Page 9 of Salacious Devotion

I ask the most pressing question. “Are you…married?”

He flinches. “No. Jesus, no. I’m still hung up on my dead girlfriend.”

I inhale sharply. My heart loosens. Could we possibly be able to… I can’t let myself think ahead like that. Nothing has changed. I can’t slide back into Dane’s life. It’s complicated. I’m fucking nervous about how many people are now aware his girlfriend came back from the dead. It’s not safe. Not for him or me.

His fingers tighten around my hips. “Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Married, baby. Are you married? Are you with someone?”

“No. I’ve never been with anyone else. I’m only marginally stable enough to live this giant, weird lie. Adding other people to it would have been too hard. I go to work and back to my apartment. I’m sort of friends with my boss, but I keep her and everyone else at arm’s length. I hate answering questions with lies.”

He stares at me. “Jesus. This is… I can’t believe you’re here. I can’t decide if I want to spank your ass until you can’t stop crying or fuck you clear into tomorrow.” His voice isn’t jovial. He’s serious.

I’m scared out of my mind when I say, “Could you do both?”

He rests his forehead against mine, inhaling deeply. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but no. I can’t do either. If I did, I would never be able to let you walk out of here.” He leans back a few inches, holding my gaze. “What the fuck am I saying? I can’t let you walk out of here no matter what.”

I slide my hands up his chest to his shoulders. “I have to be at work tomorrow morning.”

“Quit your job.”

I sigh. “I can’t do that, Dane. I can’t be here. Let alone be talking to you. You can’t see me again.” The words hurt. I don’t even believe them. They sound ridiculous. There’s no way I could walk out of here and not come back.

Dane’s eyes widen. “Not a fucking chance in hell, Paige.” His voice rises. He grabs my waist, lifts me off his lap, and stomps over to the king-sized bed on the other side of this odd studio apartment.

All the air whooshes from my lungs as he drops me onto my back on the bed. He climbs over me, straddling me. He’s breathing heavily.

“Shannon,” I murmur.

His face turns red.

“Dane, you have to call me Shannon. Erase Paige from your memory. She died.”

He shakes his head. “That’s too fucking weird. No one is in here but us. No one can hear us. I can’t fucking call you Shannon.”

I sigh. He’s right, and it would sound ridiculous coming from his lips.

“Do I have to cuff you to this bed, Paige? Because I will. I’ll fucking cuff you to me or the bathroom sink. If that’s what it takes, but you’re not fucking leaving.”

I lift my hands and set them on his chest. He’s so buff, much more so than he was three years ago. “Okay, calm down.”

“Calm down,” he shouts. “My girlfriend who died and left me broken in about a hundred different ways just walked into the club I belong to clear across the country from where she was killed, and you want me to fucking calm down?”

I lick my lips. “Okay, you’re right. But we have to talk this through. I can’t just not show up at work. I answer to a US Marshal, Dane. He keeps tabs on me. I’m not allowed to have any contact with anyone from my previous life. Never.”

“Things are about to change, baby. I won’t let you live apart from me any longer, and sometimes the FBI takes forever to solve a crime. Obviously. It’s been three years and you’re still in witness protection.”

“I have to remain in the program until they catch the man who robbed that bank and killed everyone. That could be forever.”

Dane stops breathing. His eyes widen. “Right. Of course. They need you to testify. If the asshole is found and brought to justice, you could have your life back.”

I sigh. “Yes. What’s left of it. People will freak out when they find out I’m alive.”

His brows lift. “Freak out? You think?”

“Yes.”

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