Page 191 of Remy

“Ollie…” His voice is raw.

I can’t speak.

Beneath the glow of the moonlight, I see it all—his gloved hand, the pooling blood.

I’ve tried to imagine him like this so many times. To envision the brutality. The confident ease with which he takes a life.

For some reason, I could never fully craft the image.

Yet now it’s here. In dark and sinister shades under the glow of a late spring moon.

I wait for disgust to grip me by the throat. For horror to take hold.

Nothing latches its claws around me. At least nothing malevolent.

There’s only overwhelming relief.

He’s alive.

I’m alive.

“It’s okay.” He slowly lowers the dead man’s head and retreats from the sedan, holding his gloved hands up in surrender. “You can take the car. I won’t chase you. I just want you to think rationally and get somewhere safe.”

Take the car? Chase me?

“I don’t understand,” I whisper.

“They had to die, Pyro.”

I shake my head. That’s not what I meant.

I understand that he did what was needed. I’m not naive. This is who he is. How he works.

“Go.” He juts his chin toward the Escalade. “Get back to your dad. I won’t follow.”

He won’t follow? He thinks I want to run from him?

“I’m not going anywhere.” I start forward, slowly at first, but with each step the compounding waves of adrenaline build.

I need to touch him. Hold him.

I want to feel with my own hands that he’s all right. That there are no bullet holes or stab wounds.

“What are you doing?” He yanks off his gloves and throws them against the sedan’s hood, then hesitantly walks for me.

I’m jogging in my Jimmy Choos by the time he reaches the road, my dress swishing around my ankles, my heart clogging my throat.

“Ollie, no,” he warns. “There’s glass.”

I don’t care. I don’t give a damn if there are nails or spikes or lava. I keep running for him, and he keeps striding toward me until we’re feet apart and I’m launching myself at his chest.

He catches me, his strong hands gripping my hips as I wrap my legs around his waist, a mass of dress material pooled between us.

He’d been hesitant to kiss me in the bar, but I no longer have the sense to consider his reluctance. I palm his jaw and slam my mouth to his, all smashed lips and gasped breaths.

He doesn’t deny me.

Instead he groans into the contact, his fingers digging at the flesh of my hips, his tongue demands entry to my mouth.

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