Page 69 of Wait For It

She released an exaggerated sigh and extended her wrists toward me. “You got me, and here I thought I was so clever.”

Unable to resist temptation, I latched onto her wrists, tugging her body closer to mine. “I knew it. Only an amateur would have chosen the candlestick over the revolver.”

The grin returned. “And who attacks someone in the library when there’s a perfectly good cellar nearby?”

I held my grip, running my thumb over her skin before teasing, “Rookie mistake, slugger.”

Her gaze settled on my mouth, a furious blush creeping up her throat. “I’ll try to plan my attacks better in the future.”

This time, when her voice moved between octaves, I suspected it was due to my proximity and not a result of her injury. Four inches stood in the way of our mouths.

Four. Inches.

If I pulled her wrists toward me just a little more, gravity would take care of the rest. Unfortunately, my plan hadn’t accounted for one of the puppies getting there first. Kyrie stood on her hind legs and began licking Ari’s mouth and chin, whipping my arm with her little golden tail until I shifted away.

Alright, maybe I had that coming.

Couldn’t slide into home without getting a little scuffed up on the way.

“Do you think this is what heaven is like?” Ari giggled, letting the puppy feast on her face like I’d wanted to only moments before.

Knowing there was no sense in getting jealous of an animal, especially one as cute as Kyrie, I shifted my focus over to her question. “If, uh, if I believed in that, then sure. I’d imagine this was pretty damn close.”

She lowered the pup back down to her lap. Her eyes lingered on the tattoos on my arms before coming up to rest on my face. “But you believe in angels.”

I shook my head. “No, I said my mama believes in angels. Religion is right up there with ghosts, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve seen too many people use it as a way to lessen their guilt. Like, ‘Oh, you can’t be mad at me for acting like an asshole because Jesus forgave me for my sins.’ It’s so hypocritical. I’ve yet to meet someone who wasn’t putting on an act to appease some deity. I’ll take something real over that crap any day.”

I’ll take you.

I looked away before I could finish the thought. Because while I didn’t buy into the supernatural, I couldn’t deny what I was starting to feel for Ari and it scared me to death.

Her eyebrows pulled together again, creating two small lines in the center of her forehead. She didn’t seem like an overly religious person, but it appeared my response had left her perplexed. “Well, who do you think that girl was?”

Ari had been hung up on my mystery savior since the night I told her, even going as far as talking about it in her sleep. While I found her need to reassure me she wasn’t an angel endearing, I preferred to focus on my future and not my past.

I wasn’t that guy anymore.

“A hallucination? Maybe some Good Samaritan who didn’t want to stick around to give a witness statement? I don’t know. Does it bother you that I don’t believe?”

“I guess it’s just ironic, that’s all,” she said, giggling as one of the puppies burrowed under her arm. At my blank expression, she elaborated. “Because your name meanschurch. I take it your family’s religious?”

“Is yours?” I turned the question back on her, unhappy with the sudden turn of events.

We were supposed to be kissing, dammit. We’d been dancing around it for the better part of the last two weeks with our heated stares, yet neither one of us had made a move.

Ari exhaled a sigh and reached out to stroke Kyrie’s head. “Yes.”

“You don’t sound very happy about that.”

She put all of her efforts into the petting. The pup flopped down in her lap with a drowsy groan. “I think that in the wrong hands, religion becomes a weapon instead of a tool.”

“Growing up, my mom dragged me to every Sunday service. My father—” I took a deep breath. “Well, for the longest time, I think he was attending the church of Jack and Jim.”

“Jack and Jim?”

“Whiskey, Ari. My dad was an alcoholic.” The words were just as bitter as they had been when I was a kid. “He’d go off on these benders, disappearing for days at a time. I begged my mama to leave. I thought we’d be better off just the two of us, you know?”

“Did he hurt y’all?” she asked quietly, her green eyes wide with worry.

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