No matter how badly you wanted to.
He couldn’t touch Zoe after that. Couldn’t stand her hand where it was, over his dick, holding him as though she wanted him. There had been fear in her eyes and a kind of dreadful hope, as though she’d wanted him to tell her it wasn’t true. That he wasn’t what she was obviously terrified of him being.
His feet hit the pavement hard, the thick, heavy summer air a suffocating blanket. There weren’t many people around this early in the morning, but he passed Ant and Deke, two old vets who liked playing cards on the sidewalk, already dealing out a hand of poker. They raised a hand in greeting, and he gave them a chin lift in return.
Fuck . . . this place. It had been his escape, his retreat, his safe haven, and he’d come to love it. The dirty sidewalks, the abandoned buildings and cracked windows, the drug addicts and all the rest of its filthy glory.
It was honest, that’s what he loved about it. There was no pretense to it. Which made his being here ironic, considering all the pretending he was doing. Pretending he was a good guy. Pretending that what he was doing with Zoe was for her benefit.
Last night he’d walked away from her, not answering her question, but it was as good as an admission all the same and she would have known that. And she hadn’t come after him, which told him everything he needed to know.
But that was a good thing. A very good thing. He’d let himself get carried away the night before; he’d lost his cool. First he’d fucked her up against that wall no matter that their friends were just inside, then he’d let Novak kidnap her. Sex was getting in the way and he couldn’t have that.
So yeah, it was better she kept away from him. She didn’t need a past as dark as his fucking up her life. The main thing he needed to figure out was how to keep Novak off her back and her safe in Royal. Because there was no way in hell he was letting her leave. No way in hell he was going to let Novak get his way. And besides, even if she left, she’d never be safe. She’d always be the mixed-race illegitimate daughter he was trying to hide. A man like him couldn’t afford to leave a loose end like Zoe lying around.
Dawn was only just breaking by the time he got back to the apartment, sweaty and thirsty enough to drink all of Lake Erie dry. Going into the kitchen, he got himself a huge glass of water and chugged it back before turning on the faucet for another.
The back of his neck prickled.
He turned, half reaching into the small of his back to where his gun used to be, a reflex he hadn’t indulged for years, only to see Zoe standing in the doorway, leaning up against the doorframe.
She wore only a pair of her tiny sleep shorts and another tank top, red this time, that molded to her beautiful tits, making his cock stir and his stomach go tight with want. Her hair was a mass of black curls over her shoulders, her eyes serious and dark behind the lenses of her glasses. There was a crease between her brows and a stubborn cast to her jaw, and he knew what that meant. She wanted to talk to him and she wasn’t going to take no for answer.
“I think we need to talk, Gideon.” Her voice was very direct and very, very firm. “I need to know what you are.”
Ah, fuck.
Come on. You always knew you’d have to tell her one day.
Slowly he turned, leaning back against the sink and folding his arms. “You know what I am.”
But she shook her head slowly. “No, I don’t. I think you only let me see what you want me to see. Not what you really are. Not who you really are.”
“Zoe . . .”
“What? You know what I am. What you see is what you get with me. I’ve kept no secrets from you, Gideon. None. Don’t you think that maybe you should give me some of yours?”
“Not especially.”
She didn’t even blink this time. “So my virginity is worth nothing then?”
The goddamned little brat.
He shifted against the sink at his back. “I didn’t know that was something I had to pay for.”
“No, you just took it.”
A flash of anger went through him. “You gave it to me, Zoe. Don’t pretend otherwise.”
“Oh, I know I did.” Her gaze was unwavering. “But you didn’t have to take it. So don’t you pretend otherwise.”
Dammit. She might be naïve, but she’d been learning a few things, obviously. “Then you should have been clearer you wanted something in return,” he said, which was a dick thing to say, but hell, he had to protect her from the truth somehow, didn’t he?
Do you really need to protect her? Or is it yourself you’re protecting?
