Page 84 of The Savage King

I lift the side of my lip into a smirk. “I want to hurt you in ways you don’t yet understand.”

Stop talking about sex with her.

“What if I want to?”

Fuck.

I know she doesn’t mean it. Not the way she thinks. Isabelle doesn’t want my rejection, but she will keep her promise to her fiancé.

I can’t do this. Even if Todd would only slap me with his tennis socks, I still can’t.

I move to sit up and she tugs me back down.

No, she didn’t. You’re one hundred pounds heavier than her. You let her pull you down.

“Don’t,” I say. Goddamn her blue eyes. They’re like Decker remote controls. I move to the side and sit on the floor, pulling my knees up.

Isabelle sits up and crosses her legs, facing me. Again, she looks cute, and I’m annoyed.

“I know you wouldn’t risk my life for no reason. Please help me understand why we are here. I have a right to know.”

She does.

Although telling anyone about this is a risk. I watch her for a long moment, feeling a pull from her that I know will hurt like a motherfucker when I have to watch her walk away from me.

“There are women who need my help. One of the things I did while in the cartel was feed information back to my contacts, and many times they were successful in intervening and returning them to their homes.”

It’s also a risk telling her this.

Not so much for me, though if she was taken from me before I got her home. Plus, if they torture her, there’s any number of assumptions Pablo could lean into if Isabelle talked.

They might think she was a spy.

They might think she was an operative.

Either way, it would be harder for her, whatever conclusion they come to. Still, I don’t intend to let anyone take her, so I allow those blue globes to pull information out of me when not even terrorists could.

“You’re helping women?” she asks softly.

“And probably children.” I give a brief nod.

“Why didn’t you tell me? That’s amazing,” Isabelle says, and part of me hates that she’s looking at me differently now. As if I wasn’t good enough before, she thinks I am now.

Which is irrelevant since she’s engaged.

To stupid Todd.

I stare at her for a bit and then rub my jaw. “I guess we both have secrets.”

Her eyes drop and I take this opportunity to say what I’ve been wanting to tell her for days. As attracted to her as I’ve been since the moment I saw her, and despite my reasons for doing so, what I did to her on the first day in Mexico was wrong.

I reach out and take her hand. “I should never have touched you.” She nods, not looking at me. “Can you forgive me?”

When she lifts her head, her eyes are shimmering with such sadness it slams into my chest and breaks my fucking heart.

“Izzy,—”

“Deck, I—”

---