Page 82 of Jinxed

Drawing a fortifying breath and filling my chest until it feels like it might burst, I exhale again and hit the call button for the elevator.

“Wait a sec,” Archer calls across the expanse of the glass and tile floor. “Fletch and I will come down with you.”

“I don’t want to wait for them,” I whisper to Rory, drawing her eyes and a sweet smile to her lips. Lips I’ve never kissed. Not the real, proper, soul-shattering, life-changing kind.

Not the kiss of a lover.

When the doors open and the elevator arrives, empty, I lead her in and turn back to face our distracted crowd. Detective Fletcher chats with Doctor Emeri, and Detective Malone talks to Mayet. Kane and his crew watch me, with narrowed eyes and curious stares, but they don’t make a sound as the doors slide shut and the elevator becomes just ours.

Me and Rory.

All alone, perhaps for the last time ever.

“Everything’s gonna be okay.” I turn to her so our toes touch and her chest presses against mine. She breathes heavily, nervous as her instincts scream that something feels off. But she trusts me. She gulps when I reach up with my free hand and press my palm to the smooth, warm skin of her throat, then she reaches up with her free hand and wraps it around my wrist. “It’s gonna be over soon,” I promise her. “I’ve got things in place to smoke Vallejo out. And the second he does…”

She swallows, so the movement rubs along my palm. “You’ll lop his head off.”

I choke out a small laugh and lean in to press my forehead to hers. “Something like that, Little Bird. I thought I already did it once. But I guess I needed to be more thorough.”

“I appreciate everything you’ve done for me since we met.” She blinks once, twice, three times so the third squeezes a tear from between her lashes and sends it dribbling along her cheek. “I appreciate that you were the best man I ever met. After knowing my dad,” she rasps, “and my ex, I guess I was convinced all men suck. That they cheat and lie.” Clearing her throat, she closes her eyes and breathes through her panic. “Thank you for always being honest with me, even when you thought that honesty was a little toorealand might hurt.”

“Always straight, right?” I hate that my voice cracks. That my heart aches and my nervous system sends shots of adrenaline pulsing through my blood. When she nods, I lick my lips and tilt her face up until she flutters her lashes open and sees me again. “As the cop who is supposed to protect you, it would be wrong of me to tell you that I love you, Aurora.”

Her eyes flash wide and panicked. But that panic quickly turns to fresh tears.

“It’s wrong of me to have feelings for a witness. Especially one as young as you are.”

Moisture dribbles along her cheeks and plops onto my hand.

“But?”

“But as a man,” I sigh, drawing her to her toes and bringing her lips closer to mine. “As a man, I promise to do whatever it takes to make you safe.” I run the pad of my thumb across her throat and lower until our lips touch and her breath explodes into my mouth.

Unraveling her arm from mine, she wraps it over my shoulder instead and forces me closer until nothing separates us.

Not air.

Not light.

Not the mafia paying a fortune to have her killed, and not a badge, forbidding me to touch.

Our tongues duel and her teeth score themselves into my mind forever. She kisses like she knows this is our one and only chance, and I try desperately to use this time to plan a different outcome.

A better way.

A safer way.

“Whatever it takes,” I murmur, savoring her flavor on my tongue, and her supple body beneath my hands. “Whatever,” I repeat, reaching out to hit the button for the lobby floor.

“We wasted time.” She nibbles on my bottom lip, playing with me and knowing we have seconds before we’re forced to part again. “So much time.”

“I was protecting you.” I slide my hand around and slip my fingers in the back of her hair, fisting her ponytail and earning a gasp from somewhere deep in her throat. “I wasn’t allowed to touch.”

“But you wanted to.” She leans on me, forcing us both to feel my steely length pressed to her stomach. “We both wanted to.”

“I often want things, Little Bird. Doesn’t mean I get them.” Pressing one last kiss to her plump lips, I push her away and turn to face the front a mere millisecond before the silver doors slide open and a burst of frenzied reporters charge forward. Thirty, forty, maybe fifty or more, packed into the George Stanley lobby. Lights and cameras and microphones, shoved in our faces and terrified, Rory’s hand squeezing around mine.

She swallows so the lump in her throat is almost audible, and definitely painful.

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