The thought twisted uncomfortably inside his gut, the fine edges of that truth feeling like they were gouging holes in him.
No, that was bullshit; he wasn’t protecting himself. Hell, if she wanted to know, he’d tell her. Maybe it was time after all. Time he stopped pretending the past didn’t exist. Pretending he was only a mechanic in Royal just trying to get by, with a little foster sister he’d do anything to protect.
Maybe it was time he started being as honest as the neighborhood he’d claimed for himself.
The crease between her brows had deepened, a faint glitter in her eyes. A beam of morning sunlight coming through the windows had fallen over her face, revealing the deep shadows beneath her eyes. Okay, so, she hadn’t slept either.
Somehow that didn’t make him feel any better.
“Is it so wrong to want something of you?” she asked. “Especially after last night.”
“Why especially?”
“Why do you think? You were going to kill him, weren’t you, Gideon? Tell me that wasn’t why you decided to bring along a gun. In fact, now that I think about it, why do you have a gun anyway?”
He’d been so full of rage the night before that quite frankly, what he’d been going to do to Novak hadn’t exactly been clear. Killing a man, however, was a pretty blunt way to end to things, and though he was a blunt kind of a guy, shooting a senatorial candidate hadn’t featured highly in his plans.
But he’d still thought about it. Certainly, he’d been going to inform him that staying the fuck away from Zoe might be a good idea, especially if he valued his health.
“No,” he said slowly. “I wasn’t going to kill him. I was going to convince him that staying away from you and from Royal might be beneficial to him.”
She stared at him, her gaze narrowing. “And the gun?” “I’ve had it for years.”
“That’s not answering my question.”
“Okay, so the gun was incentive.”
“You’ve used one before, haven’t you?”
He let out a long, silent breath and held her gaze. “Yes. Many times.”
“Oh.” She went pale at that, but didn’t look away from him. “So, apart from last night, when was the last time you used one?”
“Thirteen years ago.”
Her throat moved and she shifted against the doorframe. “Why?”
“Why did I use a gun?”
“Yeah.”
“Because I was sent to kill someone.”
Slowly the color leeched out of her cheeks, the circles beneath her eyes becoming even more pronounced. He shouldn’t tell her any more. Then again, she’d wanted the truth.
“Who were you sent to kill, Gideon?” To her credit she said it without one single shake in her voice, even though she knew as well as he did what had happened thirteen years ago.
“I was sent to kill your mom, Zoe.” He said it without hesitation, because he was committed now, there was no going back.
Her eyes went wide, her mouth opening in shock. “M-my mom?”
“You wanted to know what I was? Well, back in Chicago, I used to be an enforcer for hire. The criminal underworld always needed guys to do their dirty work for them, make threats, beat the shit out of people, and threaten those who were . . . inconvenient. I was one of those guys.” It was easy to say, way easier than he’d thought. Yet the words fell into the silence of the kitchen, heavy as river boulders, smashing right through the ch
eerful domestic reality of the life he’d built in Royal. Shattering it completely.
“You were a . . . hit man?” Zoe sounded shaken, her voice a whisper.
“No. I stopped short of actually killing anyone. But I came close.”
Her arms had dropped to her sides and the look on her face . . . Shock. Horror. He kept his gaze on her because glancing away would have been a pussy thing to do and he wasn’t a pussy.
“But . . . Mom . . . I don’t understand.”
Carefully Gideon put his glass back down on the counter. “She was blackmailing Novak and a guy like him . . . well, you don’t do that to a guy like him. He used to employ my services from time to time, and so he knew who to come to when he had a problem he wanted to get rid of. Your mom was the problem and I was the solution.” He paused, because if nothing else, she needed to understand this. “Novak didn’t give me her name, just an address and instructions to take out the person who lived there. I thought the address was familiar, but it didn’t hit me until I pulled up outside and realized it was your house.” Horror was stark on her face, but he was on this road now and so he’d tell her everything. “That’s why I was there that night, Zoe. And that’s why I told you I’d get you away. The danger was real. The danger was me.”
