dirty?”

“Oh, come on,” Aaron says. “Like it’s hard to believe. Our level of dirty is filthy. And you have to know that. I can’t trust anyone. Hell, I don’t want to trust you.”

“Then why are you?”

“I have the money and resources to disappear and live well, but I want more for Ashley. I want to know that we aren’t living as hunted animals. She doesn’t deserve that and that’s why I stayed away. I needed to make this go away before I went after her.”

“And yet, here we are,” Smith says dryly. “And here she is.”

“There’s a hit out on her, which is obviously about me. They wanted to lure me out of the shadows, and it worked.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Ashley believes you have the resources to help me make that happen.”

“We have the resources to help,” he says. “The question is: should we? We can take Ashley. We can protect her.”

“No,” I object. “That’s not happening. I’m staying with him, with or without your help.”

Smith narrows his eyes on me. “He lied to you.”

“He was on a mission. I was part of it. I was a way to get to a client my law firm was dealing with.”

“He used you, and you feel good about this?” Smith challenges.

“People meet with a side agenda all the time, Smith. They don’t plan to fall in love.”

“And I do love her,” Aaron says, “with all my heart.”

Smith’s gaze shoots accusations at Aaron.  “Or, you’re still using her to get to the target at her firm.”

“I’m no longer CIA. They’re hunting me. I have no reason to go after that client except one: to find out why that investigation led us here, where we are now.”

Smith shifts his attention back to me. “You need to think about Cole and Lori.”

“I am thinking about them,” I argue. “Someone tried to smoke Aaron out. There’s every reason to believe they’ll do that through me and my people next. This has to end.”

“Keeping this small is important,” Aaron says. “If one person in your operation is dirty, and don’t tell me no one is, because everyone has dirty people involved, lives could be lost.”

Smith scrubs his clean-shaven jaw. “I have to talk to the Walker brothers. Who was the client you were investigating?”

Aaron shakes his head. “I need to meet your bosses before I give you anything. I’m not risking the people Ashley cares about getting hurt because I named a name to the wrong people.”

Smith scowls. “How do I reach you?”

“You don’t. We’ll reach you.” Aaron stands up and takes me with him. “You have twelve hours and then we leave the city.” Aaron pulls me around the table and doesn’t stop. He’s a bulldozer, driving me forward and through the restaurant.

We exit to the streets, and he holds me close, cutting right. “Don’t look. Man in the leather jacket by the pole. He’s a problem.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he’s not your friend’s friend.” We cut down a side street, and my heart is suddenly racing, adrenaline pumping.

“What are we doing?”

“Finding out what he wants.” Aaron turns right to a main street again and stops at a bagel shop. “Go inside. Wait on me.”

“No, I—”

He kisses me. “Do as I say. Now. This is how you stay alive. You listen. You let me do what I do.”

I swallow hard, and because I have no choice, I enter the bagel shop and pray Aaron comes back alive. I walk to the back of the shop and sit down. A few seconds later, Smith walks in. I rush to him. “Someone was following us. Please. Go help Aaron.”

“I know someone was following you,” he says. “And no. I’m not going to help Aaron.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ashley…

My anger at Smith is hot and fast. “What do you mean you aren’t going after him?” I demand but hold up a hand. “Never mind. Someone was following him. If you aren’t going after him, I will.” I start to move away, feeling suffocated by the tiny bagel shop.

Smith grabs my arm and pulls me around to face him. “You will not go after him.”

“You don’t have a say in what I do.”

“You asked for my help. He asked for my help. You have it, which means you stay here.” He takes my hand and starts walking through the tiny path between tables until we’re at a stairwell leading to a lower level seating area. I all but stumble trying to keep up, and the minute we’re on the stairs winding downward, I voice my agitation. “Stop.”

He doesn’t stop. He keeps walking. I want to hit him, but I can’t even get to him to do that. We get to the lower landing with a large seating area and doors leading to the subway. A good location to escape, run, or hide. Or, a good place to be kidnapped. I dig in my heels, but it doesn’t work. Smith is big, and he rotates me into a small space between a condiment center and a big thick beam. “What the hell are you doing, Ashley?”

“Trying to get away from you and find Aaron.”

“You mean the man I helped hide you from?”

“You didn’t help hide me. I was put into protective custody, and had Aaron not come for me, I’d be dead. What part of someone on the inside spilling my location, do you not get?”

“Someone dirty like Aaron?”

“He saved my life,” I bite out, “and he’s not dirty.”

“So every lie he told you doesn’t matter now that he has his hand back in your pants?”

I punch his shoulder. “Asshole. Why are you being such an asshole?”

“Because I care about you.”

“Enough to dump me in some safe house and forget me?” I challenge.

“That’s not fair.”

“He didn’t forget me. I never forgot him. I love him, and I thought you were my friend.”

“I am, which is why I’m standing here right now.”

“If you’re my friend, you’ll help him. I can’t lose him again.”

“I don’t want you to end up dead or used and discarded again, Ashley. Let me get you out of here.”

“He’s not guilty. He needs help. I told him he could trust you. I was wrong, obviously. Let me go and we’ll leave, and we’ll leave you alone.”

“I’m trying to help you, woman.”

“Someone was following him, and we’re standing at the bottom level of a bagel shop while he needs us. That is not helping me.”

His teeth clench. “I can’t let you stay with him.”

“You don’t have a choice. Let me go, Smith. I can’t lose him again. How many times do I have to say that? What part of that do you not understand?”

“Apparently, all of it.”

At the sound of Aaron’s voice, I can finally breathe again. He’s alive. He’s safe. He steps beside us, and his hand comes down on my arm. “Let her go, Smith. You might be a solider, but you’re not the killer I am.”

Smith’s eyes meet mine. “This is who you love and want to stand by?”

“Let me go, Smith.”

“No,” he says. “He can kill me and then maybe you’ll see who he really is.”

“The man who loves her,” Aaron says. “The man who would die for her, and the longer we stand here, the more of a target we become.”

“Let her go before he kills you,” another voice bites out.

Smith grimaces and flicks the newcomer a look. “What the fuck are you doing, Adam?”

“I know Adam,” I tell Aaron softly. “He’s with Walker, an ex-SEAL.”

“I am,” Adam confirms. “I worked closely with the CIA. I talked to someone I trust. He believes Aaron was setup.”

“Holy fuck,” Aaron curses. “Who did you tell?” He looks at Smith. “I told you to keep this between us. We need to leave now.” He pulls his gun and points it at Smith.

“Aaron,” I gasp. “Stop. No.”

Aaron stays focused on Smith. “Let her go now, or I’ll kill you right here.”

“Easy, man,” Adam says. “I didn’t tell him you were here. I told him our overseas operation had an encounter with you. Step back, Smith.”

“Ashley,” Smith murmurs, a plea in my name.

“I’m okay,” I say. “I promise you. He’s a good man, but thank you for risking your life for me because that’s what you’re doing right now.”

“Step back, Smith,” Adam orders, yet again.

“Now,” Aaron orders.

Smith inhales and lets me go, taking a long stride backward. Aaron pulls me to him, holstering his weapon. It’s only then that I realize that the lower level we’re inside is empty, thank God. “We’re leaving.”

“We can help,” Adam states. “I talked to my boss. He knows the situation and that was one of our men following you.”

“I’m aware of that now,” Aaron states. “He followed me like a man with no skill.”

“He’s not a man of no skill,” Adam replies. “You’re simply a man of great skill, and I assure you, I am as well. Talk to me. Let me help.”

“Why would I trust you?” He eyes Smith. “Your track record thus far isn’t to my liking.”

“You can’t do this alone,” Adam says. “You knew that or you wouldn’t have come to us.”

“And yet, I can. We’re going to walk out of here, and you’ll never see us again.”

“But that’s not what you want,” Smith interjects. “You said you want to give Ashley her freedom. Leave her with us.”

“So she can be a sitting duck waiting on her slaughter?” Aaron challenges. “No. Never. You’ve proven how you take care of her.”

“Let us earn your trust,” Adam offers. “Let us help you find the answers you need. Give us the questions you need answered. We’ll find the answers.”

“And bring attention to us we don’t need?” Aaron counters. “No, thank you.”

“Blake Walker, my boss, is a world-class hacker,” Adam says. “Even governments come to him for help. Everyone comes to him. He can go unnoticed. Give me something, anything, we can help with to prove we’re trustworthy.”

“We’ll think about it,” Aaron states. “Right now, we’re walking out of here, and you don’t want to try to stop us. You might as well not follow us. That won’t go well.”

Smith eyes Adam, and the two men share a look before they slowly step back and leave us a path to exit. Aaron links his fingers with mine, and we start walking, and just when I think we’ll keep walking, Aaron stops next to Adam and says something to him I can’t make out. I don’t catch Adam’s reply if there is one. Smith and I are staring at each other, and he’s tormented. I see that in his eyes. He does care about me. He does. We did have chemistry, but he wasn’t “the one” for me. I wasn’t “the one” for him. But I know he’s honest. I know he won’t betray me. I just hope his need to protect me doesn’t make him do something stupid.

“Don’t,” I whisper, hoping he understands. Don’t push. Don’t fight Aaron.

He doesn’t get a chance to reply. Aaron sets us in motion; we’re moving again, and in a blink, we’re outside of the bagel shop and inside the subway on the other side of the glass door. We weave in and out of the crowd, and my skin prickles with the sense of being watched. Aaron doesn’t guide us to the tracks. We go street side, and the path we travel is wild, fast, and stealthy. It’s a good hour before he pulls me into an alcove next to a church, and he stares down at me.

“I can’t lose you, either. I won’t. Do you understand?” I do. He’s telling me Smith can’t make the wrong move, or he’ll end up dead. I should fear that message, but I don’t. Aaron’s mouth closes down on mine, and I sink into the kiss, into the desperation I taste on his tongue. He really was afraid he’d have to hurt Smith to get me out of there. He was even more afraid he’d lose me, and I believe the reasons are many and complicated. We’re complicated, but we’re together, finally, back together.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Ashley…

The air is chilly, but he is hot, both in body, passion, and temper. So very hot.

