Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 145803 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145803 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
“Then you’re deliberately not hearing me. I didn’t want to leave you, Vienna. In my head, in my heart, I didn’t leave you. I haven’t been with another woman since, nor do I want to be. I’ve been looking for a way to make a relationship work between us without putting you in danger. There has to be a way, because I’m not willing to lose you. Not if you feel anything at all for me.”
They can’t be trusted. They lie to you. They’ll say anything they think you want to hear in order to get their way. The voice came unbidden into her head. She didn’t even know who told her that.
Vienna had to look at his face. Into his eyes. Would he lie to her just to sleep with her again? Their chemistry had been off the charts. Men lied all the time to get women in bed. This was Vegas. Maybe he had a bet going with his friend Rainier. She knew better. She was just afraid. It had hurt too much when he’d walked out, and she was used to protecting herself.
Zale rolled over onto his belly again, laying his head in her lap, arms around her waist. “I know you’re scared, Snowflake. I don’t blame you.” He’d called her Snowflake because of the color of her hair. As a term of endearment, she preferred it to baby. Although, once or twice he’d called her baby as well, and in that voice of his, she hadn’t minded that much.
He turned his head and pressed a kiss over her T-shirt into her belly button before resting his cheek on her again. That sent a shiver of heat down her spine.
“I don’t give my word lightly. I’m telling you, Vienna, I mean every single word I’m saying to you. I left without telling you I’d be back because I had no idea if I would survive what I was walking into. I couldn’t make you promises I didn’t know if I could keep. I didn’t realize I would feel the way I did about you when I first followed you. I only knew I had to see you again. It was a compulsion to talk to you again that had me seeking you out. You’re so damn intelligent. You’re good at the things that matter to me. We were out there in the woods and there wasn’t a single complaint about ticks or mosquitoes. You follow the code of leaving no footprint behind. On top of that, to me, you’re so beautiful, you take my breath away.”
Vienna found her fingers buried in his thick hair, massaging his scalp. That had been their nights, talking together just like this. He would lay with his head in her lap, and they’d talk about everything and nothing.
“Obviously, what you’re doing here in Vegas is dangerous. Is this the same mission you left to go on?” She didn’t know if she should even be asking that much of him.
“No. I completed that one without a hitch. We were sent here recently. It was a get-in-and-get-out to collect information, but we aren’t getting anywhere.”
She heard the frustration in his voice.
“As a rule, I’m able to find the right people to talk to and get what I want from them. Rainier has a few talents as well, but neither of us has gotten a single lead that has brought us any closer to what we need to know.”
Vienna frowned, that strange note of discord reacting immediately, brushing at the insides of her mind. “That isn’t true, Zale. You talked to someone recently that was very close to your answer, or you and your partner wouldn’t have been targets. That person had an association with the three people who tried to kill you. If their boss didn’t order the hit on you and Rainier, and the three took the initiative on their own, it had to be because they were careless in some way. Maybe the person you spoke with wasn’t supposed to know anything and one or all of them had been loose-lipped.”
She was throwing out ideas aloud the way she did to herself when she needed to find the best chance for a rescue. She’d talk herself through every possibility until one felt right to her. Then she’d map it out and ensure it was correct and doable in every way.
She continued to rub his scalp as she puzzled it out in her mind. “Of course, it’s entirely possible the boss ordered the hits. If so, that means the association leads straight to him—or her. I don’t get that vibe though.”
Zale scooted into a sitting position facing her, his expression serious. Dark. Almost scary. “What vibe? What kinds of vibes do you get, Vienna?”
At least he wasn’t making fun of her. That was something, but his tone and his demeanor had gone to a remote, controlled interrogator—one that sent chills down her spine.