“But you didn’t—”
“No. I couldn’t. Not your mom.”
Her face had gone whiter than snow. “What would have happened if you hadn’t known me?” There was a crack in her voice now, all her shock and fear bleeding out. “Would you have killed her?” A pause. “Would you have killed me?”
It was a valid question, and yet still it cut him, sharp as a scalpel, peeling him open. “No,” he said, fighting against the doubt within himself that perhaps he might have. “I wouldn’t. I didn’t touch kids or women.”
“And yet you were there to kill Mom!”
“Like I said, he didn’t give me a name. Jesus, do you really think I would take out someone like her?”
“I don’t know!” Something was glittering in her eyes. It looked like tears. “A couple of days ago, I would never have thought that, but now?”
The scalpel turned inward, sliding in between his ribs. He didn’t resist it. Fuck, he deserved the pain. “Yeah, okay, that’s fair enough. I’m not gonna offer you excuses. That was my life after I aged out of the system, because it was either that, stealing cars, or dealing meth. I wanted out, Zoe. I wanted to get away, and the only way I could do that was with money.” He held her golden gaze. “And those guys paid me fuckloads of money.”
A tear slid down her cheek, but he made no move toward her, staying right where he was. He had a feeling it wasn’t him she wanted comfort from, not anymore.
“So you thought beating people up was a great way to get money?”
“I had no education. I had no prospects. You know what happened to my mom. You know my fucking father was in jail for murdering her. I was the son of a whore, brought up in the foster system, and I had fucking nothing but my fists and a whole lotta rage. So yeah, I thought it was a great way for me to get some money and give society the finger at the same time.”
She made no move to wipe the tears away, and he felt each one like acid dripping slowly over his soul. “So why did you come for me? Why did you end up in Royal?” She pushed herself away from the doorframe, taking a step toward him, her hands in fists at her sides. “Why the fuck am I even here?”
Yeah, she was pissed, as he knew she would be. As she fucking should be. And he didn’t know whether they’d ever be able to recover from this. Sex was one thing; all the things he hadn’t told her were quite another.
The scalpel twisted in his heart, but he ignored it, wanting to give her the only thing he could. “You’re here because you’re the one who got me out.” He kept his voice steady. “Because you’re the one who showed me that there was more to life than fucking anger. The way you came down the stairs to me that night . . .” He stopped, his chest going tight, remembering the shock that had gripped him as he’d walked inside her mom’s house, thinking no, it couldn’t be. It couldn’t be Zoe. And then as he’d stepped through the door, she’d been at the top of the stairs and her eyes had lit up, her face glowing. She’d raced down to him, flinging herself into his arms, and he’d just stood there in shock, realizing who it was that Novak had wanted him to kill. He hadn’t known why right then, because knowing wasn’t his job, that had only come later. But in that moment he’d understood why the job for Novak had been the last one. It was because of her. Because of Zoe.
“Your mom was my last job,” he said, lowering his palms to the counter and putting the heels of his hands on the edge, his fingers curling underneath to hold on to something. “I was gonna get out after that. I told myself I had enough money, that I didn’t need that shit anymore. Then I got to your house and you came down the stairs, straight into my arms. You held on to me, like I wasn’t a bad person and you weren’t afraid. You were so pleased to see me and believe me, Zoe, people were never pleased to see me.” He gripped the edges of the counter tighter. “I knew I wasn’t gonna do it then, but I knew if I didn’t, Novak was gonna come after your mother and he was probably gonna come after you, too. And I couldn’t let that happen. So I took you away, took you to Royal, where you’d be safe.”
“But . . . he didn’t come after Mom, did he? She died of an overdose six months later.”
“An overdose caused by a bad batch of heroin supplied to her by one of Novak’s dealers. A contact in Chicago told me.”
She said nothing for a long time, just stared at him, tear tracks gleaming on her cheeks, and for once he had no idea at all what she was thinking. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice was hoarse. “Why did you keep that from me all this time?”
“Because I didn’t want you to be afraid. I didn’t want you walking around fucking scared all the time.” He stopped, because that wasn’t the whole truth either. “I didn’t want you to be afraid . . . of me.”
She took a little breath, her lashes long and black and glittering with tears. Then she blinked fiercely a couple of times and began to walk toward him, never taking her gaze from his. There was an intense expression on her face, one that he found unsettling, and he wanted to hold up his hand to make her stop, make her keep her distance in some way.
Christ. That he, of all people, should find one young woman to be so much of a threat. He should never have said it. Should never have opened his big mouth.
He pushed himself away from the counter, to leave or maybe do something else, he didn’t know what. But by then it was too late to get out, because she’d stopped right in front of him, her gaze direct and so open he could barely meet it. She smelled good and he wanted to touch her, put his hands out to her. But he didn’t. The way she was looking at him cut him off at the knees.
Zoe reached up and took his face between her hands, holding him with a surprisingly strong grip. “I have never been afraid of you.” Her golden eyes burned. “Not like that. And I never will.”
His heart shuddered inside his chest and he raised his hands, wrapping his fingers around her slender wrists. But for some reason he didn’t pull them away, even though it felt as if the touch of her hands was searing him straight through. “You know what I am now. You can’t tell me you’re not afraid.”
“I’m not.”
“Liar. You’ve been terrified of me the whole of this past week.”
Her gaze didn’t waver, the soft pressure of her palms somehow keeping him exactly where he was, even though everything in him wanted to pull away. “Of course I was afraid. But that’s because I wanted you. Because I didn’t want you to tell me no. Because I didn’t know what to expect. Because everything you did was so overwhelming and intense and . . . so good, Gideon. That’s what scared me.” There was a golden spark in her eyes, but this time it wasn’t anger. “You scared me because of the way I feel about you.”
His fingers tightened. “Stop, Zoe.”
“No, I won’t stop.�
�� She took in a ragged breath and beneath his fingertips he felt the race of her pulse. “You terrify me because I care about you so much. Because I want you. Because I don’t want to leave you. I want to belong to you and yeah, that scares me shitless.”
He gripped her wrists, a wave of intense possessiveness swamping him, dark and heady. Sure, there was fear in her eyes, he could see that. But something else, something more . . . desperate.
That she cared about him wasn’t news. But this? This was different. He could see it in her eyes, bright and glittering in the morning sun.
She loves you.
“Zoe,” he said, his voice harsh. “You can’t—”
She shifted her hand, placed a finger across his mouth, silencing him. “I can. But it’s okay. You don’t have to say anything.”
He stared back at her, staying silent, something inside him dropping away. He should be putting her away from him, telling her to keep her distance. Telling her she couldn’t love a man like him, not now, not ever. He wasn’t for her and he never had been.
But after what he’d said, after everything he’d revealed, she was still here. Standing in front of him. Looking at him like nothing had changed.
He found he couldn’t move a muscle.
After a moment, Zoe took her finger away, rose up on her toes, and covered his mouth with hers.
And he was lost.
Chapter 14
His mouth was so warm, opening almost immediately, and she shuddered as his tongue touched hers. Her hands slipped away from his face, her fingers sliding down the powerful column of his neck to rest at the base of his throat, feeling the strong, steady beat of his pulse. His skin felt so good and he smelled of clean, male sweat and just . . . Gideon.
Her heart felt too full, too tender, as if her ribs were pressing against it.
After a night of no sleep, of tossing and turning and aching, she’d decided enough was enough. She wanted answers and she was going to get them whether he wanted to give them or not.
Then she’d come into the kitchen and there he’d been, leaning back against the counter, tall and dark and gleaming with sweat from his run. The tank he was wearing was sticking to the contours of his chest and abs, the dark branches of the cherry blossom tattoo that covered his torso extending out from underneath the cotton.
Sin for Me Page 21