Aaron tears his mouth from mine, the passion and need between us palpable. “I didn’t like that man looking at you and touching you.” His voice is low, guttural, with a lethal quality to it that declares those words a threat but not to me. To Smith.

“He’s worried about me.”

“He’s a man who wants to fuck you. There is no other definition for who he is to you, not after the stunt he just pulled. That affects how a man thinks, which he just proved. It affects what he does. It affected what he did.”

“He is a good man,” I say, because denying the truth, that Smith and I had a connection, that Smith still feels it, is a lie, and I can’t take any more lies. “He was conditioned to distrust you. He needs a chance to come around. He’s just trying to protect me.”

“Don’t defend him right now, Ashley. That’s not in his best interest.”

“Because you’re going to kill him?” I challenge.

“I won’t rule it out. Does that scare you? Do you want me to take you back to him? Do you now trust him more than you do me?”

“Stop it,” I say, balling his shirt in my hand. “Stop it now. You know I don’t want him.”

“Do I? You fucking wanted to run to him the minute we had trouble.”

“Because we need someone to trust.”

“And I’m not him, right?”

“Stop it,” I order again.

“I’m just speaking the truth, and that’s what you want, right? No more lies. I can comply. I don’t have the agency to force me to lie anymore. Let’s go.” He laces his fingers with mine and eases out of the alcove to scan the walkway. I want to pull him back and confront him. I want to fight, but that isn’t exactly the smartest thing to do while we’re in survival mode, so I keep my mouth shut. We can deal with this when we’re secure and alone, though, I don’t know when the word ‘secure’ will ever become real for us again, if ever. Is that even possible?

For now, Aaron leads me back onto the crowded sidewalk, and I push aside the war between us, taking in my surroundings, practicing the skills he’s given me, he’s teaching me to protect myself. I scan. I inspect. I observe, and I wonder if the Walker team is somewhere out there where we can’t see them, but I don’t think that’s possible. Aaron is one of the few people who can defeat their level of skill, but his skills and theirs combined give us a chance, maybe our only chance, of surviving. I have to get us past what happened today.

We enter the subway again, and when we’re finally on a train, standing at a stabilizing bar, he pulls me close, his hand on my hip, leg pressed to mine, his touch burning possessively, his eyes burning with anger. I’m angry, too. I am, but the way he’s touching me, the way he clearly needs and wants me, hits all the right spots to calm my mood. I thought he didn’t care. I thought he left to never come back, but he’s here. He cares. I love this man. I love him so much. He loves me, too, or he wouldn’t be here, trying to give me my life back, trying to create freedom for us to be together.

My hand settles on his chest, but he doesn’t touch me. He just stares at me, anger radiating off him. I might have calmed down, but he hasn’t. And he doesn’t. He holds onto me, keeps me close, but through three more trains and a good mile of walking, he never comes down. Finally, we enter our hotel, and it’s more of the same. He’s silent. I’m silent. He holds onto me in the elevator and presses me into the corner, his hands on the wall by my head, his eyes glinting. Now I’m angry all over again. He just won’t ease up, and it’s pushing my buttons. Tension expands between us on the elevator ride up to our floor, the anticipation of our explosion to follow.

The doors open with a ding, and he pushes off the wall. This time, we don’t touch. We exit the car and walk toward our door. The minute he swipes the door unlocked, I open it and enter the room, whirling around to wait on him. He enters, shuts us inside, and flips the lock into place. He turns to face me. “I get angrier every time I think of you shoved against the wall with Smith pressed against you. Did you fuck him?”

“I’ve answered that question. No. I didn’t fuck him. I don’t want to fuck him, but right now, you’re making me so damn angry, I don’t want to fuck you either.”

He’s in front of me in an instant, shackling my arm and pulling me to him. “Maybe that’s because you’re thinking of him.”

“Stop.”

“Not yet. I’m not even close to done. I lived months fearing for you, wanting you. I touched no other woman. I wanted no other woman. I didn’t leave you by choice. I would never leave you by choice, and yet, you didn’t know that.”

“I didn’t know that?” I open my mouth to explain to him how insane that statement is, but a sudden thought has me clamping my lips shut.

He’s testing me, pushing me, living the same kind of hell I have in different ways. If he’s innocent of the charges against him, and I believe that he is, then he’s been betrayed and hurt. He’s lived with knowing that I was gone, that I was being told what a bastard he was and is, and yet, he stayed away to protect me until that no longer protected me. I get what he feels. I thought he betrayed me. I thought he left me.

He needs me to do exactly what I needed him to do when I was lost and alone. Show up. Be present. Claim me. So, I claim him. I press my lips to his, sliding my tongue past his lips and aching when he doesn’t respond, until he does. Until he’s kissing me passionately, so damn passionately, and I kiss him back. I kiss him with all I am, and when our lips part, I say, “This is where I want to be, right here with you, the man I love.”

He pulls back, searching my face with his burning hot stare, his hand scorching my waist. “And you’re the woman I love and that love is why I’m here, why I met with Smith. I don’t want you on the run like this. I want more for you and for us.”

“Then we have to let them help.”

“We don’t have to let them do anything.”

My heart lurches. “Are you saying we’re walking away?”

“I haven’t decided.”

“You haven’t decided? What about me? What about us?”

“I’m protecting you and us.”

“Protecting me? Or making a decision based on emotions? You hate Smith for the wrong reasons. Are those the reasons you have to think about?”

His jaw tenses, and suddenly, he releases me, walking to the window, yanking it open and presenting me with his back. “Don’t shut me out, Aaron. Don’t—”

“Get your things,” he says, turning to face me. “We need to leave now.”

I have no idea what just happened, but something set him off, and the urgency in his voice tells me not to ask questions. Not now. Now, we need to leave before we end up dead.

CHAPTER NINE

Ashley…

Aaron and I shove our belongings into two small bags, and we’re on the street walking in a matter of minutes. “What happened back there?” I ask as we cut down a side street.

“Someone had been in our room.”

My heart that’s already racing skips a beat. “How did you know?”

“A glass was moved a few inches.”

A glass was moved a few inches. I don’t even know what to say to that. He notices when a glass is moved? I need to notice when a glass is moved. What kind of life is that to lead? And yet, that has always been his life. I wonder for the first time what that must be like. I wonder if he loves it or hates it. I wonder what he really wanted in life when this all began for him and if this is where he thought he’d end up. By the time we’re on a subway car facing each other, our hands stacked on a pole, legs twined, I’m searching his face. I’m thinking about the way he was hunted by a cartel after taking down someone inside that cartel. He didn’t want this. It came to him. It happened. He accepted it and thrived inside this life. I have two choices: quit or thrive. I’m with him. I’m going to make sure I thrive.

His brow knits and he leans in close. “What are you thinking?”

“That I’m not afraid. I’m angry. I’m challenged. But, I want to survive. I want us to survive.”

Surprise followed by admiration flickers in his eyes. “We’ll do more than survive. We’ll win.”

Win.

It’s a good word. It promises good things. What those good things look like, though, I don’t know. I don’t let my mind define a fantasy world or life. I don’t let my mind ask questions. There’s only one win for me, and that’s with him.

Aaron strokes my hair, his eyes soft. The car halts and we end up alone: the only ones in the train and this is a relief to me. Alone is safe.

“Can we talk?” I whisper.

He gives a negative shake of his head. He doesn’t trust any public location. He’s afraid of being recorded. I don’t see how that’s possible, not if we were targeted. I suppose if there’s an existing device in the car, it could be tapped, and we could be listened in on.

“But we can do this,” he says, and before I know his intent, his hand is on the back of my head, his fingers tangled into my hair, and he’s kissing me. A deep, possessive kiss that still tastes of his anger back there in the bagel shop with Smith and Adam. He didn’t like the way Smith touched me. He didn’t like the way Smith tried to claim me, but it wasn’t how he saw it. Smith couldn’t claim me. I’m already his, and I was from the moment we met. I want him to know this. I want to kiss him deep enough and passionate enough for him to know this, but already his mouth parts from mine.

“Aaron,” I say, grabbing at his shirt.

“Later. Later, we’ll be alone and safe.” He strokes my hair, and then his fingers are laced with mine, bags back in our hands. We exit the car, heading through the subway.

For the next few hours, this continues until we sit down at the back of a diner side by side in a booth, our view of the front door clear. The back door is through a hallway just behind us. Aaron pulls out two MacBooks, giving me one of them.

“Who do you think found us?” I ask, before I ask about our plans for anything going forward.

“It could be Walker checking me out.” He hands me a phone. “Call Smith and find out. Don’t talk to him any longer than two minutes. We’ll call him back once I know what we’re dealing with.”

“What if it wasn’t him?”

“Call him,” he says. “I need to know.”

“What if he lies?” I ask.

“Then he can’t be trusted. We shouldn’t be dealing with him at all.”

I purse my lips and pick up the phone. “I trust him.”

“Then make sure he’s straight with you because I don’t trust him.”

“I know,” I say, and I only grow more determined to prove that’s a wrong decision. We need help. We have help, though Smith admittedly did a crap job of proving that to Aaron today.

I dial Smith. He answers on the first ring. “Ashley?”

“Yes. Did you have someone search our hotel room?”

“What? No. I didn’t know where you were. Shit. You’re in trouble. Get out. We’ll protect you. Come here—”

Aaron takes the phone. “Listen to me. Your people could end up dead, too, if the people after me think you can hurt them. I’m taking us off-grid. You need to stay off-grid as well. I’ll be in touch.” He glances at me. “We’ll be in touch.” He hangs up and sets the phone down, taking it apart and then submerging it in a glass of water.

“You believe him, right?” I ask. “You know it wasn’t him.”

