Page 18 of Morally Grey

Guilt rears its annoying head again. It reminds me that I’m the reason my wife and I lost our home. That also means I’m the reason my wife and child are no longer alive. Happiness is something I don’t deserve. It’s something I will never deserve.Fucking Briar was a means to an end. I just went along with it so that she’ll eventually let me go.

But as I look at her again, I know that isn’t true. I fucked her because I wanted to. Yeah, she’s borderline insane, but something about her brand of weird intrigues me instead of running me off. Her looks reel me in further.

The only thing holding me back is the memory of my wife.

“I think it’s a five,” Briar says. “She’s definitely punching the middle of the keypad. It’s too high up to be zero, and it’s too low to be two. It’s five or nine.”

I scribble on the notepad. “So it looks like the code is two-seven-five or five-seven-five. Or maybe even two-seven-two. Does that sound right to you?”

“I’m not certain about the last number. It could be either.” She nibbles her lip, and I have to look away. “How many tries do you think we’ll get?”

“There’s one way to find out.” I pull the laptop in front of me and search for the safe’s manufacturer. My answer appears after a few clicks. “We get three tries before we’re locked out.”

Briar flops back on the sofa and blows a few strands of auburn hair out of her face. “If we were only unsure of one number, that wouldn’t be an issue, but two? We’d need at least four tries, and that’sifwe’re certain about the other numbers.”

She’s starting to get antsy, and I can’t have that. If I want to pull off this burglary, I need her help. I turn toward her and take her face into my hands.

“We will do this. Together. You’re going to save your house, and I’m going to book a flight to a country that doesn’t extradite.” I lean closer so that her eyes are forced onto mine. “Look at me, Briar.”

Her green eyes rise to mine, and whatever I planned to say goes right out of my head. Instead of talking, I lean closer and kiss her. At first, it’s just a gut reaction to this contagiousinsanity. She’s dangerous and beautiful, and I feel safest when I’m inside her, even though being inside her feels so wrong.

My dick hardens as her tongue presses against mine, asking for more. When I don’t provide it, she grabs my hand and presses my fingertips between her legs with a soft moan against my mouth. I swallow her sounds and grind my fingers over her.

She pulls her mouth from mine and rolls her hips against my fingers. “Take off your pants, then don’t stop touching me.”

Like a siren issuing a command to a sailor, she demands things of me that I know I shouldn’t do. Things that put my very life on the line. Because I can’t stay. Even if we pull this off and we get more money than we know what to do with, she has ties to this land, and I need to cut all ties.

And even if she didn’t have ties to the land, I have ties that won’t break, no matter how I try to untangle myself from the past. I’ll never be able to give this woman what she deserves, and I’ll only hurt her in the end.

“If you knew this would only end in heartache, would you still do it?” I ask.

She huffs out a breath and rolls her eyes as she sits back. “If you don’t want to fuck, you can just say so. There’s no need to come up with silly excuses and reasons.”

“Briar, that’s not it. It’s?—”

“Your wife?”

Against my better judgment, I nod, then brace myself for a tirade. But Briar surprises me. Instead of launching into a jealous rage, she reaches out and takes my hand in hers.

“Look, I can’t understand what happened with your wife unless you talk to me about it. Maybe if I know how Gloria caused your wife’s death, I can at least try to understand, but you have to give me the opportunity.”

I stare into my lap, at the calluses on the palms of my hands. My mouth forms the words, but I can’t say them. I’ve never felt so weak in my life.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Briar gets to her feet and leaves the room. When she returns, she’s holding the ankle shackles in her hands. “I want to show you something. I want you to see...” She grits her teeth and looks at the ceiling, then takes a deep breath and looks at me. “I want to show you my deepest, darkest secret. But you have to wear these.”

I look at the shackles. “Why?”

“Just...put them on. You just have to wear them. You’ll understand why when we get there.”

This seems like a pretty horrific omen of terrible things to come, but I fasten the ankle shackles to my legs anyway.

“You’ll need your boots. We have to go into the woods for this.” She drops my shoes at my shackled feet. “Once I show you this, you can also trust that I won’t turn you in. It’s pretty damning, and it explains why I can’t lose this property.”

A cold sweat slicks my palms as I tie my laces. What could be so horrible that it would cause her to go to drastic measures to keep this land? I figured it was just a sentimental attachment, but the way she’s talking, this goes deeper than that.

Despite my growing unease, I stand and follow her out the front door. As the sun dips lower in the sky, we walk into the woods.

Chapter Twelve

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