Page 59 of Moth to a Flame

“Little lamb. Another second of this…” He groans and bites my earlobe. Instead of running away, I lean into him. “I’ll rip your fucking clothes off. I’ll tear you apart. And I don’t think that’s what you meant when you said you wanted to meet me outside.”

Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom.

In the silent hallway, that’s everything I hear. My heart roaring in my ears.

Because he’s hot.

Because he’s giving me exactly what I want, no questions asked.

“Yes.” I straighten my spine, looking him in the eye. Into the burning coals. “We’ll go. Only if you promise to tell me what you did in the office.”

“I had business in the city. It got messy. Had to change out of my clothes and my offices were closer than my home. I only have clean suits there, but I wanted to see you, so I changed that. The end.” His hand slides down my leggings, and he smiles when he finds my gun there. “What’s this? Still scared of me?”

Honesty goes both ways. “I don’t go anywhere without it.”

His eyes grow impossibly darker. His fingers pull harder on my hair. “Good girl.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you.”

“You have every right to.” His voice is husky and dangerously low. “Don’t ever apologize for that. Don’t trust anyone who hasn’t earned it, Regan.”

Heat creeps up my neck, burning my face. I swallow around the lump in my throat.

“Let’s get out of here, or you can trust another thing, and that’s that I’ll fuck every hole in your body all the way to next year.”

We’re out in the street in a matter of seconds. The temperatures have dropped over the last week. The air is cool around us. Except I’m not cold. I’m cocooned into Landon’s side, with his arm slung possessively around my shoulders.

For the first few blocks, we’re silent, walking under the white glow coming from the lampposts. Watching cars driving by. One of them honks. The other man flips him off.

I giggle, and Landon squeezes me into him. I can’t remember the last time I laughed around a man who isn’t Dad or one of our elderly customers.

Landon raises an eyebrow, eyeing me closely as we cross the road. “You have questions.”

Out of the million other things I could ask, this is the question that pops up. “Am I getting another pair of eyeballs tonight?”

His expression is blank, like he’s considering his answer. “No.”

“What got messy then?”

At that, his lips curl to the side. Just a tiny bit before he looks straight at the street ahead. “Surprise.”

“Will you tell me about it?”

“Yes.” The corners of his eyes crinkle, and I can tell how hard he’s trying to suppress a smile. “When the time is right.”

I mull his answer over in my head, deciding it satisfies me enough to ask another question. “Where do you live if not in the city?”

“I could tell you.” He gazes at me again, playfully tugging on my hair. “Though I’d much rather show you, little lamb.”

“No.” The answer comes out too fast and it’s all wrong. “Not right now.”

“Fair enough. But I can’t promise to be patient for long.” His husky voice will be the end of me. “My turn. When did you open the store? Why repair electronics?”

“When I was eighteen. We inherited the building from our grandparents, and I needed not to live too close to where I grew up, after…”

My shoulders slump. Landon’s there in a heartbeat, stopping and pulling me into his embrace. He doesn’t pity me, though. He’s just there, strong enough for the both of us. For me to continue.

“Rosemary is two years older than me. She wouldn’t move out before I graduated from high school.” Talking about my familyand Landon’s hug are a balm to my soul. I pull on his hand, signaling for us to keep walking. “Until then, she helped Mom manage Dad’s finances and other administrative work. As soon as I graduated, we moved out here.”

---