Page 76 of Last Shot

‘You let go,’ she finished for him, her eyes not leaving his face. ‘That’s not killing someone, Grey.’

Not like what I almost did.

‘I was holding him.’ He stretched out his arm, clenching his fist, the tendons in his forearms tensing. ‘And then I wasn’t.’ He splayed his fingers, dropping his arm to his thigh. ‘Life and death. All in my control.’

Max sensed there was something else, something more to the memory, but she didn’t care. It felt like a rabid beast had suddenly stopped thrashing and had settled down by her feet, head bowed. She brushed her fingers against the arm he’d left hanging, tracking the raised ropes of veins – little roads leading to places she should never know.

He shivered against her again. Did she frighten him? But he didn’t back away. Instead, he moved closer as she traced random patterns down his skin – well, they were random at first. She spoke to him silently through the words she traced, lulling him back, away from the memory, away from the guilt and the pain that she understood all too well. They’d tasted the same poisoned cup.

She wanted to siphon that pain from his bones. She would take some of it for him; she could take care of him in this small way. Max always had to be in control, to take care of things, ever since her parents died. Sometimes she did it to a fault, but other times, like now, she knew this was exactly what she was meant to be doing. She wondered if he’d ever had someone look after him.

‘You say you don’t know if you consciously fired that last shot,’ he said into her shoulder. Underneath the cologne that smelled like cherries and whisky, she caught a scent that made her close her eyes. It was the smell of that moment before you rip the Christmas present open. You can feel the curves and edges of that gift you’ve dreamed about, that you’ve wished for with all your heart and you just know it’s there beneath the thin, shiny paper. Greyson smelled like that first tear of wrapping paper. Like the middle pages of a new book. Underneath the expensive Italian perfume, he was real.

‘Yes,’ she breathed, not daring to say anything more in case he moved.

‘Do you think you’ll ever know? Do you think you’ll be okay not knowing?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Why?’

His head jerked up from her shoulder, and the movement felt like she’d been tossed out of a boat, capsized and drowning without the heavy weight of him. His brown eyes, the colour of a forest floor after the rain, were no longer clouded. They were burning, dark skies alight with a lightning storm. ‘Because I don’t know if I let him go or he lost his grip.’

His eyes searched her face for horror. For shame, or fear, or whatever it was he was waiting for. She burned back at him, daring him to ask, to confess he thought that little of her. That, after everything she’d told him, he thought she wouldn’t understand.

When he found none of that, he confessed something else. But this time, not with words.

25

Max

There’s that moment when a car rolls and the world is not yet upside-down but not the right way up either. There’s no time to consider it in the moment, because the moment is all encompassed by that feeling.

Max never thought she’d feel it again.

She’d neverwantedto feel it again.

But the sensation of Grey’s mouth on hers had the world tilting in that space between reality, spinning on its axis, spiralling out of control. The force of him pushed her against the glass. She didn’t care if it shattered. She’d die from blood loss before she let him go. And that thought should have been enough to terrify her into pulling away, but instead she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. Off course. A car spinning on a sheet of ice. Colours, sounds, smells a blur of endings and beginnings choking every thought from her mind.

Except for his lips. Softer than they should have been. Enormous, intimidating guys should not be capable of kissing like that. Like she was made of smoke or water and he was trying to capture every essence of her before she disappeared forever.

He tasted like roadhouse coffee and banana. He’d refused even a sip of the iced Diet Coke she’d inhaled before visiting Libby. Guess he was finally getting a taste now.

His fists were unfurled, strong, calloused fingers tracing the lines of her shoulder blades with an impossible gentleness that did not fit with the rough, animalistic tension release she would have expected from a turned-on Greyson Hawke. Stubble cut across her face as her tongue roved deeper, tasting more. The sensation went through her entire body like a static shock. Parts of her screamed for that rough jaw – her stomach, between her thighs.

Sense had long since splintered in her mind like a bullet on impact.

A vulnerable moan escaped her as his hands moved to the light leather skirt barely covering her arse anymore. ‘Keep going,’ she growled, realising he was waiting for permission. He didn’t need to be encouraged; neither did the skirt. She’d never had a tattoo onthispart of her body but the feeling of his fingertips gripping her flesh was going to be branded on her forever.

He must hate her more than she’d thought. It was the cruellest trick to play, the game he was playing with his hands, his mouth. But she – her body – didn’t care if it was an illusion. She didn’t care if, in this particular car crash, she was already dead.

And dear god, the way he kissed her throat as he pressed that hardness through his zip against her didn’t feel like a trick. His fingers found the edges of her underwear as she wrapped one leg around his torso. Everywhere he touched ignited little flames across her body of ice. Melting away her frozen guard.

‘Fuck, Conrad.’ His voice was a shattered version of itself. The jagged neck of a broken wine bottle. His hands gripped tighter, moulding into her flesh, sending electric currents through her blood, right to her heart, shocking her back to life. She wanted to know everything he thought, everything he felt in this moment. She wanted to rip him open, step inside and zip herself back up.

But she had no right to any of that. Even as he was ... even if he was ...

She bit his shoulder, tasting that Christmas paper, cherry and whisky that sent her dangerously close to the edge. He shouldn’t be allowed to walk around just smelling and looking like this.

Something shuddered against her neck and she realised too late she’d spoken aloud. He was smiling, his eyes glinting like caves deep with hidden jewels. ‘Inside?’ The question was shadowed by a vulnerable look of uncertainty. Greyson Hawke, vulnerable? The sight should have sent a surge of smug pride through her – she’d finally peeled him back far enough to expose his bones. But instead all she felt was a molten warmth, spreading uncontrollably, knowing she was the one he was looking at like that, she was the one he’d told ...

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