CHAPTER TWENTY

 

 

Kiera

When I woke up, he was gone.

I don’t know what I expected, but there was something about it that made me livid. I couldn’t believe he’d just bail like that. True, it was what he’d done every other time, so I should have been prepared, but I hated having fallen asleep in his arms and waking up in a cold and empty bed.

I was hungover too, and that didn’t help matters.

I took some aspirin, drank some water, and then I went up to his room. I banged on the door.

Nothing happened.

“Danger, I know you’re fucking in there,” I yelled, banging on the door some more.

The door opened.

He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and all of his gorgeous muscles were on display. Those big, luscious arms? I’d gone to sleep with them wrapped around me. That chiseled chest? I’d drifted off pressed against it.

I wanted to cry. Instead, I glared at him. “I want the key to my room.”

He scratched his stomach and yawned. “You woke me up for that?”

I wanted to strangle him. “You fucking asshole, give me back the key.”

He let out a heavy sigh. “You should know that I was drunk last night, and I maybe said some things—”

“Key.” I held out my hand.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m really sorry.”

God, if he kept apologizing like that, I really was going to cry. I felt my chest getting tight. “We were both drunk,” I said in a strangled voice. “We were both temporarily insane. Now, give me the key so nothing like that can ever happen again.”

He swallowed and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Yeah, fine. Hold on.” He disappeared for a second, shutting the door in my face. Then it opened back up, and he was holding out the key.

I snatched it from him. “Thank you.”

“Is that all?” he said.

“Of course it is,” I said.

“Good.”

“Good.”

I should move. But I just kept staring at his perfect chest, his thick forearms, his rippling stomach.

He shut the door in my face again.

I let out a breath.

When I got back to my room, I did start crying.

* * *

 

Demetrius

Monday morning, I found Kiera in the office rooms we’d rented. The ones that looked down on Nikolai’s office. It was the agreed-upon control center, the place where she would stay for the duration of the job.

She was working on setting up her computers, and she didn’t even acknowledge me when I came into the room.

I couldn’t blame her.

It might be shitty, but I was glad I’d gone to her room that night. I was glad I’d had the chance to be inside her one last time, to put my mouth on her perfect breasts, to hear her sighs when I stroked her. I couldn’t regret having her one last time.

I knew that it wasn’t the right thing to do, but I wouldn’t have taken it back for anything.

But now, we were going to finish this job, and then I was going to keep my distance. I wouldn’t see her every day. For a while, it would probably be hard. I’d think about her, like I always had. I’d probably think about her and jerk off. I’d miss her.

But time would make that fade.

Months would pass, and one day, I’d realize that I hadn’t thought of her in days.

And then more and more time would pass without my thinking of her.

Eventually, I would barely think of her at all.

Eventually.

But for now, for today, it was hard as hell being this close to her.

“You don’t have to check in on me, you know,” she said. “I’ve got this.”

“You have everything you need?” I said.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she said.

“Well, you have the earpieces?” I said. “I’ll distribute them to the others when we meet up outside the building.”

“Yeah, sure,” she said, handing them over.

“Thanks,” I said.

“We need to make sure those are working okay,” she said. “Nine sharp, I’m going to test, and I need to hear everyone, so make sure that you’ve got them on.”

“Got it,” I said.

She nodded and then turned back to her screens.

I watched her, thinking about how much I wanted to touch her. “Hey, Kiera?”

“What?” She turned to me.

I shoved my hands in my pockets. “Good luck today.”

“You too.” She nodded and then turned away.

I left.

That was that.

After today, I wouldn’t see her.