Savage Secrets (Titan #6) (19 page)

The door opened, shedding light into the dark room until he flipped the switch. “Heading to bed?”

“Maybe.” Feet away from Rocco, she’d never felt more alone, more vulnerable, or more interested than in the dark. Instead of watching him, she crawled across the bed and pulled up the bedspread, then peeked back at him as she tucked herself in.

At least he’d worn his sweatpants out of the bathroom. She wouldn’t be able to survive—
oh no
—his fingers pulled at the drawstring of his pants.

In the shadows of the dimly lit room, he raised an eyebrow. “Keep making sounds like that, and you’re not going to bed. Consider yourself warned.”

She covered her mouth to stifle a giggle.

“I heard that.” The bed dipped down as he pulled back the covers and joined her. Freshly showered and smelling like soap, Rocco burrowed next to her. Every muscle tightened. She laid straight-pin straight, unmoving, not breathing. Her hands were clamped to her side, and she stared toward the ceiling, eyes wide open in the darkness. All she had to do was tell him about her family.

Just a simple tale. It’d been so long…Simple enough to recount cold, sad facts.

He moved under the covers, and she would’ve sucked in a distracted gasp if she had been breathing. Which she wasn’t… Her will to stay blocked off was slipping like an emotional rock slide. It’d be so easy to let him in. “Roc.”

“Yeah, babe?”

The words froze. Seconds ago she could do it. Now, no. She couldn’t share tonight. Not until El Mateperros was gone.

“You’re going to fall off the bed if you hug the edge any closer.” He reached for her, and the sheets made a swishing noise as his hand found her bare shoulder. “What’s a matter?”

“I’m fine.”
I’m so not fine
.

“Then scoot your cute ass over.” The palm of his hand rested on her stomach, rubbing a circle around her belly.

Cute ass? “I’m trying to sleep. Don’t touch me.”

He did anyway.

She smiled, unable to help it. “I bite.”

“Now that, I’d like.” He laughed, and the sound echoed in the bedroom.

Sighing, she turned to him. He sat upright, pulling the covers off his bare chest and dragging free her protective layer.

“Caterina.” Rocco had her tight against him. That was a terrific interrogation technique. Not one that she’d ever used before but it was effective.

Playing defense, she tugged the covers back and elbowed him. She hit a solid wall of muscle. His arms tightened, his lips so close to hers. “You’re going to kiss me?”

Maybe if they fell back into each other’s arms, he’d forget she was dancing around a conversation.

“Maybe.” His arms wrapped around her shoulder and slid down her back. “I’m not going to do anything if you’re going to lie there, holding your breath.”

“I’m not holding my breath,” she whispered. “Just a lot on my mind.”

“Right.” His fingers slid over her skin. “You want to talk about today? You’re not used to field work, right? That’s what happened?”

Her mind stuttered before her mouth did. “W-what? You think I can’t handle a meet-and-greet?”

“Tangoes are delivered to you most times, right?”

She closed her mouth and swallowed, wrapping her head around his assumptions. “Well, yeah, but that’s not why—”

Rocco continued, “God, that dude thought he was hot shit, all
I can have any woman I want
.”

“He’s a monster.”

“He thinks he’s the center of his world, and he eyeball-fucked my wife. On top of the whole, he’s a bad dude thing, I wanted to punch him in the face.”

She smacked his chest and had the same reaction she did after elbowing him. Solid man. “So that’s why you kissed me while we were there?”

“To bust the guy’s balls? No way.”

“Then why?”

“You already know that answer.”

She did. The kiss might have been a surprise in that moment, but their connection was becoming more and more real. Their spark was electrifying, and that jolt of possibility was messing up everything she’d ever thought she knew.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Rocco shifted in the bed sheets but didn’t relax his hold on her. Tension bore down on her shoulders. Anxiety mocked her attempts at trust. He was one of the good guys, the only person she considered trusting, but he had the situation all wrong. Caterina almost couldn’t live with that thought in his mind.

His voice softened. “You freaked when you saw him, looking all like a terrorist-model-dude, making eyes at you and—”

“What? That’s insulting.” Shaking her head, her nausea and disbelief were almost too much. “No way.”

“You almost passed out when you saw him, Cat. Kinda had a movie star vibe for him, if you like that type of thing.”

“You have no idea what I thought.” She bit her lip. “It’s not like that.”

“So explain.”

The air conditioning kicked on. A gentle hum vibrated through the room, slicing the tension that choked her. A stroke of his hand across her back shot her straight into disarrayed confusion, all mixed with arousal and trepidation.

He nudged her. “Enlighten me.”

“I don’t know where to begin.” She curled onto a pillow, and Rocco lay next to her, putting his arm around her. Against all reason, she scooted closer, turned into him, and rested her cheek on his chest. The scent of lingering soap made her sigh. His chest rose and fell, as stable and calm as she might have predicted. Always reassuring.

“Start anywhere. It’s better than this vague back and forth.”

True
. “I wear this armor that the outside world wouldn’t understand. You might. I don’t know.” He lived in her dark world of terrorist interrogations and black ops missions, so he might get it. He understood her job. Maybe he would even understand her drive.

“Try me.”

His trunk of an arm clasped her against him. A burning sensation teased the back of her throat and her eyes. Thinking about her family, her anger, the vendetta that she had carried on for years, made it too much to say.

He urged her on. “I can’t understand if you don’t give me a shot. Trust is everything.” His chest rumbled when he spoke, and the weight of his muscled biceps locked around her made the world seem safe.