“I heard the conversation. I believe him, or I wouldn’t have taken the phone.”

“The CIA found us,” I say, my stomach knotting.

“Our enemies found us,” he replies. “Does that mean the CIA? Yet to be determined.”

“Now what?”

“We find an Airbnb and stay there.” He hands me two IDs. “Mr. and Mrs. Samroy. It’s not a common name. Common names get attention. Find a place to stay that takes dogs. We’re going to get a dog. No one expects that. We’ll go to the shelter tomorrow.” He sets one of the phones next to me and slides a piece of paper with the number on it beside me.

“Only if we’re keeping the dog. I’m not adopting one and then deserting it.”

He gives a shake of his head. “We can’t keep the dog.”

“Then we have to pretend to have a dog. I’m not doing that to a dog. End of discussion.”

“Ashley—”

“No. No. No.” I open the computer and start searching for a place. “What flavor? Nice? Elegant? Ghetto?”

“We want a place where neighbors won’t be able to watch us. If possible, something with security.”

“A standalone,” I say. “Got it. Price?”

“Whatever it takes.”

“Isn’t big money attention grabbing?”

“Find options. I’ll decide.”

“All right,” I say, getting to work. I’m efficient. I’m resourceful. Things that were always a value to my boss in my legal profession as was my attention to detail. I type in the search as he powers up as well, and we work side by side. I don’t know what he’s doing. Yes, I do. He’s trying to keep us alive because our future is uncertain. That shakes me a bit, and I press my fingers to my temple. Bad people are after us.

“Hey,” he says, turning to me, taking my face into his big, strong hands. He tilts my gaze to his. “We’re going to win, remember?”

“Yes. I know. I just—I wish I knew how to fight a little bigger and a little better.”

“You’re what makes me fight a little bigger and a little better. A lot fucking better. They aren’t going to end me because I have you. Because I have you to live for now, Ashley, and you have me, which is why I’m going to teach you to be the biggest badass bitch ever.”

I laugh. “The biggest badass bitch?”

“That’s right. You’ll hurt any man who tries to hurt you unless I kill them first, and mark my word, I will kill for you, Ashley.”

CHAPTER TEN

Ashley…

His promise to kill for me, spoken as if it’s a declaration of love and devotion, hits me as all kinds of wrong. Like killing for me is a badge of honor, as good as the ring that I no longer wear on my hand. Perhaps it is in some ways. He’d kill for me. He’d die for me. Perhaps that’s the highest level of devotion possible, but there’s a weird knot in my belly, a queasy, horrible knot that expands and shifts until I feel as if I’m being trapped in a cage.

“I know you’ll kill for me,” I say, grasping Aaron’s hand where it rests on my face. He’s big and strong. He’s the man I love, and yet, the next statement still comes out almost as an accusation. “You’ve already proven that. And I’m both comforted and tormented by that fact. Comforted and tormented by the fact that you’re both my Noah and a killer named Aaron.”

He pulls back to look at me. “A killer named Aaron? Is that who I am to you now?”

“That’s who you are. That’s who you’ve always been, and some part of me knew it. Some part of me always knew. Obviously, some part of me was always okay with it, too. So, you want to train me to be a killer? Train me. I want to live.”

He inhales, his broad chest expanding on that held breath, his gaze cutting to the door where it remains for long seconds. Too many seconds and I scan the area, starting to fear a problem he sees that I’ve ignored. I find an old man chatting with a waitress, his gray hair slicked back. His belly is big. Beyond those two people, we’re alone in the dining area.

“Do you know how easily a man can age himself with a wig, makeup, and a bodysuit?” Aaron finally asks, casting me a sideways glance. “And do you know how many old men are perfect shots? How many young girls dressed as waitresses are as well?”

I swallow hard. “You’re telling me that I dismissed one or both of them too quickly?” My hand slides to my purse, to my weapon, tension radiating down my spine.

His hand settles on mine. “Yes. You did, but those two are what they seem. They’re not targets because they’re not trying to kill us. I kill for duty, and I kill to survive or to make sure others survive. I’d spare you an understanding of what that means if I could, but I can’t. A killer hunts people down and kills them. You will never be a killer. You will always be a survivor. Don’t forget that.”

“And you? Have you ever hunted someone down and killed them?”

He gives me a long steely stare. “Find us a place to stay.” He reaches into his pocket, pulls out his wallet, and removes a card that he hands to me. “Use that to pay.”

I glance down at the card that has my new fake married name on it, and I feel a pinch of emotion. No. Two or three pinches of emotion. He has the resources to get this card. He is so much more than I knew him to be, even though my prior statement is also true. I sensed this. I knew there was more to him than met the eye. I was drawn to the many dark layers of this man. And, of course, another pinch comes from the fact that we’re pretending to be married, looking for a place to stay as husband and wife. I was supposed to become his wife. I had a ring. I had a fantasy proposal and wedding planning in progress when my world had fallen apart. Now, I'm just a survivor, and that can be the only dream I have: to survive.

I glance at the door again, watching the old man exit and the waitress turning her attention to the tip now resting in the palm of her hand, several bills I believe. She's twenty-something, a bit tired looking with pale skin, shadowed with dark circles. This, I decide is a second job, or being in her early twenties, the job she works while going to school. A smile touches her lips. She’s pleased with the money she's holding. She’s also unaware that I notice, that I know that she’s pleased. I can never be that oblivious to my surroundings ever again. She pockets the money and refocuses on the next tip. She hurries to the counter, grabs the coffee pot, and rushes in our direction. We're the next tip. I eagerly offer her my mug and let her fill it with dark, rich liquid. Aaron waves her off, uninterested in more brew, but he watches her depart with hard eyes, his body harder, unmoving.

He's on edge, but it hits me then that he’s always on edge. More so, he's always looking for enemies, waiting to be attacked. He's alone without me. He was always alone without me. His entire life, his future, changed when he  stood up against a cartel member through the District Attorney's office. When he ensured the conviction of a man no one else would dare face off with in court. He was brave, but as a result, he’s been forced to see everyone as a potential attacker, to look at them as if they are ready to kill him. As if he would have to kill them or be killed. Always. Everyone, but me. He was always different with me.

I turn to him and stroke his cheek, urging his attention to me. He’s slow to turn, but when he looks at me, there’s a punch of emotion between us. His eyes, his soul, radiate power and torment. “Even when you hunt," I say softly, but no less intensely, "you’re surviving. You didn’t choose this life. It chose you. You fight. You survive.”

“What happened to the killer you called me?”

“I understand your message. I understood what you said to me. Sometimes being a survivor means becoming a killer.”

He doesn’t immediately react. He doesn’t confirm or deny my words. He just leans in, kisses the hell out of me, and then orders, “Find us a place to live, my fake wife, but know this: one day, you’ll feel safe with me again. One day, you’ll trust me again. And that day, that will be the day I’ll ask you to marry me and to become my real wife.” He kisses me again and sets me aside, returning his attention to his computer, but I'm not tuned out. I'm with him. He's with me. We’re together, and we're going to stay that way.

Furthermore, most importantly, my heart squeezes with the knowledge that he knew what was on my mind. That he knew that I was thinking about being his fake wife, that I was thinking about marrying him, or that perhaps he was simply thinking of marrying me. He is not a killer. He is a man who has been alone for far too long. Alone. I know that word. I know that feeling. The minute I met him, I was no longer alone. I lean over and kiss his cheek and whisper, “I love you, no matter what name you use or what war you battle.” I turn away from him and start looking for a place for us to safely hide away while we hunt for our enemies. We hunt them. They don’t get to hunt us. Aaron is right to go after them. Even if we ran, they could find us, and I don’t want that life for us. He ran. He ran from the cartel, and the CIA took advantage of his vulnerability. No more. I’m fighting with him. I’m fighting for our freedom.

“How about this place?” I ask, a few minutes later. “Or this one.”

We talk through a few options and decide on one in a row-style building where we’ll be secluded with our own entryway and door. There will be a gated entry point where we can point cameras. I pay, and we’re ready to go. We scan the restaurant, and we’re about to leave when three men in business suits walk in, and while they don’t sit anywhere near us, nor do they look at us, a feeling of unease slides through me. I want to be someplace safe. I want some time with Aaron to plan. I want to investigate and find out who is behind this. I don’t want to run. I don’t want Aaron to have to kill for me again.

“We’re going out the back,” Aaron instructs, but he doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t seem to look at them either, but I know that he knows every move they make. He motions to the waitress, and when she joins us, he hands her cash, a lot of cash. “I need you to distract those men," he orders. "Pour coffee on one of them or whatever it takes. If we leave and they don’t know we left, I’ll come by tomorrow and double that money.”

I go cold inside. We went through hell to avoid being followed. If these men are here for us, it wasn’t enough. What will ever be enough?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Ashley…

I don’t ask Aaron if he suspects the three men in business suits are trouble. Why else would he pay to have them distracted?

“The minute she spills the coffee, shut your computer and stick it in my bag,” he orders. “Then grab your jacket, stand up, and walk to the back door. I have the bags.”

“I’d rather you have a free hand. I’ll take my bag.”

“I don’t want you slowed down. Do as I say, Ashley. That’s our agreement.”

His reply is not the dismissal of a problem I’d secretly hoped for and there’s no time for me to reply. The waitress spills the pot of coffee in front of the table. Actually, I think she throws it down, the clatter of glass a shock in its sudden occurrence. I shut my computer and shove it in Aaron’s bag, scooting out of the seat the moment it’s inside. The men are all distracted, and I turn down the hallway, pulling on my jacket over my purse, my hand going to the zipper then my weapon. By the time I’m at the back door, Aaron is with me. We step outside and cut right into a crowd.

“Were they CIA?” I ask when he seems marginally at ease, which is as at ease as he’s ever seemed any day that I’ve known him. But that’s the point. He’s not intense. “Are we in danger?”

