Page 41 of Wilde and Deadly

He sighed. He’d faced down insurgents, IEDs, and the kind of hellfire most people wouldn’t walk away from. He wasn’t about to lose sleep over a five-foot-four spitfire and a damn kitchen knife.

“Where the hell did you find that?”

Her gaze flicked to the magnetic knife rack on the wall right next to them. Sure enough, the paring knife was missing. He hadn’t even seen her take it.

“Back off, or I’ll cut off your favorite appendage.”

“You won’t,” he said and smiled. “You like that part of me too much.”

She hissed like a pissed-off hell cat, but the pressure of the blade eased. “I hate you.”

“So you’ve said. Many times.”

“I don’t need your help. I can handle this on my own.”

He let out a humorless laugh. “Right, because you’ve done such a bang-up job of it so far.” He leaned in closer, his nose nearly brushing hers. “In case you haven’t noticed, you’re bleeding all over my shirt.”

She looked down at the spreading stain on the borrowed shirt and swore.

“Yeah. So cut the tough girl act and just tell me what the hell is going on.”

She shoved at his chest again, but he still didn’t budge. “You shouldn’t care about me or my safety. We fuck, Wilde. We use each other to scratch that itch. That’s it. No emotions. We don’t even like each other!”

No emotions?

He would’ve laughed if it didn’t feel like she’d just taken that damn knife and twisted it straight into his gut.

No emotions.

Like they were nothing.

Like she didn’t know damn well what this was.

Like she hadn’t just looked at him like he was the only thing keeping her standing.

His grip on her flexed. His breathing slowed, rough, uneven.

The smart thing would be to let go of her. To back away and let her go on pretending all they had between them was sex.

But, fuck, he didn’t want to be smart. He wanted to fight her on this. Wanted to make her say it first. Wanted to shove her against the wall and kiss every goddamn lie out of her mouth.

He was tired of pretending.

And before he could stop himself, those dangerous words clawed up his throat, words he couldn’t take back once said.

“You’re right. I don’t like you.” His voice dropped, rough, unsteady, scraping his throat raw, betraying him. “I fucking love you.”

Her eyes flared wide. Yeah, he’d caught her off guard with that one. Hell, he’d caught himself off guard. He hadn’t meant to say it. Not like that. But now that the truth was out, he couldn’t take it back.

Didn’t want to.

He’d spent most of the last year trying to bury this.

Telling himself it wasn’t real.

That it was habit, frustration, just good sex.

But he’d been lying to himself.

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