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  Right now, it was the promise of something forbidden that made it so enticing to be with her, my naked penis inside her body, nothing between us, our flesh fusing…

  That was hot.

  I wanted that again and again and again before I had to give her up.

  I wasn’t going to say or do a thing that would ruin my chances of having it.

  And the future…

  Hell. I’d drive her to the damned clinic myself, if that was what she wanted. Which… of course, she’d want that. Of course, she would.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Shell

  Sable Clarke shook my hand. She had a firm grip. She was a tall, slim woman. She had short hair, and she was quite striking. There was an air of confidence and power about her. I could see that she was tough. And yet, she still seemed utterly feminine. I hadn’t realized that I was hoping Sable was sort of, um, butch.

  “When you called last night,” said Sable to Cade as she released my hand, “I couldn’t believe I was going to get to see you again. It’s been ages. Come here, you.” She opened her arms.

  Cade hugged her, grinning.

  Okay, it was official. I was jealous. Ever since I’d seen how upset Cade got when Gallo threatened Sable, I had felt a wee bit insecure, even if I hadn’t admitted it to myself.

  They hugged a long time, and when they released, Cade was still grinning his head off. He looked her up and down, obviously really delighted to see her. “You look great. You holding up all right out here?”

  Out here was middle of nowhere in Florida. I felt like we were in the center of the tropical rain forest or something. It was only April, and yet it was hot and humid. The air was stagnant, and I’d already been bitten by about eight mosquitoes.

  Sable was grinning at Cade too. She had cocked her head to one side, and she was staring into his eyes. “Yeah… it’s a little boring, but it’s better than being dead.” She gestured behind her at the door to the house. “Come on in out of the heat, huh?”

  The house was nothing special. It looked like one of those pre-fab things that they bring in on big trucks. It was long and rectangular with gray vinyl siding. There was a screened-in porch hanging off the back.

  We all stepped inside the living room—two leather couches and nothing on the walls—and the chill of the air conditioning was heavenly.

  Sable was still watching Cade.

  Cade was looking at me.

  My heart swelled. That went a long way to help with the jealousy.

  “What should we do with our bags?” said Cade, turning back to her.

  “Oh, let me show you to your rooms,” said Sable, heading out of the living room.

  Rooms? Plural?

  I glared at Cade. Actually, I glared at the back of his head, because he was already following Sable out of the living room. Had he not communicated to her that Cade and I were sharing a bed? Because, if he hadn’t, then I was started to get jealous again.

  She opened a door on her right. “So, I thought this would be good for…” She looked at me. “Sorry, what’s your name again? Shelly?”

  “Shell,” I said. “Just Shell.” I peered over her shoulder into the room, which was tiny, containing a single bed with a garish yellow comforter on top.

  “Sable Clarke,” said Cade, shaking his head, grinning again. “It’s so fucking good to see you again.”

  She looked back at him, and her adoration was obvious.

  Holy hell, Sable was totally into him.

  Augh, I had never been so jealous in my entire life.

  “Thing is,” Cade said, surveying the room, “Shell and I can probably stay in one room.”

  Sable flinched. She looked at me, her brow furrowing. “Oh,” she said in a soft voice.

  Damn. I wasn’t jealous anymore, but I felt like hell. I saw how it was now. Sable was head over heels for him, and he didn’t even know it. I eyed him, and I wondered if he and I weren’t on the very same track. Maybe he had a pattern. Maybe he used women and moved on. I really didn’t know.

  I swallowed. “I can stay here.” I took my bag off my shoulder and set it on the bed.

  Cade gave me a funny look.

  Sable didn’t look any happier. “Your room has a single bed too,” she informed Cade. “The only full-size bed is in my room.” She didn’t have to add that there was no way she was giving it up so that the two of us could fuck in it. I understood.

  “This is fine,” I said, patting the ugly comforter.

  Cade didn’t say anything. He turned and walked out of the room and went down the hall. He opened a door.

  “That’s mine,” called Sable.

  He turned and opened another door across the hall.

  “That’s the bathroom,” said Sable, heading after him. She opened the next door down. “This is you.”

  “Fine,” said Cade, throwing his bag on the floor. He wasn’t grinning anymore.

  Neither was Sable.

  * * *

  Shell

  But later on, after Sable heated up frozen pizzas for dinner, and we all drank a few beers, they both seemed to loosen up. They dominated the conversation, sharing memories from their life together.

  They talked about people I didn’t know, situations I couldn’t relate to.

  They laughed about guns jamming, about trying to dump bodies in frozen lakes, about a certain Russian client whose accent was so thick that Sable had misheard the intended target and nearly killed the wrong person.

  “You and your code,” said Sable, tipping the beer into her mouth. “If it hadn’t been for the fact that I was calling him back to tell him that I wasn’t going to take the job, because the guy didn’t fit our profile, I would have blown his fucking head off.”

  Cade laughed. “The thing was, though, the name of the real target didn’t sound anything like what you heard.”

  I personally didn’t really think this was funny. It was kind of horrifying to me. If Cade wanted to have conversations like this all the time, then I wasn’t the person to do it with. I wondered if he’d be happier with someone like Sable. Someone who really understood him.