“Yes, but not from them. An agent, or hired killer for that matter, wouldn’t have been distracted by a coffee pot. I damn sure wouldn’t.” He eyes me. “We tested them. They passed.”

Relief washes over me. We weren’t found but that relief is quickly dashed when I realize that Aaron thought we were. He believes skilled agents or bad guys are hunting us. He believes they could be skilled enough to find us despite all his efforts to ensure they can’t. It’s nerve-wracking.

“Now what?”

“Now, we run in a few circles, pick up supplies, and then end up at our rental.”

I inhale and nod, hating the way we’re forced to chase our tails, but I don’t complain. I want to live. I’ll do whatever it takes to draw my next breath and to ensure Aaron takes his. And so we start the tail chasing and finally end up at several stores where we buy a security system and other random items. We arrive at our rental to the tune of a setting sun. We don’t actually arrive at the rental, though. We arrive at a café across the street where we sit and eat a sandwich and soup while watching our new doorway.

After we finish eating, Aaron points at the menu. “Order dessert to go. I’ll be back.” His eyes meet mine. “Don’t move. We’re in a crowd,” he adds of the overflowing tables. “They won’t come at you in the middle of a crowd.”

I nod, and I don’t ask where he’s going. I know. He’s going to clear the rental and grab the key from the lock box. He walks toward the back and the bathroom, but I know he’s taking the exit. I watch the property and look for his entry, but I see nothing. That’s terrifying. I see nothing, and yet, I know he’s there. That means I wouldn’t see someone of his skillset lurking about. I need to train. I need to learn more. I need to be the warrior he became. Determination fills me as the waitress stops beside me.

I order two slices of chocolate cake and one carrot because we love both. I pay with my new card with my new married name. By the time I have the takeout bag, Aaron’s back. “Ready?”

“Ready,” I agree. “Are we—”

“All is clear.”

I breathe out with relief, praying that we’ve found at least a little peace, one small safe place, even if it’s ultimately a façade. Even a cabin in a snowstorm wasn’t safe. I know this. We exit the café, and when I expect us to walk to the rental, we don’t. We head to a grocery store a block down. A few minutes later, we’re pushing a cart, filling it with food. “I guess we’re staying a while?”

“Let’s hope not,” he says, “but being holed up presents less opportunity to be seen.”

“Have you thought any more about Walker Security?”

“Right now,” he replies, “I’m thinking about getting us settled and safe. Then we’ll talk about Walker.”

He reaches for a gallon of milk. “For the cake.”

I lift the frosted flakes. “And the cereal?”

“You know it, baby,” he says, winking at me, his lips hinting at a smile.

That wink and smile have my stomach flip-flopping. He’s so handsome, so charming, so him. I don’t care what he calls himself; he’s my man. He’s the one I love, and every second I’m with him reminds me of this fact. We continue down another aisle, and I remember waking up on Sundays and shopping together in the past. I remember how right we felt, how secure I felt with him, with us. The only time in my life I’ve ever felt secure was with this man. We still feel right, just not secure, but I’m also not alone. These past months without him were empty and alone. I’d rather be on the run with him than in some safe house hating life. Live or die, we do it together.

“Don’t move,” Aaron orders, and suddenly he’s behind me, messing with my hair. It’s then tucked under a hat and he turns me to look at him.

“Perfect,” he says. “And it hides your hair but not your beautiful face.” He strokes my cheek. “I fucking missed this. I missed being normal with you. I promised myself over and over I’d find a way to make it real. I will. I’m promising you now.”

It warms my heart and body to hear that he was thinking about our past, too. I press to my toes, wrap my arms around his neck, and kiss him. “We’ll find that place again, our normal. Even if it has to be on an island somewhere.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“I would be happy on an island,” I assure him. “I just need you.”

He leans in and kisses me, a deep stroke of his tongue before he says, “Let’s get out of here, and for informational purposes, the rental has a king-sized bed.”

I laugh. “Does it now?”

A few minutes later, we’ve lined up delivery for our groceries as is quite common in the city, and with my hair under the winter hat, we exit to the street. With our hands still fairly full, compliments of our hotel bags and the security system, not to mention the cake, we don’t share a romantic stroll. We scan for trouble, and I’m pleased this is becoming second nature to me. On arrival, we hurry through the gate of our little rental, and Aaron unlocks the door. The minute it swings open, he drops his bags and reaches for his gun.

I don’t understand this reaction, but I react, too. I drop my bags and reach for my gun. Aaron moves inside the door, dragging me with him while keeping me behind him. There is male laughter, a low rumble of masculine voices. Two men step into our path, no three. Three men step into our path.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Ashley…

“Smith,” I gasp. “How are you here?”

Aaron doesn’t pull his gun. “I arranged to have them meet us,” he surprises me by saying. “Shut the door, Ashley. Lock it.”

I do as he says, confused by this turn of events, and wishing like hell he’d have informed me. A conversation we’ll be having later when we’re alone.

“You didn’t invite us here,” Smith snaps. “We found you.”

“Because we used the Airbnb site and the timing and the couple connection made it obvious,” Aaron replies, while I step next to him. That’s when I find Smith toe-to-toe with Aaron while Adam stands to his right. The third man to his left, a big man with long, raven hair tied at his nape, I know as well. He’s Blake Walker.

“If I didn’t invite you here,” Aaron states, “you’d be dead right now.”

“You think you’re that good, do you?” Smith asks.

“He is,” Blake states. “I read his file. You should have, too.”

Aaron and I both look at Blake, and he offers Aaron his hand. “Blake Walker.”

“He’s one of the founding brothers of Walker,” I inform Aaron. “He’s a good man.”

“I appreciate the fuck out of that, Ashley, considering we left you as a target. And happy as hell Aaron saved you.” He turns his attention back to Aaron. “I’m also the hacker who found you and predicted, based on that file I read on your skills, that you intended for me to.”

“Then you also know that I’m not taking your hand.”

“We brought beer,” Blake comments. “None of that fucking light bullshit either.”

“Did you bring a leash for Smith?” Aaron queries.

“Loyal and protective are good fucking qualities,” Blake comments, obviously loving the word fuck. Aaron does, too, I’ve noticed. This could be a bonding moment. “I think after what you’ve been through, you can appreciate that. Can we sit and talk? I can tell you what I’ve found.”

My hands slide to Aaron’s back, the tension in the muscles there crackles with the readiness in him that I’ve come to realize is perpetually present. I wonder why I didn’t notice this in the past, or rather, why I didn’t name it as I am now. It’s that second before he kills. He’s always one second from a kill. He is what I said he was back in the diner. A killer. I just don’t see this as a problem. He’s my killer. He’s a good guy.

My eyes meet Smith’s and that’s what I tell him. “Imagine the day you fought for what was right and took down a cartel leader but then became a hunted man for that bravery. Imagine the agency that gave you a purpose, allowed you to honor our country, trained you to kill, to do what no one else could do, and then—then they turned on you. They left you with nothing. They told the woman you loved that you were a traitor. The only person you’d ever allowed into your life, since devoting yourself to protecting your country. I know that man and so do you. Smith meet Aaron, the man who has served this country, risked his life over and over. The man who has been stripped of his name and his life, not once but twice. The man I love.”

I stop speaking. Not even a pin drops. Not even a word is spoken. Seconds tick by, and I’m aware of Aaron next to me. He doesn’t look at me while the rest of them watch me, watching him, but he’s aware of me, too. He feels my words, my defense of him. My passion for him, and I know, I know, with every part of me, that no one has ever defended him but me. And I know he needs this. I know he needs me and that matters. I need him, too.

Abruptly, Smith curses, turns away and walks into the other room. I don’t even know what that room is at this point. I haven’t even dared to look around the one I’m standing inside right now.

I focus on Blake. “He’s one of the good guys.”

Blake levels me with a stare. “I believe you.” He looks at Aaron, leveling him with a steady stare now as well. “I believe you.”

“And how exactly,” Aaron says, “do you suggest I come to a place where I can believe you?”

“Beers to go around,” Smith says, walking back into the room with a six-pack in his hand. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I need one.” He then walks to the couch and sits down. “Not bad for a couch that came with the place,” he says, shifting on a brown leather cushion.

I turn to Aaron. “I know bullets will fly before they pull us out of here, and I still want to sit down with them and talk. That’s how much I trust them.” I wrap my arms around him and kiss him. “Please.”

His hand settles on my hip, just one. He only needs one free hand to pull his gun. “You know—”

“I know,” I say, aware of what he hasn’t said. He could kill them. They don’t believe it, but they’re wrong. He could. He can. He will. “And I still want to sit down with them. So do you or they wouldn’t be here right now but,” my eyes go wide at my realization, “if they could find us—”

“I handled that problem,” Blake replies. “I uploaded a photo to your profile, a photo that looks nothing like you, Ashley. I gave you and your husband a long history and made it look like you were members of the Airbnb site for an extensive period of time.”

Aaron’s eyes light on me. “And he passed the test. Let’s have that beer.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. “What test?”

“The one where he wanted to know we’d put you first,” Blake says. “And we will, Aaron. Because all of us have dealt with some dirty shit and all of us are good guys. We look out for those who are one of us.”

“And anyone who served our country with honor,” Adam adds, “is one of us.”

A sharp dark something flashes in Aaron’s eyes, and I know him. I know him beyond the name change and the lies that surrounded us and him. He wants to believe them. He wants to trust. He wants to belong, but he has not felt as if he did in a very long time. Except with me. I have never been so glad that I chose to stay with him, that I chose to believe in who we weren’t, in what his name was or wasn’t.

His eyes meet Adam’s. “And I will protect those I am loyal to with my life.”

“As it should be,” Adam replies. “And we will be men who deserve that loyalty.”

“Men who will die for you,” Blake emphasizes. “And you, Ashley.”

