Page 18 of Come Inside

“I just want to keep you safe,” Mateo grumbled.

“Yeah, I fucking get that and that’s why you haven’t been kicked to the curb yet, but you’re going to have to trust me. I made it this many years without you, I can make it one night with just Kazi.”

Mateo heaved out a sigh, before curling his lips up smugly. “You think I’m hot?”

My head fell into my hands in exasperation. “Fucking men! Get out! I need to get dressed.”

Chapter 13

J.W.

J.W. shifted at the table, tapping his foot. He had a million other things to do, but he carved a space out of his endless work to be here. He needed a reprieve and found himself more excited than he had any right to be.

J.W. knew the woman he was meeting was going to be younger, but he wasn’t aware of the exact difference. The employee had sent over her profile, background, and interests.

The kink that she was most interested in.

Everything except her exact age and a picture.

So here he was at a booth in a corner of a hotel restaurant he had never frequented before, waiting for hisdate, fiddling with his watch impatiently. He had arrived twenty minutes early in his haste, and now he was forced to linger for her.

Movement in his periphery drew his attention, his brow creased.

He was familiar with the beautiful woman that ranDarkest Desires, but he couldn’t understand why she was the one meeting him… Unless his original match declined.

Irritation simmered under his skin.

A waste of time.

He stood up to greet her.

“Hello...” He took her hand, squeezing it lightly. He wasn’t exactly surewhat to call her.

He had only seen pictures of the woman prior. She was much smaller in person. She looked up at him through her lashes offering a striking smile. “Call me Yara, please.” She removed her hand from his, leaving a frigid emptiness behind. She gestured to the table. “Have a seat.”

J.W. was disgruntled but didn’t argue with the woman. He was still shocked by her appearance. Yara was well known in this town, except she was rarely seen out in public.

J.W. rigidly sat back down. He wasn’t accustomed to following anyone’s lead, but he found himself wanting to listen to her.

Yara took the space across from him. J.W. shifted agitatedly in his seat waiting for the woman to say something.

Anything.

Yara was a surprise. He was impatient and beginning to suspect this had in fact been a waste of his time, money, and energy.

“So how about this weather?” He threw out his go-to small talk line after she still didn’t speak.

Yara hummed, glancing around, staring out the window that took up an entire wall behind him. It was pitch-black outside.

“Was my match not able to make it?” he asked carefully after another moment, attempting to keep the disdain out of his voice and adjusting a cufflink.

“Not exactly.” The woman heaved a sigh and finally met his eyes.

For a moment he couldn’t breathe.

He was drowning.

Her eyes were beautiful, but it was the pain, the evidence of a lifetime of struggle reflected in their depths that had him clenching his fists.

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