  But then I wasn’t really sure why I was even considering the idea that Cade would be with me. I guessed that it had seemed much more plausible when we were alone together, but the more I thought about it, the more I began to worry that all Cade and I had was hot sex. We had nothing in common, and there was nothing that was going to keep us together.

  Hell, I didn’t even know his favorite movie or television show.

  At one point, Sable went to the bathroom, and in her absence, it was quiet.

  I nursed my beer, feeling awkward. It suddenly seemed as if I didn’t belong here at all.

  Cade eyed me. “Did I do something?”

  “What?” I said.

  “I piss you off in some way?”

  “No. What are you talking about?”

  He set his beer down on the table, and he talked to it, not me. “You just come to your senses, then? Realize that there’s nothing about the two of us together that makes any sense?”

  That stung. I hugged myself. “I guess we don’t make sense, do we?”

  And then Sable came back from the bathroom. She smiled at us. “Who wants more beer?”

  “I think I’m going to bed,” I muttered. I got up took my beer to the sink to dump out the rest of it. I stole a glance at Cade. He still wasn’t looking at me. Fine. Whatever. I went back the hallway, away from both of them.

  * * *

  Cade

  Sable handed me another beer.

  I popped the lid off and took a long drink. I was in a bad mood, even though I should have seen things coming with Shell. I knew she wouldn’t want anything to do with me eventually, but things had seemed so good the night before. I didn’t know why she wanted her own room now. Didn’t make any sense to just suddenly decide she didn’t want to sleep with me. Sure, the beds were both narrow, but she hadn’t known that when she said she wanted to sleep alone. Besides, I
wasn’t above dismantling the bed, taking it down the hall, and sticking them both together. Problem solved.

  But I wasn’t going to suggest that and make myself look like a pathetic needy idiot. She was over it. I was fine with that.

  I just really hoped she wasn’t pregnant, because that was going to make everything even harder.

  It would be easier if I could take care of Ice, drop her off at her apartment, and never see her again. If she was pregnant, then the pain of all of it would be doubled, and it would linger, and I would think about it…

  “What’s up with you?” said Sable. “Ice really get to you?”

  I nodded slowly. “Ice. Yeah. I need to figure out what to do about him. I should probably go back to D.C. Hunt him down. Take him out.”

  “Really?” She raised her eyebrows. “From what I remember, he was like your brother from another mother. You two were tight.”

  I sighed. “You can’t be tight with Ice. He’s not wired that way.”

  “Still. Whatever he’s done, I can’t believe that you’re thinking about killing him. What did he do?”

  “He, uh, he just won’t let it go. And he’s got this obsession with Shell now, and I don’t know if he’ll give that up. I might have to kill him just so that she’ll be safe.”

  She gave me a small smile. “You were always saving people. You saved me more than once.”

  “I do what I can. Doesn’t balance the scales or anything. I’ve killed more than I’ve saved.”

  She looked into her beer, nodding slowly. “And Shell? She’s special?”

  I shook my head. “She’s… I don’t think so. I think it’s just sex. Hot sex. Really hot sex, but… no, nothing special.”

  “Oh, too bad,” she said, but she didn’t actually sound that upset about it.

  I furrowed my brow at her. “Sable, you’re a woman.”

  “Yeah, last I checked.”

  “So, what would make you—” I shook my head. “Never mind.”

  “You can ask me.”

  “Nah,” I said. “I realized it wouldn’t make any difference. You’re not like other women. There’s no way you’d do the same thing as they do.”

  She looked down at her beer. “Yeah. I’m different.”

  “Look, if I go back to D.C., then would you mind babysitting her?”

  “I’m not sure she really likes me, Ripper.”

  I sat back, taking a swig of my beer. “What are you talking about? She doesn’t even know you.”

  “I just get that sense from her.” Sable picked at her beer label. “Look, why don’t you just lie low for a bit? Stay a week or so. Maybe Ice will forget all about you. You can call him in five days or something. See where his head’s at.”

  I nodded. “All right. That makes sense.” But if Shell was feeling cold towards me already, it was going to be a pretty long week.

  * * *

  Shell

  Days passed, and Cade didn’t talk to me. I was confused, but I thought maybe it had something to do with Sable. I had thought that he had no idea that she was in love with him, but now I wasn’t so sure. They seemed to always be together, laughing and talking and having a grand old time.

  Except occasionally, I’d come on Cade talking on the phone. One day, I heard snatches of his conversation. “…no, I need someone to go in there and get rid of the bodies. I’d do it, but I’m not in the area… Of course I’m going to pay you.”

  I gathered that he was calling one of his other hitman friends to clear away the bodies of the guys Ice had hired. The ones who were left at his house.

  Another day, I heard him setting up work with contractors to come and repair the glass walls that had bullet holes in them.

  But the rest of the time, he was with Sable, and he seemed so relaxed and happy with her.