Smith rejoins us, and Adam and Blake make room for him. He steps close to face-off with Aaron. “If you hurt her—”

“I will die for her and come back from the dead and do it again,” Aaron declares, and while he has been cold, hard, and calculating with these men, his words are guttural, rough, emotional. This man loves me. Passionately. Completely. And I will die for him, too. Something no one in this room wants to hear, but I will say it to Aaron. I will say it the minute we’re alone, which can’t be soon enough to please me, but now—now we must face what is before us.

Now, we must figure out how to defeat our enemies, and I’m ready. I want to fight. I want to win. I want this over. I want whatever version of happily ever after Aaron and I can create together.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Aaron…

A storm brews inside me, and the longer and more frequently Smith gets in my face, the fiercer it becomes. He doesn’t seem to get the point. He doesn’t seem to understand that I’m not a man who claims anything for his own except Ashley. He doesn’t seem to understand the significance of this concept. He doesn’t seem to understand that my willingness to bleed and cause bleeding in her name is not a small thing. He also doesn’t seem to understand how sadly matched he is to my skills, or he wouldn’t be standing in my fucking face yet again.

I’m about two seconds from a demonstration when Blake and Adam move him for me. “Beer,” Blake says. “Let’s sit and drink a fucking beer.”

Smith scrubs his jaw and smartly walks away. Blake grabs my attention. “He’s a good man.” He looks at Ashley. “That’s why you called him. Don’t let your man here forget that.” He looks at me again. “Good men are hard to find. Men you trust, and I trust him. You can, too.”

“He doesn’t trust me,” I say.

“But I do,” Ashley says. “He’ll get over it.”

“I think your trust in me is the problem.” I meet Blake’s stare. “He wants to fuck her; he might even think he loves her, and that’s a problem none of us need right now.”

Ashley sucks in a breath and then objects. “He doesn’t—”

“He’s right,” Blake replies, eyeing her and then me. “I’ll deal with him. Right now, I have information you want. And beer.” He holds his hands out to his sides. “What the fuck more could you want?”

Ashley as my wife, safe, fucking me, moaning for me, strolling on the damn beach with me. I want Ashley. The way she defended me only makes me want her more. I pull her close. I will never have her close enough. “Let’s sit.”

Blake nods, and he and his team walk toward the living room. Ashley catches my arm, and I turn to face her, my hands settling on her waist. “I wish you would have warned me.”

“If Smith thought you acted nervous, he’d become a bigger liability than he is right now.”

“He’s the reason Walker’s involved,” she reminds me.

“You’re the reason Walker’s involved,” I counter. “He’s the reason we almost walked away from their help.”

“You’re forgetting that he’s the reason I trusted them. Please remember that, Aaron. He’s a good man.”

“Beer is served,” Blake calls out.

I stroke her hair, her eyes etched with worry, with fear, too, damn it. I want that fear gone, and that’s exactly why I’m willing to work with Walker. “Anytime we let someone else in, it’s a risk. It opens the door to a leak, and the men who are after us will find that leak. But I opened that door with Walker and you know why?” I don’t wait for her reply. I cup her head, press my cheek to hers, and lean in close, my voice low at her ear. “Because I’m not torturing you with a life on the run one day longer than I have to. Because I fucking love you when I didn’t even think I could love.”

She sucks in a breath again and pulls back to look at me, her eyes glistening, as she mouths, “I love you, too.”

Warmth like I’ve never known outside my time with this woman expands inside me. She laces the fingers of one of her hands with mine, and that unity she’s offered me without words calms that storm inside me that I felt only minutes before to a manageable level.

We join Adam, Blake, and yes, Smith, in the living room, them on the couch with Blake at the center and Smith the farthest from us. Ashley and I share an oversized brown leather chair with her on my right and the Walker team on my left. In other words, I’m between her and them.

“You were working on a case when you met Ashley,” Blake states, setting a file on the coffee table. “That’s what I know about him.”

“Who’s the client?” Ashley asks. “And please just confirm for me that Cole isn’t in danger.”

Cole being her old boss, one of the owning partners of the firm that she worked for. “Cole is safe,” I say.

“The client in question left the firm three months ago,” Blake adds, “and I know details that I can’t share. I’ll just say that Cole and Reese, his partner, don’t align with criminals, and they recognized him as that and more.”

“Who is he?” Ashley presses.

“Desmond White,” I say. “The CEO of a defense company that sold arms to the wrong people, translated to mean our enemies. I believe there were higher-ups in our government involved.”

“As do I,” Blake replies. “I assume you got too close to those people, and you were dealt with.”

“Maybe,” I agree, “but for reasons I can’t name, that doesn’t feel right. That feels too cut and dry, too obvious.”

“I met Desmond White,” Ashley replies. “He wasn’t represented by Cole, but rather our corporate division we had just added to the firm. He seemed honorable, like a proud American.”

“They always do,” I say. “The really bad ones always seem good.”

“He took on a new head of security right before you went down,” Blake says. “I believe you know him.”

“Don’t dangle information,” I reply shortly. “Who the hell is it?”

“Mick Ross,” he says.

The name rips through me like an icy blade, carving out my spine. I know him. I know him all too fucking well, and his name explains why Ashley is being hunted. Why the woman I love is such a fucking target.

“You need to know that I know him,” Adam interjects. “I was on a CIA-managed task force with him overseas about seven years ago, but for the record, I hated that shady son-of-a-bitch. How much does he have to do with any of this or anything at all?”

“Everything,” I say. “He has everything to do with this.” I glance at Blake. “I need to know everything there is to know about him and what he’s doing now and in the past, including where to find him right now. And I don’t care what it costs me.”

“There’s no charge for our help,” Blake says as he taps the folder. “And everything you want is there, but there’s a condition. I want to know when you go after him.”

I study Blake, and in his eyes, I see me. He’s dark. He’s dangerous. He’s willing to go where he needs to go to protect and serve. He’ll cross lines, and yet, he’s a good man. “You,” I say. “Just you.”

He narrows his eyes on me and then gives a quick jut of his chin in agreement. Meanwhile, Smith’s eyes burn into me, and I turn to find his gaze locked down on my face. “What do you want to know?”

“I saw how you blinked with his name,” he says. “What is your past with him?”

“Ask your boss,” I reply. “He knows.” My eyes meet Blake’s, understanding in their depths. I don’t want this part of my past blasted out in front of Ashley. But I also see insistence that I tell her in his stare. That she has to know because her life is on the line.

I don’t agree or disagree with him, but in the back of my mind, I know this part of me, this dirty, dark part of me is not something I can hide from Ashley. She will find out one way or the other why Mick wants me dead, why he now wants her dead.

Blake stands up, and his men follow. “We’ll help you wire the security and install cameras and then be out of your hair to let you read through the data. How about breakfast in the morning?”

I agree, and we arrange a meet-up time. The next hour is about turning this place into Fort Knox and even Ashley gets into the game, helping to test the doors and windows for sound notifications and alarms.

Finally, when the Walker team leaves and I lock the front door, I turn to find Ashley standing there. “Who is Mick to you?”

I have a flashback to her protecting me tonight, to her fighting for me, and I’m not ready to let go of that moment. I’m not willing to see the hate in her eyes when she learns the truth about Mick. I shackle her hips and then fold her close, my fingers tangling in her hair, my mouth closing down on hers, silencing her questions. Delaying her hate.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Ashley…

I have questions, so many questions, but Aaron’s mouth is on my mouth, his tongue stroking deep, drugging me with a long lick, the taste of him tormented. He doesn’t want to tell me about Mick. He still thinks I can’t handle the truth of who he is and what he’s done. His fingers tighten in my hair, and he deepens the kiss. I don’t fight him for answers. I don’t fight him for conversation. What he doesn’t seem to understand is how much I know him, how much I understand him. How much knowing him reaches deeper than his name, his job. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be here right now.

He pushes me against the door, his big body framing mine, caging me between him and the hard surface behind me. “You don’t need to hold me captive,” I whisper against his mouth. “I’m here because I want to be here.”

“Until you’re not,” he says, his mouth already back on mine, his kiss hungry.

I grab the hem of his T-shirt and shove my hands under it, pressing my hands to his hot, hard abs and leaning into him. We’re going to talk, but he needs to take the edge off. He needs to work through this, and if that means while naked, I’m not complaining. He tears his mouth from mine, his hands pressing to the hard surface on either side of me, his breathing ragged, his eyes swimming with that torment I’d tasted.

“Aren’t you going to demand answers?”

“No. You’re going to give them to me when you’re ready because you love me and because you can trust me with anything.”

“The way you trust me?”

“I do trust you.”

“Funny. That isn’t what you said a few days ago.”

“You know the situation. You know I had a right to be on edge, to be shocked.”

“And yet, a few fucks and you trust me?”

“Fucks? Is that what this is?” Now I’m angry. I try to duck under his arm, but his leg captures mine.

“Running?”

“Moving away from the asshole standing in front of me. Would you prefer I give you a good knee before I do so?”

“I’d prefer you trusted me from the beginning.”

“I’d prefer that you told me the truth from the beginning. Quid pro quo as we say in the legal world. This for that. You get what you give. You got what you gave. And why are we having this discussion yet again? We’ve been down this path. Forward, Aaron. Not backward, which is why I’m not calling you Noah anymore. You can’t be him anymore.”

“Just that easily?”

“There is nothing easy about any of this, including the fact that you and Blake know what I don’t know, like who Mick is to you. Which I just told myself was fine. You need to get some dark energy burned, you need to fuck, but right now, I’m second guessing that way of thinking. The bottom line isn’t about me not trusting you. You don’t trust me.  You don’t believe that I can handle whatever it is that you need me to handle. So why did you even bother to come for me?”

“They would have killed you.”

“Oh.” I feel like he just stabbed me in the heart. “Right. So this is about protecting me while getting a fuck in here or there. What do you want me to do? Undress? Bend over? Then we can both forget this is just about protection and deal with how we both move on when this is over.”

