Deep Under (Tall, Dark and Deadly #4)(51)

“I need a towel,” I announce, and when he doesn’t react, I add urgency. “I need a towel, Kyle. I’m going to mess up the couch.”

“You’re crying,” he says, his thumbs wiping away my tears. “That’s what I’m worried about.”

“I’m okay. I’m better. I stopped.” I hope and I push for that space I need. “But the couch. I’m worried about the couch. What if we stain it and it’s noticed? I need a towel.”

Something flickers in his eyes, and he draws a breath before he is standing, walking away from me. I sit up, the stickiness of the intimacy I have shared with this man symbolic of the trust I have given him, while the way he stands a few feet away, his shoulders bunched, hand on his head, tells me he is tormented by something. Maybe it’s my tears. Maybe it’s a truth he doesn’t want to speak. My mind starts to race. Could he be FBI and they have a plan that will endanger Kara? Even get her killed? Could he really work for Alvarez, and now, both myself and Kara will be thrown into the sex trade?

He grabs his sweats and pulls them on, snagging his t-shirt, but instead of putting it on, he heads to the bathroom and returns with a towel. In a blink, he’s tossed his shirt at the end of the couch, pressed the towel between my legs, and he’s pulled us both back down on the coach, shifting us so we’re side by side, facing each other.

“I can’t believe you just put that towel between my legs,” I say, nor can I believe how easily having him touch me again eases my worries, when it shouldn’t. Answers. Facts. Those things should be what I need, but it seems he is what I need.

Ignoring me, he grabs a pillow that he stuffs under our heads, his hand settling at my hip. “Tell me what I did wrong so I won’t do it again.”

What did he do wrong? I’m worried about a lie he might be telling me, and his torment is about hurting me? My heart squeezes with this knowledge, my fingers curling on his jaw. “Nothing,” I promise. “You did nothing wrong. You did everything right. I don’t know what is wrong with me. I’ve faced hell, found this zone I survive inside, and for a solid nine months I’ve been without the weakness of tears. And yet, I cried last night and I cried now.”

He strokes hair from my eyes. “You cried last night?”

“Melted down like there was no tomorrow,” I admit, “and blamed you, but I know now that it was about my sister. This whole fashion thing is bringing back the past that I’d suppressed to survive. But I have no idea what right now was all about.”

“I do,” he says, covering my hand with his and pulling it between us. “I let you be you and you dared to be you. There’s a reason you weren’t that person with Alvarez. In character, we’re shielded, protected. When we’re ourselves-”

“We’re exposed and vulnerable,” I supply, understanding now.

“Yes,” he confirms. “That is when we are exposed and vulnerable. I made the mistake of forgetting that one time and I ended up in the hospital.”

“Who was she?” I ask.

“Ah yes. She was a woman all right. I was young, and on my second undercover job. She was working for the bastard I was trying to take down, and wanted out. I thought I was in love, but I don’t know what the hell I was, actually, and it doesn’t matter. In the end, he threatened her family, and she chose them instead of letting me save us all. I ended up with a bullet in my back.”

“Where is she now?”

“He killed her.”

I am unsurprised, digesting this as data, not emotion, as I have learned to do with everything in the Alvarez world. “Did you kill him?”

“I arrested him.”

My hand flattens over his chest, understanding in my touch. “But you wanted to.”

“No,” he says. “He wasn’t worth the price to my soul.”

“But Alvarez is?”

“Killing Michael Alvarez would be doing the world a favor.” He says the words with such fierceness, such guttural meaning, that I know his hate for Alvarez runs deep. And I do not miss the way his heart thunders beneath my palm.

This moment drives home what I know already. He isn’t who he says he is, and I say that to him. “You aren’t who you say you are,” I say. “And the not knowing is killing me.”

There is a subtle tightening of his body, the air suddenly thicker, before he rolls me to my back, his big body trapping mine. “Myla-”

“Just say it,” I say, grabbing his shoulders, my fingers against the knotted muscle there. “Tell me,” I demand, and then softer. “Please. Who are you and what are you after?”

“You. I was always here for you.”





Chapter Fourteen





Kyle





I didn’t plan to be naked and on top of Myla when I tell her who I am, but every instinct I own says that if I shut her down now, she will shut me out.

“Are you FBI?” Myla asks, trying to fill in the blanks I haven’t, which is exactly what I don’t want her doing. “Because if you are,” she continues, “I gave you the list of the Alvarez locations. I can’t help you more than that, or I’ll get Kara killed. You know that.”

“I’m not FBI, Myla. I’ve told you that.”