Page 77 of Javier

To top it off, my orders were to stay put. I fucking hated that. The longer we stayed in one place, the higher the chances that the NWO would find us. As if I didn’t have enough shit piled on my plate, the nightmare returned last night. It’d been so vivid that I feared closing my eyes. This morning, as it happened often, I’d woken up sweaty, with my heart pounding like a howitzer, reliving the agony of the day it all went to shit.

“Well?” Missy’s voice interrupted my internal pity party. “Thoughts?”

My gaze wandered over the subject of my obsession. Missy’s dress was tied at the back of her neck with a ropy string.It held up the vertical strips of fabric cupping her gorgeous, compact breasts at either side of an eye-popping neckline that plunged all the way down to her waist. If I just pulled on that string, she’d be naked, and I’d be lost.

Talk about being balls to the wall.

Mayday. Mayday. Mayday.

“You like?” Hands on her hips, Missy turned around like a model on the runway.

I peeked over my polarized lenses and watched her sweet little ass as she did her slow turn. The sinful little dress was entirely backless. It revealed the smooth planes of her back down to the curve of her lower spine. The playful little tassels that fringed the hem danced around her as she completed the circle.

My nearly hallucinatory response to those devilish tassels almost did me in.Come and get us, the little tassels sing-sang in my head, echoing Missy’s playful voice.

“What did you say?” I demanded hoarsely.

“I asked you if you liked my new dress,” she repeated, slowly this time, as if I was dumb.

It was official. I was out of my goddamn mind.

“Well?” she insisted. “Thumbs up or down?”

Was this a trick question?

I forced myself to swallow and cleared the cobwebs from my throat. The first thing that shot out of my mouth was, “Where did you get that?”

“Pierre bought it for me when he and Gerard went into town after lunch.” She grabbed the sides of the short skirt, did a little curtsey, and smiled down on herself. “Cute, isn’t it? I haven’t worn anything like this in ages, if ever. Gerard chose the shoes for me.”

I dropped my gaze down. The pair of wedge sandals she wore highlighted her smooth calves as if encouraging me to runmy lips up her legs all the way to her—

“Those jerks bought clothes for you?” My throat quaked with a rumble. “And you accepted them?”

“It wasn’t like that.” Her smile sputtered before she recovered. “I took some money from our stash. You said I could, remember? I gave it to them and told them my sizes so they could buy me these. There’s a pool party tonight, and I promised I’d go. They did get me these as a present.” She placed her hands behind her golden earrings and gave the large hoops a little shake. “I haven’t worn jewelry in—”

“Yes, I know,” I interrupted too curtly. “Three years.”

Her eyes widened and her cheeks gained color. I realized the frustration gnawing at my stomach had gotten the better of me. An odd ache bloomed in my chest when she lowered her gaze. Raking her lips over her lower lip, she inspected her new shoes.

Fuck me. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt her feelings or ruin her confidence.

And yet, here I was, doing exactly that.

Yeah, the gods hated my guts. I hated my guts, too.

“Why didn’t you ask me to buy the stuff for you?” I lashed out, unable to repress my anger. “I could’ve gotten all that junk for you.”

“You seem so busy.” She lifted her exposed shoulders then dropped them. “You haven’t said a word to me all day. You think of this stuff as junk. I think of it as an experiment.”

I frowned. “An experiment?”

“Yes, I want to be a better, different me.”

She studied my face as if I could somehow find it within me to support her in her latest endeavor. It irked me to hell and back that she didn’t know she was gorgeous exactly as she was. She didn’t need to be better or different. She was perfect, but if I told her this, I’d have to tell her everything else. What she did tome. How I felt about her. What I wanted to do with her—

Don’t do it. I pressed my lips together and swallowed the words.Keep your mouth shut.

“Javi, please, don’t be mad at me.” She shifted on her sandals and glanced down on herself again. “I haven’t dressed up in a while. Tonight is important to me. Is it too much?”

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