He scoops me to him, grasping my backside with one hand, the other flat between my shoulder blades, fingers splayed. “That’s exactly what this should be. That’s what any smart man would make it. We fuck. We hide. We run. You stay out of the details. The less you know, the better.”

“Fine. Fuck me then.”

“I am. I will. But that’s not all this is and you know it.” He doesn’t give me time to reply. His mouth closes down on mine, a demand, a possession, a perfect kiss that is imperfect in all that it represents. He wants to own me. He wants to control me. He wants me to be the woman who accepted him without question and that isn’t even who I should be, it’s not who I should have ever been.

“We’re in this together, eyes open, one hundred percent trust, or not at all. Walker can protect me. Walker will—”

“Smith. You mean fucking Smith.” He releases me and steps back, staring at me, anger and steel in his gaze. “I’m a fucking fool.” He scrubs the back of his neck and then reaches in his pocket, pulling out a phone as he steps to me again and presses it in my hand. “I’m taking a walk. Call Smith and let him tell you who Mick is to me, but know this, I don’t give a fuck how much you hate me when you find out. You are my responsibility. I will not walk away until you’re safe.” He tries to turn away.

My heart lurches, and I catch his arm. “What are you doing? No. You’re not leaving, and I’m not calling Smith. You tell me what you did. You trust me enough to tell me yourself.”

“All right. You want trust? You want to know who I am and why Smith hates me? I killed Mick’s family. Cold blooded killed his family. It was an assignment. I was a fucking assassin for the CIA, and when I had a target, I never missed.”

My throat constricts. “What does that even mean? Killed his family?”

“I was told my target, a very dangerous man—Mick—was at a particular address in Bermuda. He has done things you can’t imagine. I put a bomb in the house. I sat and waited for Mick to show up, and he didn’t. His wife and two kids did. I tried to stop it, but it was too late. They fucking died.”

It feels as if a clamp comes down on my chest. “You didn’t mean to kill them,” I whisper.

“A woman and two children died that day. I didn’t mean to isn’t an excuse. I should have planned better. I should have executed the kill more professionally.”

“You tried. I know you tried and—”

“Stop making excuses for me that you won’t make when you have time to really think about this. When you wake up and hate me.”

“I won’t. I don’t.”

“You will when you wake up. I won’t let you die. Mick is behind all of this. I knew the minute I heard his name. He framed me, and he plans to kill you. Which means I have to kill him first. I’ll kill him, and it won’t be gentle or fast.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Aaron…

I need air. No. I need to kill Mick. I also need to know what it is that Ashley really wants, and I’m not sure she can figure that out right now with me in her face. I pull her to me and kiss the hell out of her, and it’s all I have in me to part our lips, but I do it.

A means to an end needs to come sooner than later. I set her away from me, pulling my phone from my pocket, dialing Smith. “We both know you’re right across the street,” I say when he answers. “Come back. Stay with her.”

“Don’t do this,” Ashley says. “Damn it, Noah.”

I pull the phone from my ear. “Noah now?”

“Smartass. Aaron. Don’t do this.”

“Where are you going?” Smith demands.

“To take care of business,” I reply, refocusing on the call. “Tell Blake I’ll find him. You come here.”

“I’m at the door.”

I disconnect and look at Ashley. “He’s at the door. Let him in.”

She shakes her head. “No. I’m not letting in a man you think I want to fuck as you leave on some suicide mission”

“Sweetheart, I don’t die easily. Mick will though. Let Smith in.”

“Please don’t do this to us.” Her voice is low, rough, desperate in a way Ashley is never desperate. I did this to her. I won’t keep doing this to her. “Nothing you told me changes anything,” she adds.

“Until you get some space to feel the brunt of that blow.”

“I don’t need space. I had space while you were gone, and I can’t do that again. I need you. Please don’t go.”

Smith knocks on the door and rings the bell. Ashley’s jaw sets and she turns around, opens the door, looks at him, and says, “Leave.”

I don’t give her a chance to turn back around. I disappear. I’m gone around the corner, disappearing into the shadows of the house. Smith’s voice lifts. “Let him go,” he says. I press myself against the wall. “Let him do what he needs to do. We need to talk.”

“Don’t tell me what I need to do with Aaron, Smith. I love him. I love him so much it hurts, and if you speak a word against him, I swear I will hurt you.”

“You don’t know what he’s done.”

“I know why Mick hates him. He told me. He lied to me when it was his job to lie to me, but on this, on this very important topic, he told me about Mick’s family. So don’t tell me I don’t know him. I know him. And he needs me to know him and believe in him. The way I need him.”

Smith is silent. I’m fucking silent, but my heart is thundering in my ears. This woman loves me in a way I don’t deserve to be loved. But damn how I want to deserve her.

“He told you?” Smith asks, sounding shocked.

“Yeah. I think he wants me to hate him as much as he hates himself. Where did he go? I need to talk to him. Please call Blake.”

I don’t believe for a minute Ashley wants to be with Smith. Not now. I hope not ever. Right now, I need to make sure I keep her safe. If she decides I’m not right for her later, it will be her choice. I need to give her life and choices back to her. I walk to the back door then flip a switch I installed to make sure I could get in and out without notice. I exit before resealing the lock and arming the alarm system.

Once I’m outside, I have no intention of going far. Smith is no match for Mick. Blake Walker, yes. Smith, no. I locate Blake’s number and dial him now. “Coffee shop across from the house. I’m not leaving her alone.”

“Understood. I’m twenty minutes out.”

Exactly twenty minutes later, he joins me at a table. “I’ve got men covering the house,” he says. “You and I both know how dangerous Mick is and that he has good reason to kill you. Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you myself.”

“I fucked up and didn’t do the recon right. I didn’t know about his family being there. I couldn’t stop it. I tried. So my answer is you should kill me. I deserve it, but wait until I save her. She can’t be another innocent who dies. Not her. Not Ashley.”

He inhales and lets out a breath, cutting his gaze before returning his attention to me. “I’ve made some painful mistakes in my past. I lost a fiancée to one of those mistakes, and I couldn’t save her. It becomes bearable, but it never goes away. Guilt is punishment in itself. Revenge is dangerous. Mick wants revenge the way I wanted revenge.”

“Mick doesn’t want revenge. Mick just doesn’t like anyone to take what’s his. It’s about power to him. He’s dirty, but more so, he’s a monster. I can kill and not blink, but I kill monsters like him. I don’t laugh when I kill, but that man would chop off your woman’s head and laugh at your torment. I hurt his reputation. I made him look like he was weak. The family was a cover. Spend some time researching him.”

“I have.”

“Not enough if you think this is about revenge. Dig deeper. You need to know who you’re dealing with. No. Never mind. I’ll kill him while you’re researching.” I stand up.

He stands up with me. “I know where he is. I know who he’s with. You need me. If he’s what you say he is, you need the kind of backup I can provide.”

“If Smith is that kind of backup, he’s not what I need.”

The door chimes and a giant of a man with a scar down his cheek walks in. Blake doesn’t look to the door, but his lips twitch. “That would be the man I propose as our third arm.”

I watch as the man saunters toward us, an evil smirk on his lips. He stops at the end of the table between me and Blake. “Who the fuck are we killing today? And please tell me we get to make them suffer.”

“This is Savage,” Blake says. “He likes to kill bad guys, but you should know that he’s pretty fucking bad at following rules.”

A prickle of unease slides through me that has nothing to do with Savage. My gaze jerks toward the house, and there’s a shadow that moves. Someone is there. “Tell me right now that’s your man,” I say, without looking at Blake.

“It’s not,” Blake says, and the three of us are already moving toward the door.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Ashley…

Smith and I sit in the living room with me on the couch and him on the coffee table in front of me. “I’m terrified for you with this man, Ashley,” he says. “I need you to listen to me, really listen to me.”

“He left so you could trash talk him. You know that, right? He hates himself. He thinks I should hate him.”

“And you should. You don’t know who he is.”

“Noah. Aaron. The names don’t matter. The man does.”

“You’re right, but his reason for changing names matters,” he argues.

“Yes,” I bite out. “It does. Do you know how he came to be in the CIA?”

“I know how he pissed off Mick.”

“Do you know how he came to be in the CIA?” I ask again.

“What story did he tell you, Ashley?”

I grimace. “It’s not a story. It’s the truth. He was an attorney, a public prosecutor. He went after a kingpin in a cartel at all costs and won. Except, he was in danger and the CIA recruited him.”

Now Smith grimaces. “He was a damn assassin for the CIA.”

“I know who he was, who he is. He still is that man. I know he’s killed. I know he can kill. I know.”

“He killed Mick’s wife and two kids.”

“He didn’t know the wife and kids would be there.”

“You believe that shit?” he challenges.

“I do, Smith, and if you gave him a chance, if you got to know him, you would, too.”

“Ashley—”

“You left me in a hellish life alone. Why do you even care, Smith?”

He sucks in a breath and stands up, walking around the coffee table to stand at the fireplace, his back to me, his shoulders tense. “Ashley—”

“It’s okay,” I say, standing up as he turns to face me. “We were friends, not lovers. We weren’t in love, Smith. I couldn’t love anyone but him, and you knew it.”

“I should have changed that.” He steps to the opposite side of the table again. “I regret—”

“Don’t. I’m not the one for you, but I am your friend. Please be mine.”

“Damn it, that’s what I’m trying to be. A good friend and friends don’t always say what you want to hear.”

“Is there nothing in your military career, or even your career with Walker, that you regret?”

He cuts his stare, swallows hard before he looks at me again. “We aren’t talking about me.”

“Why? Why are you different than Aaron?”

“Aaron or Noah?”

“He can’t be Noah. It’s dangerous.”

“And yet he told you his name was Noah. Doesn’t that sound strange?”

“Look him up. Call your people. The Noah story is true.”

“He’s not even in the CIA database,” he snaps.

“Because they’re trying to kill him!” I argue. “Adam told us all that he was setup.”

