Page 38 of Hannah and the Hitman

“What is it that you do then? Do you own a restaurant or something?”

“Something,” he muttered, not meeting my eyes.

He was giving me whiplash. Maybe he was lactose intolerant. We did have extra cheese on the pizza and maybe there wasn’t cheese on the burgers the night before, but he’d had a lot of baked beans. I might be his girl, but if he had intestinal issues, that wasn’t something discussed until much, much later in a relationship.

Relationship.

Was that what this was? I had no idea, but if he needed a bathroom and some privacy, he could say that. I was the last person to hold any body issues against someone.

I was so confused. He’d made me come on his fingers, then called me his girl. Now he was escorting me home.

“Jack, is it really work that’s making you run off?”

He nodded. “Yes. Definitely yes. Nothing else would keep me away. Dinner. Tomorrow night?”

“I think we can say dinner is a bad time for you.”

He sighed, knowing I was right. “Lunch then. Even better. I’ll see you sooner.”

I shook my head. “I have to work.”

He bit out a swear word as if tearing off a piece of beef jerky. “Dinner. I promise I won’t bail.”

I studied him, the taut lines of his body. The way he was distracted by whatever was going on with his work, but still solely focused on me. Not anyone on the sidewalk who had to veer around us. Or the car whose radio was blasting driving by.

“I’m… I’m still your girl?” I asked, sounding ridiculously vulnerable. Brittany would whack me up the side of my head for that question. I needed to know. I didn’t want to be strung along, especially by my emotions.

He wrapped his other arm around me and pulled me in for a hug. I felt his steely length pressing into my belly, then his lips on the top of my head.

“Hell, yes,” he murmured. I felt his cell vibrate against my boob, where it was caught between us in his jacket pocket. He needed to go, and I was stopping him.

I tipped my chin up. “Okay to dinner, but what if I come to you?”

The only time I met him was here in Coal Springs. It wasn’t fair he kept coming up here to see me. Plus, I wanted a peek into his life in Denver.

He stroked my hair back from my face, his face softening, as if only for me. “You’ll come down?”

I nodded. I would come down out of the mountains for him.

A dark, predatory gleam took over. “Then bring a bag. You’ll stay the night. Oh, and unblock my number, gorgeous.”

22

JACK

After I walked Hannah back to her car in the library parking lot, I kissed the hell out of her. Right there in public, although the lot was empty since it was after hours. Fuck, I needed her mouth. Her sweetness. To feel that she was as needy for me as I was for her.

There was no question she doubted me. I’d been called away both times we were together, and both over dinner.

So I kissed her until she was clinging and sagging against me, her hands curled around the lapels of my suit jacket. I wanted to get under her skirt again. Hell, I wanted to rip the skirt right off and fuck the hell out of her over the hood of her car. But she needed gentle, not caveman, I reminded myself. She’d had a fucking brain tumor. I needed to control myself.

Instead of giving in to what we both wanted, I told her I’d text her my address as she got in her car. It wasn’t what Iwanted, but I knew her panties were wet from her earlier orgasm. The one I gave her.

In my rush to get back to Denver, I broke most state and federal traffic laws. “Call Dax,” I said to my car’s computer, which was synced to my cell.

“Did Jimmy earn his pinky finger?” he asked when he picked up, wondering if the text I sent had worked with Hannah.

“Sal Reggiano’s a problem,” I said, instead of telling him she blocked me. I was practically vibrating with fury. I’d been hired to do a job for him. I didn’t actually work for him. I was a fucking contractor. I said when, not him.