Jack’s cool palm is fixed to my mouth before I can ever finish my sentence.

“Stop. Talking,” he says, and though I give him my most lethal glare, it only lands on the top of his head where it’s bent over my lap, his forehead nearly resting on my knees as his free hand brackets my forearm. The unexpected intimacy of this sudden contact is the only thing that keeps me shocked enough to not wrestle my mouth free. “Jesus Christ,” Jack whispers, looking like he’s just run a race and lost miserably, his shoulders slumped and each breath noticeable. He gives a little shake of his head. “You are the most mercurial person I have ever met. One moment you’re in tears and the next you’re running two hundred miles an hour in the opposite direction without a map or a fucking clue. I don’t even know where to start.”

I growl unintelligible insults that are lost to the palm clamped against my mouth.

“No. Not a fucking chance,” he says, shaking his head in denial with more certainty and determination than a moment ago. He meets my eyes with a darkened, haunted gaze. “First of all, I didn’t save you. I left you.” I growl again and try to pull Jack’s hand free of my lips to tell him that’s not up for him to decide, but I don’t manage to dislodge him. His grip on my forearm tightens as he presses it to the armrest. “You were barely breathing. You had two knives buried in your chest. Your face was a swollen, bloody mess. You didn’t wake up, you didn’t look at me. If you had opened your eyes just once that first time, I would have recognized you the moment you walked into the lab.”

I roll my eyes in my best “As if, we both know you would have murdered me to protect yourself if you’d caught me watching” look before turning my glare to a darkened corner of the room.

“Also, it’s zero seconds because I would not have killed you if you’d told me who you were.”

I bark an incredulous laugh against his palm.

“Third, I did believe you needed more field experience. I didn’t realize you had taken every summer to do exactly that during your entire student career, which is what Hugh responded with. And yes, I’m aware that the CRYO freezer incident was an asshole move. One among many.”

“Still not an apology,” I shoot back with nothing more than a muffled mumble and a cutting glare.

“I’m also not trying to dickmatize you out of your evidence. I’d think that would be obvious, as I’m giving you a bone from someone I killed,” he says with a pointed glance to the box resting in my lap.

I huff.

And then we fall into the kind of silence that lurks in shadows, trapping secrets that just need a little hint of light to catch fire and burn.

I watch Jack and he watches me back, his palm still pressed against my lips and his hand across my forearm.

"Hayes is here for you. He knows you. He’s the agent who worked on the Silent Slayer case, isn’t he. And he’s here to follow old threads.”

I swallow, holding Jack’s gaze as it darkens. I nod.

His eyes track across my face and when I tug on his wrist he finally lifts his hold from my mouth.

“If he’d done his job…” I whisper, my gaze dropping to the box in my hands. If Hayes had done his job, would I be a different person? Would I have a different life? Of course. If Hayes hadn’t fucked up, I’d have my family. I wouldn’t be alone. I wouldn’t be struggling to let go of the one person I’ve tied myself to, the one who might want to kiss me in a fleeting moment of weakness and kill me in every other steady heartbeat.

“I was about to leave West Paine. I wanted to adhere to my plans, and then you showed up,” Jack says before I have a chance to speak, his voice low and dark. “I’ve stayed longer than I should have. But I couldn’t go until you left first.”

“That makes no fucking sense. I’ve seen your contract, you can leave whenever you—”

“I’ve tried to force you out. Naturally, you’re not only the most mercurial person I’ve ever met, but the most stubborn as well. All I’ve managed to accomplish is to make myself suffer.”

A derisive laugh passes my lips. “That admission brings me no small measure of happiness.”

“But I have had enough. I’m done denying myself what I want.”

I swallow the heartbeat that seems to jump into my throat. “You’re bowing out and leaving West Paine?” I ask, trying to not let a sudden swell of hurt and disappointment color my words, even though I feel its warmth creep into my cheeks despite my best effort to subdue it. Jack makes no move to answer my question. He only watches me with sharpened scrutiny as I tilt my chin up. “Well... good. We’re finally on the same page about something.”

Jack presses in closer, enough that I notice the warmth of his chest against my legs. I could count every shade of gray in his eyes as they remain unerringly fixed to mine. “I can assure you, we are not on the same page. But we will be.”

For a moment that lingers, I feel every beat of my heart. I could lean a little forward and inhale his scent. Maybe I do.

And then Jack’s subtle warmth and his glacial gaze are gone, the temperature of the room plummeting as he heads toward his monitors, tossing a dark look over his shoulder as he goes. “Get some rest, Dr. Roth. You’re going to need it.”

It takes me a moment to move, but when I do, I leave without another word, the sound of Tchaikovsky resuming to follow me as I near the exit. The music clings to my thoughts as I drive home, a wraith that haunts the deep shadows of my bedroom.

And rest is exactly what I do not get.

I roll in my sheets, tangling my legs in their constrictive grip until I kick them off. It’s not just my boiling rage at Hayes that has me fevered as I imagine every manner of death and torture I could mete out with my bare hands. It’s not just revenge that keeps me up. It’s desire too. A deep need that burns like flame in my chest. It’s Jack.

Every word Jack has said these last few days replays in my mind only to unravel into endless possibilities. Conversations I wish we could have played out to a thousand conclusions. But even worse than his words is his touch. His kiss is seared deep into my marrow. He claimed my mouth like a man starved of light and hope. His touch was a reverential progression of worship across my flesh and bone. He gripped my throat only to let me go, pressing his mouth to my neck.

If I want to hurt you, I will.

But he hasn’t.

At one point in the night, I slide my hand into my sleep shorts, circling my clit, hoping to alleviate some of this torsional need that fills my core and twists it in knots. But I give up after only a few short moments. I don’t want me. I don’t want my imagination. I want him. And the harder I try to convince myself that I shouldn’t just makes me want him that much more.

I manage at least a little sleep, eventually. But it’s not enough, and I wake before dawn when the bedroom is still black with shadows. Cornetto long gave up on the bed with my restless turning and rises from his seldom-used dog mat when I pad a defeated path to the kitchen. I catch up on the news, social media, texts and emails, the usual Saturday morning activities as I savor my extra-large mug of coffee. Shortly after sunrise, I’m on the snakelike path that follows the river, Cornetto trotting by my side as we trace the meanderings of the slow, gray current. We run our usual loop that takes about an hour and a half, and we walk the last few blocks to the house in a cool-down.

When I round the corner to see Hayes’s silver Honda Accord parked along the curb bordering my front lawn, my first thought is an unexpected one.

Text Jack.

I pocket my AirPods as Hayes opens the driver’s side door and steps out of the vehicle, and thoughts of Jack are lost to the cacophony of Cornetto’s bark. Hayes casts a nervous glance at my dog as he takes a few cautious steps from his car. I could silence Cornetto with a single word, but I don’t, not even when I close the space between me and the grizzled agent to stop a few feet away.