  I spent my days working on comic strips. I had missed a day, so I put up a late strip, and then I made enough strips that they would auto-post for the next three weeks. I had never been that far ahead, because I usually procrastinated a lot. Thing was, it was nice to dive into my made-up world. In my comic, the only problem that anyone had was a hangover or a lack of a romantic connection. It seemed simpler there, though those problems used to define me. Now, I was in fear for my life, and that dwarfed everything.

  Well, everything except the fact that I wasn’t sure if I was pregnant or not.

  And the fact that I missed Cade. I would lie in bed at night, remembering his hands on me, his voice in my ear, the way he expertly touched me, the way he ordered me to come. Damn it, but I was going to miss him for the rest of my life. I was pretty sure that I was never going to have sex that was so good ever again.

  I was conflicted about the pregnancy thing. On the one had, obviously everything was better if I wasn’t pregnant.

  But some part of me—some irrational part of me—wanted his baby, even if I didn’t have him. I imagined a little boy with Cade’s eyes. I would be there for him in the way that his own mother hadn’t been able to be. I would protect him and love him and watch him grow up. And even if I didn’t have Cade, I would have a little piece of him forever and always.

  I knew it was insane. I knew that I’d never be able to make it work. But I still wanted it, almost yearned for it.

  I found myself Googling pregnancy symptoms, even though I thought it was far too early to have any idea whether I was pregnant or not.

  But through my online searching, I stumbled across trying-to-conceive (TTC) forums, and I began to learn all kinds of things about getting pregnant that I’d never really understood before. For instance, apparently, there were only a few days during the month when I could actually get pregnant. I had always thought it was more like a week. I thought that it was right before ovulation and right afterward. But I found out that after ovulation, the egg died pretty quickly if it wasn’t fertilized, so it was actually better to have lots of sex before ovulating because then the sperm would have time to swim all the way up and be right there when the egg was released.

  Sperm could live inside your body for days.

  I found that slightly odd to think of. That Cade had come inside me only a few days ago, and little squirmy microscopic carriers of his DNA were still alive inside my body. It could have been creepy, but it wasn’t. It was nice and kind of hot.

  Of course, Cade and I weren’t talking.

  I mean, we were polite to each other. We said things like, “Pass the milk,” and “Good night.” But we hadn’t had an honest-to-goodness conversation. I kept thinking about having one, but I didn’t know what to say.

  He was always with Sable.

  And I began to think that maybe he and Sable used to have a thing. He had thought it was over, but when he saw her, he remembered how much he was into her. I couldn’t forget about how his eyes had lit up at the sight of her, after all. And so then he’d had that stupid conversation with me over the beer, telling me that he and I didn’t make sense, all so he could go back to her.

  I didn’t think he was fucking her, because I always saw them coming out of separate rooms in the morning, but that didn’t mean anything. Maybe he was sneaking back to his room so as not to rub it in my face.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about that. At first it made me sad, and it really hurt, because I felt rejected by him.

  But the more that I started to read about how many days past ovulation I might be and whether or not I would already start having to pee a lot or if my breasts would be tender or if I’d have implantation bleeding, the more I started to get angry.

  This man had unprotected sex with me over and over, and then he just dropped me to hook back up with his ex?

  There hadn’t been any promises between Cade and me, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t fucked up.

  I resolved to confront him about it.

  But the morning that I wanted to give him a piece of my mind, he wasn’t awake.

  Instead, Sable was the only person in the kitchen. She was making fresh-squeezed orange juice fr
om the orange tree in the yard. She had this heavy-duty contraption that she always used for it. “Good morning,” she said, sounding cheery.

  “Where’s Cade?” I said.

  “Cade? Oh, you mean Ripper.” She picked up half an orange and stuck it it the contraption. “He was up late last night trying to figure out what he was going to do if Ice doesn’t back off. He’ll probably sleep in.” She yanked down a metal lever, which pushed down on the orange, squeezing all the juice into a container where it was collected.

  I folded my arms over my chest. “Up late figuring stuff out. Right. Were you helping him?”

  She picked up another orange. “Not really. I would have helped, but he’s never much interested in anyone else’s ideas. He’s convinced he’s brilliant. The hell of it is, he’s right.” She laughed a little.

  I didn’t laugh. “Look, are you and him… is something going on between you two?”

  She set down the orange and looked at me with sad eyes. “Oh, sweetie.”

  “Don’t do that.” I pointed at her. “Don’t feel sorry for me. If you and Cade are—”

  “Nothing,” she said. “We’re nothing. Only friends. That’s it.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed her.

  She put an arm around me. “He does this all the time. He seems to be completely unaware of the effect that he has on women. He just doesn’t get it. He thinks that everyone is as unaffected as he is, and then…” She shook her head. “Trust me, I know how you’re feeling.”

  I pushed her away. It was worse than the two of them being together, suddenly. Now, I was just part of a pattern, a string of women that he left in his wake. I felt like an idiot. I sat down at the table, and suddenly—I started to cry.

  “Oh, sweetie, don’t—don’t cry.” Sable tried to hug me.

  I pushed her off. “So, you slept with him too.”

  She sat down opposite me at the table. “It was a long time ago. It never meant anything to him. I think he was incapable of noticing whether it meant anything to me.”