Page 50 of Shadow Dance

She looks up at me, her eyes clear and bright in the sunlight spilling through the trees. The same thread of energy I felt last night pulls taut between us again. Before I can act on it, she steps away and continues down the trail. I reach for her hand and give her a small tug, holding fast when she tries to shake me off. She glances back with a warning, but I reel her in, making her face me.

“What?” she asks, staring at my hoodie.

“You know what.” Before she can tell me off or go charging into the woods to ignore me for another few hours, I lift her face and kiss her.

Our lips have barely touched when Maeve gives me a hard shove and slaps me. “Really, Jaime? After what you said to me yesterday?” Her face is flushed with anger, but there’s something else, too. She’s hurt.

My cheek is on fire as I crowd her, forcing her back against the massive trunk of a redwood. “I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.”

“You must think I’m a real slut then, coming over for a sneaky fuck while my man was gone.” She shoves me again, growling when I don’t budge.

I laugh softly, which is the wrong thing to do because she wields a glare so sharp it nearly cuts my heart out. “Weren’t you, though?” I taunt, my pulse quickening at the blaze in her eyes. “You’re always looking at me like you want me to bend you over.”

“And what about the way you look at me? What about last night, when I was swimming? Who was staring then?” she hisses. “Fuck you, Jaime.”

“You keep saying that.” My dick hardens between us as I rub my thumb over her quivering bottom lip. “Is that what you want? For me to fuck you?”

She smacks my hand away, her furious eyes burning. “Stop acting like this is one-sided when you know it’s not.”

“It’s never been one-sided,” I agree, gazing down at her. She stills when I take her face in my hands, a different kind of fire in her eyes now. “But that doesn’t mean it’s okay.”

I kiss her slowly, gently fitting her mouth to mine. When she doesn’t resist, I move closer, pinning her with my hips. With a small sound, she strokes her hands up my chest and over my shoulders, sinking her fingers into my hair. I take it deeper still, exploring her mouth with my tongue until she pulls away with a gasp. “Wait,” she breathes, but I’m on her again, taking her mouth the way I want to take the rest of her.

Deeply, relentlessly.

I’ve kissed a lot of women. Usually, it’s a means to an end, a pitstop on the way to the bedroom. But I’ve never kissed someone quite like this. Maybe it’s because she’s off-limits, or because it’s been months and months of wanting something I can’t have, but I feel it everywhere. I’m turned on, but I feel it in my chest too.

I pull back just enough to look at her. Her lips are wet and red, and her eyes are glazed as she gazes up at me. “You were horrible to me last night,” she says in a small voice. “But this was all I wanted.”

“Was it?” I glide my hand down her hair and back up to the swell of her breast. She arches into my touch, her breath quickening as she clings to me. “Feels like you want a lot more.”

“I do,” she admits on a whisper. “Don’t you?”

I nod slowly, trailing my fingertips over the curve of her hips. Now that I’m touching her, I don’t know how to stop.

She looks at my lips. “So, then?—”

“It wouldn’t have stopped at kissing,” I say, squeezing her hip. “What if he’d come home?”

Her hands slip to the nape of my neck, and she tugs gently, trying to bring me back down. “But he didn’t.”

“But he could have.” I let my gaze travel over her face, taking advantage of the fragile privacy of this stolen moment. This close, I can see the faint freckles dusting the bridge of her nose and the gray ring surrounding the green of her eyes.

“Yeah,” she says finally, shuttering her eyes. “He would have killed us.”

Cal callsher on the way back to the car and I walk ahead, not wanting to hear their conversation. There are plenty of reasons why messing with Maeve is a bad idea, but here’s another one: the sense of ownership I feel after just a few kisses. Hot kisses, but still.

Maeve has hinted at trouble and discontent, suggesting she might be on her way out—but what if she isn’t? She wouldn’t be the first woman to stay in a similar situation.

If she stays, there’s a good chance we’ll continue this. Having a taste just makes me want more, no matter how risky and dumb it is. And in the meantime, I’ll continue spying on Cal until Cedro and Leo make their move.

If she leaves, I’m no longer necessary to Cal. I’ll probably be let go, and with the exception of the camera feeds, losing access to the details of Cal’s world. But I would be free, and so would she.

Free to do what, though? I have work here and she wants to go back to Boston.

I shade my eyes from the sun as we emerge from the woods. Why am I even thinking about this right now? I need to focus on my case, not how I can continue sneaking around with Maeve. Which is, by the way, dicey as fuck. If the Oliveras family has eyes on me, and Lewis’ team has eyes on me, it’s possible Cal might have eyes on me, too. I can’t get too comfortable.

Maeve catches up in the parking lot, climbing into the car beside me. “Callum’s bringing people over for dinner, and he wants me to cook.”

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