“Mick is trying to kill him,” he says, ignoring my comments about Adam.

“Mick is in the CIA,” I remind him.

“Mick doesn’t control the higher-ups.”

“You know this how?” I challenge.

“I’ve seen a lot of dirty CIA agents.”

“You were military. You weren’t even CIA.”

“I was a lot of things you don’t know or understand.” He scrubs his jaw. “Want a beer? I damn sure need one.”

He was a lot of things I don’t know? Smith doesn’t wait for my reply. He turns and walks away. I sit back down and start to replay those moments with Aaron before he left. He doesn’t want me near Smith and yet he called him. I don’t understand. What is this man, Aaron, not Smith, doing to me?

Smith returns and sits down next to me, offering me a cold beer. I take it from him. “What don’t I know?”

“Too much,” he says, slugging back his beer. “And that’s the problem.” He motions to my bottle. “Drink.”

I do. I’m confused and tired, and I just want Aaron to come back. “What if he doesn’t come back? What if that’s why he called you?” I ask, voicing my fears.

“Then he’s a better man than I expect him to be.”

I set my bottle down and turn on him. “Stop. Stop already. I love him. Either tell me why I shouldn’t or stop attacking him.”

He takes another long drink and then sets his beer down and faces me. “You’re being hunted because of him. He should have called me when he knew you were in danger, not come to hell to get you himself.”

“He didn’t trust you to protect me.”

“And yet, here I am, protecting you. And here we are with you living in hell because of him.”

“Obviously, you’ve never been in love, because hell was being without him.”

He inhales and stands up, downing his beer in several long swallows. “I need another.” He glances at me. “You need another yet?” He rounds the island and walks back to the kitchen.

Clearly, I hit a nerve with the love stuff. I pick up my bottle, and I can feel the biting sensation of fear inside me, and it’s not fear for me. It’s fear for Aaron. It’s fear he’ll never come back. I shouldn’t have let him leave. And what about Cole and Lori? What if Mick tries to use my old boss and his wife to get to me.

“Smith?!” I call out, twisting around as he exits the kitchen with another bottle in his hand. “Are we sure Cole and Lori are safe? Is someone watching them to be sure?” I stand up as he steps to the opposite side of the island again. “I have a bad feeling about this,” I add.

“We have a man watching them, but they don’t know it,” he says. “We don’t want to freak them out for nothing.”

His cellphone rings, and he grimaces, setting down his beer, snaking the phone from the front of his jeans, and answering the call immediately. He listens for two seconds and then points at me. “Get down. On your knees.”

I blink, confused, and he’s already around the table, pulling me to the ground with him. “Where?” he asks. “Fuck. Got it.” He disconnects.

“Someone is lurking outside the house, but Blake and Aaron lost visual. We need to stay down while they clear the house.”

My heart is now pounding, and I start to think about the bomb that blew up Mick’s house and killed his family. “Bomb. Aaron used a bomb to try to kill Mick. Could there be a bomb?”

He curses and grabs his phone. “Blake,” he says, and that’s when something blasts through the window, glass flying everywhere. A man in black is standing in front of us, and to my shock, Smith somehow has a gun in his hand and shoots him dead. There’s movement behind us, and we whirl around as another man in black points a gun at us.

There’s another gunshot and the second man in black collapses. Aaron stands there behind him, a gun in his hand. He just saved our lives, but more glass shatters in what feels like all directions and flames erupt everywhere.

THE END…FOR NOW

***

Readers,

Thank you so much for picking up DIRTY RICH SECRETS:PART TWO! Ashley and Aaron’s story will conclude on September 24th DIRTY RICH SECRETS: PART THREE! You can pre-order on all retailers NOW!

PRE-ORDER AND LEARN MORE HERE:

https://dirtyrich.weebly.com/dirty-rich-secrets.html

***

What’s next for me? I’ll be releasing books two and three in my NAKED TRILOGY: One Woman (September 17th) and Two Together (November 12th)! And after that is my long-awaited SAVAGE TRILOGY which launches on December 17th with SAVAGE HUNGER!

Keep reading for chapter one from THE NAKED TRILOGY and more information about THE SAVAGE TRILOGY!

***

Don’t forget, if you want to be the first to know about upcoming books, giveaways, sales and any other exciting news I have to share please be sure you’re signed up for my newsletter! As an added bonus everyone receives a free ebook when they sign-up!

http://lisareneejones.com/newsletter-sign-up/

THE NAKED TRILOGY

BOOK ONE, ONE MAN, IS AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE NOW! BOOKS TWO AND THREE ARE AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER AND WILL BE RELEASED THIS YEAR!

One man can change everything. That man can touch you and you tremble all over. That man can wake you up and allow you to breathe when life leaves you unable to catch your breath. For me that ONE MAN is Jax North. He's handsome, brutally so, and wealthy, money and power easily at his fingertips. He's dark, and yet, he can make me smile with a single look or word. He's a force when he walks into a room.

Our first encounter is intense, overwhelmingly intense. I go with it. I go with him and how can I not? He's that ONE MAN for me and what a ride it is. But there are things about me that he doesn't know, he can't know, so I say goodbye. Only you don't say goodbye to a man like Jax if he doesn't want you to. I've challenged him without trying. He wants me. I don't want to want him, and yet, I crave him. He tears me down, my resistance, my walls. But those walls protect me. They seal my secrets inside. And I forget that being alone is safe. I forget that there are reasons I can’t be with Jax North. I forget that once he knows, everything will change.

Because I need him.

Because he's my ONE MAN.

***

CHAPTER ONE OF ONE MAN

Jax...

The moon glows with white light and hangs low and round over the nearby ocean darkened by night as if it, like the hundreds of guests in the garden of one of the San Francisco Knight hotels, is watching the beautiful brunette and star of the night. Emma Knight, the twenty-eight-year-old heiress to the hotel chain’s worldwide empire, and who, in fact, lost her father one month ago. Now, her brother Chance rules their hotel empire and her mother has fled to Europe for reasons few, I suspect Emma included, knows.

But I know.

She stands next to Randall Montgomery, her brother's right-hand and confidant, a man who might be fit enough and decent enough looking if he didn’t act like he has a stick up his ass. A man on my radar for reasons he’ll soon regret. He wants Emma and her money. She is the furthest down the food chain of them all, and based on her history with her father, even further down than would be expected. No doubt, she inherited with her father’s death, but I wouldn’t be shocked to discover she was given a token instead of a goldmine.

The announcer stands at a podium and begins lavishly speaking of Emma’s father with purpose. Tonight, with women in fancy gowns and men in tuxedos, ice carved into sculptures and champagne poured in glasses, Emma is here to accept a philanthropy award on his behalf while her brother is curiously absent. If he were here, I wouldn’t be here. Neither I nor any of the North family could stand her father, not that I find her brother any more palatable. Her father is gone, though, and now Emma is the proverbial queen of the hour. And the queen, unaware that she is, has had my attention for quite some time.

There’s irony in the fact that I, Jax North, the eldest now of the living North family offspring is, in fact, the man who watches her. An irony she’ll understand soon, but not too soon. For now, I stand at one of the rows of white-clothed tables, deep enough beyond in the crowd of people to be as good as in the shadows, a man whose family has done business with her family for decades, though l have been in the shadows in those endeavors just as I am here now. Present but unseen.

Emma steps to the podium, but not before I catch a glimpse of her pale pink floor-length dress that is elegant in its simplicity, in the way it highlights her slender but womanly figure. Her hands grip the sides of the podium and for a long moment, a full minute at least, she simply looks out across the crowd but doesn’t speak. There’s a charge of expectation in the room, a sense of the crowd pushing her to speak and when finally, her pink-painted lips part, the microphone crackles and squeaks. This seems to jolt her and she laughs nervously, a soft sweet laugh to match her sweet little ass. Perhaps the only sweet things about the Knight family.

“Thank you all for being here,” she finally says, and her voice is strained but suitably strong. “It’s emotional to be here tonight, among those honored who are living while my father is no longer with us. To be here at a hotel that was the center of the world for him.” She cuts her stare and I can almost feel her struggling for composure, the way I struggle when I speak of my older brother.

“I loved my father so very much,” Emma adds, and the pain in her voice is it for me. I run a hand over the silk of my light blue tie, barely contained impatience in the action, but tonight isn’t the time; it’s not when I’m meant to find Emma and Emma me. It’s a thought that has me turning away and disappearing into the gardens, entering the hotel by a side door. I’m here in this hotel for one reason: Emma. She’s here and it’s long past due that we meet. It’s long past due that she learns about the connection between her family and mine. I stroll a carpeted hallway with elegant chandeliers dipping low at strategic locations, about to turn into the bar when I come face to face with Eric Mitchell, a man who is quite literally a genius. He’s also vice president in one of the largest corporations in the world.

“Long time, man,” he greets, offering me his hand. It’s a strong hand, and when I look into his blue eyes, I see the man born a savant, the man who see numbers more than words. I see the man who helped Bennett Enterprises reach beyond a legal powerhouse to a conglomerate, even before acquiring an NFL team.

“Doesn’t Bennett own hotels, which would make you the Knights’ competition?”

His lips curve. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. I went to school with Chance. Good guy.”

Good guy my fucking ass. “We should talk.”

“About?”

“All things green. How about lunch tomorrow?”

“I can make that happen. “

We setup the meeting and the ways this little encounter has inspired me are many. I cut right into a dimly lit bar that’s desolate at the moment and thank fuck for it. The damn hotel is filled to the rim for that awards ceremony. Alone suits me just fine right about now and I walk to the back of the bar and sit down in a red leather booth that overlooks a room with couches, cushy chairs, and dangling lights but also provides a curtain for privacy. The Knight name is all about luxury and comfort, but at its core, it’s about greed. At my core right now, I’m about that speech Emma was giving, about the pain at its core. That pain is why I’m here.

