Page 7 of Killer Lies (The Chaos Crew 2)

I blinked at her. “How did you know I meditate?”

She shrugged. “Blaze mentioned it. He said he learned how from you.”

“I practice yoga,” I said. “Meditating is the only part Blaze enjoys, so that’s what he does. I do it all. There’s a lot more to it.”

A sly glint sparked in Dess’s eyes. “I bet that makes you flexible.”

Damn it if my dick didn’t start to harden just with that brief remark, as if she meant anything like that by it. I gritted my teeth against the pang of arousal and evened out my breathing.

“Yes, but that’s not what you want to be focused on right now. There are two main strategies that we can use, but before we attempt either of them, you need to be relaxed. I suspect that’s going to take some work. I can feel your tension from here.”

“I’m not sure I know how to relax,” Dess admitted.

“You’ve got to learn, or none of this will help you,” I said, and she huffed. I watched as she willed her shoulders down. “Good. We’ll work on relaxing you more, but first I want to tell you the two things we’re going to try. Visualization and disassociation.”

“Those sound like fancy words for sitting on my ass. Is this really all that meditation is?”

I took a deep breath. “Do you want to learn or not?”

She winced. “Sorry. Continue.”

I took in the way her black hair tumbled across her shoulders. Her spine remained straight, her slim figure on lovely display within her fitted tee and sweats, but her pert chin dipped in concentration.

Then I mentally swatted myself across the head for leering at her. Maybe I shouldn’t be lecturing her about staying on topic.

I reined in my other impulses and thought back to some of my earliest lessons. “The conditioning is in your head, so you’re going to need mental tricks to deal with it. That’s why it’s best to clear your thoughts as much as possible first. With visualization, you can imagine that the conditioned commands are a wave that simply washes over you without catching hold. Picture yourself holding firm while the words roll over you and slip away. Can you try that?”

Dess nodded, her movements already slowing as she sank into the sort of mental zone I was familiar with. She did pick up training fast, didn’t she? She stayed still for a while, her chest rising and falling within her cotton shirt, and I definitely wasn’t noticing how well her toned curves moved beneath that fabric.

“You said the other way is disassociation?” she prompted after a few minutes. “What does that involve?”

And so eager to learn. Another thought that shouldn’t have sent a twinge of desire to my cock but did.

I pushed those emotions aside yet again. “That’s right. You can disassociate yourself from the girl who went through the conditioning—convince yourself that it happened to a different woman, separate from who you are now. If you aren’t the one who was conditioned, then the effect can’t work on you.”

Dess hummed to herself. “That makes sense. I like that one. I feel different already.”

“That’s a good place to start, then.”

She inhaled and exhaled even more deeply than before. I could see the loosening effect spreading through her entire body. Gradually, more of the tension fell from her posture and her face. A softness crept over her features, totally at odds with her usually tough exterior.

Not many people would have gotten to see the vulnerable side of this woman. I was honored to witness it.

What was passing through her head right now as she sat there, a goddess of death incarnate? She looked so breakable, but I saw the illusion for what it was. I knew how unbreakable she truly was.

The two factors in combination made her all the more appealing. When had I ever known a woman like this in my entire life? A woman who could hold her own against me in so many ways…

But as lust flickered up from my belly, a memory snuffed it out. The memory of the eleven-year-old girl with desperate eyes, dashing into an alley.

Dess needed help now just like she had back then, not to be treated like a conquest. I wasn’t going to take advantage of her while she worked through her tangled past. Maybe when she’d healed more—

No, I wasn’t even going to let myself think about that.

Other questions about the future lingered in the back of my mind. She could be here with us for quite a while. With her deadly precision and strength, she’d be an incredible asset in our line of work. Having the Ghost as part of the Chaos Crew? We’d be even more unstoppable than we already were.

Would she even want to join us? I couldn’t see broaching the subject just yet. But while she was with us, I’d get the chance to see just how well this cunning assassin could fit within our ranks.

The rest we’d have to take from there.

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