She swallows and I know I’ve won.
Chapter Nine
HARPER
I turn away quickly so I don’t have to look at him.
“Harper?” he asks softly.
I have no words. I just have no words.
“Harper?” He touches my shoulder this time and I shrug him off.
“Don’t.”
“I swear to God, I’m not here for you.”
“Where were you last?”
“I can’t say.”
I already knew that. So I change the question slightly. “Where were you last year?” He pauses and I turn so I can see his face as he makes his decision. He looks like he’s thinking hard, counting back the months, maybe. But they are trained to do that, aren’t they? “I’m waiting.” I tap my foot like a petulant child and his eyes drop down to my flip flop and then he looks up at me and smiles.
How could this man be one of them? I don’t understand how anyone with those dimples could be a killer.
“I was f**king up a friend’s job over in a small, nondescript European country. Which is where all my trouble really started.”
“Not in the South Pacific?” I ask warily. Like he would tell me.
“No. I don’t work that side of the world. Haven’t been back in there since I was assigned when I was sixteen.” He watches me as I process his words. Since he was sixteen. He’s been killing people since he was sixteen. “OK?” he asks, breaking the silence. “We good?”
I shake my head and lean against the wall. He comes towards me and puts his hands on my hips and plays with my belt loops. “Harper,” he whispers in my ear. “I’m not walking away from you. You need to understand that. Accept it. I’m here now and I feel like I’m doing the right thing for the first time in my life. I want you. I want to be inside of you. I’ve waited patiently for so f**king long. And this was a stroke of luck. Being sent here and finding you.”
I shake my head at this. “No, it’s a trap.”
“Maybe,” he says, continuing his soft whisper. It disarms me and I want to give in, I really want to give in to him. But deep down I know what he’s capable of. I know because I was taught all the same tricks. “Maybe it was a setup. But I swear to you, I’m not in on it. I won’t ask about your brother again.”
When confronted by the mark, placate them with any and all possible concessions. It’s a textbook example and yet… I’m so falling for it. I want him to stay with me and never leave. I’m so lonely and needy and he has to know this.His hand cups my face and then his lips brush against mine. “Harper,” he pleads as he takes his mouth back to my ear. “Trust me, I’ll take care of you, Soldier.”
I force myself not to react but it takes every ounce of training not to.
“I know that’s what they really call you, Harper. The Little Soldier. A baby name, right? Since childhood. I know you and you know me, don’t you?”
I pull back, forcing him back at the same time. I need to look at him. He is so familiar. I had to have noticed him on the beach or something.
He doesn’t wait for an answer, just leans in and nips my lip until I squeal.
And that’s all it takes. I melt. He senses my surrender and crashes his mouth against mine, hungrily, like he’s been waiting for this moment for years. “I want to f**k you right here in the hallway. Bend your ass over and take you from behind.”
Jesus, I’m throbbing almost instantly. He pushes his thigh between my legs and presses. This time the throbbing turns into wetness.
“I never—” I dip my head down, embarrassed.
“I know.”
“What do you want?” I look up at him now. His green eyes do that searching thing again, where they dart back and forth, trying to read me.
“I want you,” he says.
“But why?” I fling my hand in the direction of the beach. “There’s a ton of women out there on the beach you can have. Why do you want me? I’m a kid.”
“You sure look all grown up to me.”
His rough characterization of me on the beach comes back. He called me woman. “I don’t feel like a woman. I feel like a child.”
He rubs the back of his fingers down my cheek and I frown and twist my head away. But my body responds to his touch. I can feel myself flush with heat.
“You’ve been here alone for months. I’ve watched you. I’ve been in your apartment. I found your key and your money in the little mechanical room over there.”
My eyes dart up with these admissions. “You’re creepy, then. You’re a creepy stalker. And if that was the end of it, then OK, whatever. I’d just move on and forget about you. But you’re not just a creepy stalker, you’re my creepy stalker. A girl who’s got a target on her chest. And you’re a guy whose only purpose in life is to eliminate the target. So what am I supposed to think? That this is just some coincidence?”
“We’ve got history, Harper.”
“Not the kind of history that counts for much, James,” I shoot back. “This is the kind of history that makes you want to change your name, move away, and start over.”
“Is that what you did? Is that how you ended up here?”
I let out a long breath and purse my lips together. “I’m not telling you anything. You’re trying to confuse me. Make me trust you. Then you’re gonna use me to do whatever it is you’re really here for. If they didn’t send you to kill me, then they want what they think I have. Or they want me to help you do something bad. Or…” He waits a few seconds. A longish pause, to see if I’ll continue. But it’s too real. I can’t say the last part.