A waiter appears and I order whiskey, North Whiskey, my family’s whiskey, which is in every Knight hotel in the country and beyond. I don’t give a fuck if it stays or goes or I wouldn’t be here. “Bring the bottle.”

He’s just filled my glass, and the glass is at my lips when Emma walks into the bar. Alone. She’s done her time on stage and ran for cover. The hotel might be hosting the event, but she isn’t. She’s halfway into the bar when voices sound behind her. She peeks over her shoulder and then with a panicked look, darts in my direction.

To my surprise—and I don’t surprise easily—she slides into the booth with me and pulls the curtain shut. “So sorry,” she says, claiming the seat next to me. “I really need to avoid a conversation and well, breathe a moment or ten. The only way to do that is to be having a private meeting that looks as if it’s just that: private, not to be disturbed.” She takes my glass and downs my whiskey.

Interesting that she didn’t run to Randall for comfort, but in fact ran away from him.

She glances at me, and when her beautiful pale green eyes flecked with amber meet mine, there is a charge between us, an awareness that parts her lips and has her turning away from me. Because she knows who I am?

“I’ll buy that bottle of whiskey for you,” she says, “for letting me intrude.”

A statement that either proves she has no idea who I am or that she’s playing me the way a Knight will play.

It doesn’t really matter. It’s like the sky opened up and delivered her right to me. “Considering I’m a North and that’s North Whiskey,” I say, refilling the glass. “I think I can handle paying for the bottle and helping the lady of the night hide out.”

Her eyes go wide. “You’re Jax North.” She blinks. “Of course you are. You look like the North family, all tall, blond, and handsomely brooding.” She drinks a bit more. “And that’s the whiskey making me overly verbal. My father didn’t approve of me being overly verbal.”

Except she just downed that whiskey and hasn’t been drinking all night. She’s nervous, rambling in a rather charming, vulnerable way that I find attractive, for reasons I don’t try to understand.

“I didn’t know ‘overly verbal’ was a thing.”

“You didn’t know my father well, then. Actually, no one did.” She swallows hard. “Back to you.” It’s a hard push from any question I might have made about that statement “no one did.” “You really do look like your father and brother. I can’t believe I didn’t immediately place you.”

“You mean Hunter, I assume, since my younger brother, Brody, beats to his own drum. A drum that doesn’t include running the core whiskey operation or any involvement with the Knight Hotel brand.”

“Yes, Hunter,” she says, and there’s a flicker in her eyes, an understanding that we’re talking about a brother that is no more with us on this earth than her father. “I met them both, briefly. I ah—”

I narrow my eyes on her waiting for her to finish that sentence, prodding when she does not. “You what?”

“You—”

“Lost them both, as you did your father,” I supply. “Yes. My father to a ski accident, a year ago next week. Six months ago next month for my brother.” I leave out the cause of death. That isn’t a place either of us wants me to go with the Knight family tonight. “And yes,” I add, “time helps, but anyone who tells you it makes the cut heal is lying. It just stops the bleeding.”

“Thank you for saying that,” she says in a deep breath, “because if one more person tells me time will make it better, I might scream.” She softens her voice. “I’m sad to say that I barely knew your father and brother, and only know you now because of this moment in time, that you neither chose nor invited.”

“Should I have?”

“Why would you? You don’t know me.” She laughs a bitter laugh. “Well, there is my family money. That’s what everyone knows and wants. They think they know my worth, but they know nothing.”

I don’t ask what that means. I dare to slide closer to her. I dare to allow my leg to press to hers, the current between us charming the air. “I am a North, which means that I have power and money. I don’t need yours.”

“Money feeds greed. What you have is never enough.”

“There are other things to want besides money.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“Emma Knight.”

“Can I deny that perhaps for the rest of my life?”

I lean closer, the scent of her distinctly warm—amber and vanilla, I believe—my interest in this woman piqued in both expected and unexpected ways. “Why would you want to?”

“A complicated answer to a simple question.” Her voice cracks and she turns away from me. She reaches for my glass again and downs every drop in it. She sets it down.

“More?” I ask.

She glances over at me. “Yes, but I should warn you that I’m a very bad drinker.”

I refill the glass and sip before handing it to her. She stares at the glass before her gaze lifts to my mouth. Unlike moments before, she’s now thinking of exactly what I intended: about her mouth where my mouth was moments before. “I promise to catch you if you fall,” I say softly.

“Don’t start this relationship off by making promises you won’t even try to keep.”

Relationship. She’s planning on this encounter leading to more, which of course could simply be because I’m now in charge of my family empire, not just the contact for all things both North and Knight. Or perhaps it’s more. I plan to make it more.

“I never make a promise I don’t keep,” I say, and I will catch her if she falls, because once I catch her, she’s mine. Once she’s mine, everything comes full circle.

“Never?”

“Never,” I assure her, “which is something my friends value and my enemies dread.”

“Do you have many enemies?”

“A man or woman with money and power always has enemies.”

Her cellphone rings and she pants out a breath. “Of course. They’re now looking for me by calling me.” She pulls her cell from her purse and glances at the number.

“Randall?” I ask.

Her gaze jerks to mine. “How do you know that and him?”

“I know a lot of people. Enemies everywhere, Emma,” I say softly, and I find myself really wanting her to listen. Really wanting to protect her, which is a contradiction to everything I would do otherwise where the Knights are concerned. “And this one wants to be in your bed. If he isn’t already.”

“How do you know that?”

“I told you. I know a lot of people and things.”

She sets her phone on the table without answering him.

“You aren’t going to answer?”

“No. I’m not going to answer. I’m not ready to go back.”

“Would like to get out of here?”

“And go where?”

“A castle by the ocean.”

She laughs. “If only.”

“I’m serious, Emma. Come with me. I’ll take you away.”

“Would you be asking me that if I walked away from it all?”

The curtain pulls back and Randall is standing there, his dark hair slicked back, his gaze sliding between the two of us and landing on me. “What the fuck are you doing here, Jax?”

My lips quirk. “Enjoying good company and good whiskey.” I glance at Emma. “With a beautiful woman,” I add.

I expect her to blush and look away, but she doesn’t. For several beats she just looks at me, her stare unreadable, but the crackle in the air between us, the whip and pull of attraction, is damn near palpable.

“Emma,” Randall snaps, “you have people here honoring your father.”

“Right. Responsibility calls.” Her eyes, her sea-green eyes meet mine. “Thank you, Jax. For the company and the fine whiskey.” Randall offers her his hand, but she ignores it and stands up.

“Don’t you want the answer to your question?” I ask.

She glances behind her, over her shoulder, to meet my stare. “Yes, I do.” But she doesn’t stay for an answer. She walks away, doing the impossible, considering she’s a Knight and I’m a North, as she does. She makes me crave more of her, but that changes nothing. I came here, seeking her out, for a reason. That reason hasn’t changed.

LEARN MORE AND BUY HERE:

https://nakedtrilogy.weebly.com/

THE SAVAGE TRILOGY

BOOK ONE, SAVAGE HUNGER, WILL BE RELEASED ON DECEMBER 17TH AND ALL THREE BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER EVERYWHERE!

Rick Savage, but they call him Savage and for a reason. He can make you laugh and then rip your heart out. No one knows that more than me, Jasmine Marks, the woman he left bleeding from the heart. I loved him. Lord help me, I've never stopped loving him.

Now, I'm engaged to another man, a brutal man I'm trapped into marrying, when to my shock, Savage returns home. Savage who I haven't heard from in years. I want to hate him. I have ever reason to hate him, but I can't. I still love him and I fear he will save me just to leave me bleeding one last time. He stirs my desires, a dark, delicious, and dangerous man destined to hurt me and leave me. This time I'm not sure I'll survive.

LEARN MORE AND BUY HERE:

https://savagetrilogy.weebly.com/

ALSO BY LISA RENEE JONES

THE INSIDE OUT SERIES

If I Were You

Being Me

Revealing Us

His Secrets*

Rebecca’s Lost Journals

The Master Undone*

My Hunger*

No In Between

My Control*

I Belong to You

All of Me*

THE SECRET LIFE OF AMY BENSEN

Escaping Reality

Infinite Possibilities

Forsaken

Unbroken*

CARELESS WHISPERS

Denial

Demand

Surrender

WHITE LIES

Provocative

Shameless

TALL, DARK & DEADLY

Hot Secrets

Dangerous Secrets

Beneath the Secrets

WALKER SECURITY

Deep Under

Pulled Under

Falling Under

LILAH LOVE

Murder Notes

Murder Girl

Love Me Dead

Love Kills (October 2019)

DIRTY RICH

Dirty Rich One Night Stand

Dirty Rich Cinderella Story

Dirty Rich Obsession

Dirty Rich Betrayal

Dirty Rich Cinderella Story: Ever After

Dirty Rich One Night Stand: Two Years Later

Dirty Rich Obsession: All Mine

Dirty Rich Secrets

THE FILTHY TRILOGY

The Bastard

The Princess

The Empire

THE NAKED TRILOGY

One Man

One Woman (September 2019)

Two Together (November 2019)

*eBook only

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Lisa Renee Jones is the author of the highly acclaimed INSIDE OUT series.

In addition to the success of Lisa’s INSIDE OUT series, she has published many successful titles. The TALL, DARK AND DEADLY series and THE SECRET LIFE OF AMY BENSEN series, both spent several months on a combination of the New York Times and USA Today bestselling lists. Lisa is also the author of the bestselling LILAH LOVE and WHITE LIES series.

Prior to publishing, Lisa owned multi-state staffing agency that was recognized many times by The Austin Business Journal and also praised by the Dallas Women’s Magazine. In 1998 Lisa was listed as the #7 growing women owned business in Entrepreneur Magazine.

Lisa loves to hear from her readers. You can reach her on Twitter and Facebook daily.

Table of Contents

DEAR READERS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE NAKED TRILOGY

THE SAVAGE TRILOGY

ALSO BY LISA RENEE JONES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR