Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
One thing at a time.
* * *
He walked over to the O’Connor place. It felt weird to knock on the door, but he had no interest in being on the wrong end of a shotgun again. Sloan answered, shadows in her eyes for the first time since they’d had sex. She stared at him, but she didn’t move back to let him in or do anything other than wait.
“I have to leave town for a little bit,” he said.
“Thanks for letting me know.” She started to shut the door.
He stopped it before she could close him out. “Sloan…” There wasn’t much he could tell her without revealing everything—who he was, how he was connected to her without realizing it, the danger she was in because of him. “Don’t call anyone. Don’t go out at night. Keep a goddamn low profile until I’m back.”
Some life flared in her eyes. “I don’t need a keeper.”
“Not a keeper.” Protector. A hat he’d never had to wear—one he wasn’t sure fit him. He huffed out a breath. “It’s not safe.”
“Life rarely is.”
Damn it, he was fucking this up. Jude took a step back. “Come here.”
“We’ve been through this song and dance before, and considering the potential outcome, I don’t feel inclined to go another round.” She leaned against the doorframe. “I want you, Jude. I’d be a liar if I said otherwise, but this whole potential pregnancy thing is freaking me out, and I can’t even look at you without thinking about it. I know you’re scared, too, so please just give me some space until we know one way or another.”
When it became clear she had no intention of closing the distance between them, he did it, taking her hand. “Baby or no, this thing between us is nowhere near finished.”
“You were very clear about the expiration date, and after a pregnancy scare…I can’t do this back-and-forth with you. It twists me up.”
He traced a thumb over her inner wrist. If he were a better man, he’d tell her what was going on, what was at risk. He’d warn her to lose herself again and, this time, he wouldn’t lead the dogs right to her door.
But Jude wasn’t a better man, and he was nowhere near done with Sloan. Not yet. “You don’t want this to end.”
She looked up at him with eyes gone inky in the darkness. “Sometimes the pleasure isn’t worth the pain.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” He tugged on her wrist, and she allowed him to pull her against his chest. “The pleasure is always worth the pain. Life is too short for that to be anything but the truth.”
“Where are you going, Jude?”
He couldn’t tell her—not until he knew exactly what Dmitri Romanov had leveled at them. Not until he had a plan. “It’s not important.”
She arched her eyebrows. “Important enough to leave. Important enough that you’re telling me to be careful.”
She has you there.
He went with half the truth. “I have a complicated history. Someone interested in my past has made threats that I can’t dismiss. Since you’re close to me, those threats extend to you.”
“That’s incredibly vague.” She frowned. “And we’re not close. We’re just sleeping together.”
A shard of something like hurt went through him at her words, but he pushed it away and snagged the back of her neck. “We’re not just anything.” He kissed her, harsh and brutal. “Stay safe until I get back.”
Sloan blinked up at him. “You still owe me answers. Real answers.”
“I know.” There’d be no escaping it once he returned.
There wouldn’t be any escaping anything.
* * *
Life fell into a strange sort of rhythm with Jude gone. Sloan worked in the diner, did yoga with Jessica, and spent her evenings with Sorcha. She didn’t particularly like the older woman, but she was nothing short of entertaining.
Through it all, Sloan worried about Jude, about the threat that had called him away, about the fact she hadn’t gotten her period yet despite taking the morning-after pill.
Telling herself that every single thing she feared was beyond her control didn’t do anything but deepen her anxiety. Jude was obviously capable, and just because he said there was a threat didn’t mean it was a threat like she would have fielded growing up as an O’Malley.
Normal people didn’t worry about urban warfare between mobs or drive-by shootings or convenient fires that showed up when people didn’t fall in line.
She was just projecting her own issues onto him. Simple. But no matter how many times she told herself that, with each day that went by without word, her fear deepened.
A week into Jude’s absence, she couldn’t stand it any longer. She called Teague on one of the burner phones she’d hidden under her bed. It rang and rang and rang before finally clicking over to voicemail. Sloan hung up without leaving a message.