But if she told him, she’d have to say she would kill El Mateperros, and he couldn’t know that. Not yet. Probably not ever.

“I can’t believe in trust,” she whispered.

“Can’t?”

She shrugged against his skin. “Won’t.”

“Try.” The tips of his fingers skimmed across her shirt, dancing over her shoulder.

“I’m not sure why I should.”

“Maybe you should ask why you want to tell me to begin with.”

“I don’t…”

“We both know that’s a lie.”

Panic surged from deep within her chest. He was right, and it was unsettling. Caterina shot up, running away from him and a sea of blankets, fighting to get to the edge of the bed before she made any more of an ass out of herself. Rocco found her wrist and drew her back, snaking a hand over her waist and pulling her into his lap. Shadows covered his face. The smell of soap was that much stronger close to him. Warm wisps of his minty breath tickled her nose, and he held her wrist in his hand against his bare chest.

“Caterina, I need you to trust me.
Need
. In ways that confuse the hell out of me.” The timbre of his voice ground against her nerves, and all over again, she wasn’t breathing. “Trust me, Kitten.”

“I don’t know how.”

“That’s not true. We both know it.” He released his hold on her, but she didn’t move from his lap. Slowly, she became aware of the heavy thump of her heart, beating a rhythmic, sad song.

He traced her chin with the back of two fingers, starting at her cheekbone and sliding to her collarbone. “As soft as you look.”

“There’s nothing soft about me.”

His fingers skipped across her lips. “Again, not true.”

She sucked in a deep breath, trying desperately to find strength from within only to look up, into his eyes and feel the surge of fortitude. “I’m going to blow our op. There’s no way we’re turning El Mateperros over.” Another deep breath. “Because I’m going to kill him.”

He never stopped stroking her cheek, her chin. He outlined her lips. It was as if she hadn’t promised a premeditated murder was eminent. “How?”

“I don’t know yet. I needed to see what I was dealing with first.”

“Fair enough.”

“You haven’t asked why. Or what happened.” Curling into a ball felt like the right thing to do, but she didn’t, perhaps because this wasn’t the reaction she’d expected. “I’ve never told anyone what happened.”

His hand cupped her chin, thumb directing her to look up. “Jared knows your end game?”

“Taking out El Mateperros?” A knot the size of their honeymoon suite choked her windpipe.

“Yeah.” He nodded.

So she nodded too. “Jared knows everything. Just… everything.”

Like flipping a switch, Rocco shifted. Warm to cold. Offensive to defensive. Angry? Annoyed?

What the fuck
?

He petted her leg twice, and they weren’t the reassuring type of pats. “Glad he does.”

“Wait.” Shock and pain hit her so hard her skin went cold. “Roc?”

He held her gingerly but shifted her back to her side of the bed. “Yeah?”

“I thought this was trust. My sharing. You’re… I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I’m not upset. You and Jared created a job so that you could—”

“No—” She shook her head, tears welling.

“Jared needed someone dead? You did? You’re more than an interrogator? An assassin too? I don’t care, but I don’t appreciate being told the job is one thing when it’s really another.”

“Stop. Rocco. You’ve got it all wr—”

He turned off the only remaining light. “Good night.”

She’d hurt his feelings. Chest tight, throat stinging, she
hurt
for hurting his feelings. A wave of anguish overpowered her. Tears streaked her face.

“He killed my father, my mother, my brothers. In front of me…” Her voice cracked, and she used the sheet to hide her tears.

Rocco sat back up in the dark. “Oh—”

But the dark was good, hiding her in the shadows. “El Mateperros ruined my life. He left me alone with my memories.”

“Caterina—”

“There was so much blood. My dad and brothers were just trying to protect our family.” She couldn’t stop. After years of burying the story, it rushed from her.

“Kitten, stop. I was being a dick. A jealous fuckin’ dick. You don’t need to say it. I fucked the trust. I’m in the wrong. Just stop.”

“It hurts so bad.” She sobbed, completely out of control. The sheet did nothing to hide the tears or the excruciating pain.

Tossing the sheet aside, Rocco pulled her to his chest, shushing her, rubbing her back. Her jaw ached, her heart ached, and even her soul suffered under the tenderness of his touch.

“Jared only knows because US forces were in my little town, on a peace-keeping mission, or whatever they call those things. They were there to stop the guns.” She wiped her eyes again, staring at the ceiling in the dark. “Jared had to have been eighteen, nineteen years old. It was my tenth birthday the day I met him. He scooped me up, all blood-covered and still holding a birthday present.”

Rocco kissed her temple, smoothing her hair.

“He promised me that if I ever needed anything, I could ask him. When I grew old enough, I said I wanted the name of the man who ordered the hit on my father. El Mateperros. And searching him down, since I was just a child, over the last twenty years has been my fixation.”

Rocco tightened his hold, and let her bawl. “Today, you didn’t just meet El Mateperros. You met the man who massacred your family.”

The tears slowed. God, she was an ugly crier. This wasn’t how a lifelong fixation was supposed to come to light, not pathetic and weepy. Rocco would run from this job as fast as he could. She couldn’t blame him. It had all been a lie.

“Caterina…”

And here came the excuses. He would bow out. Good thing she hadn’t fallen too deeply for the guy. Just a tease of caring, of liking and loving. Just enough that she’d shared her deepest, darkest desire. The tears welled all over again. The back of her hand did little to wipe the tears from her cheek, especially when they wouldn’t stop falling. “You can go. I understand.”

Rocco faced her toward him. “You, Kitten, don’t understand anything where I’m concerned.”

He thumbed the last of her tears away. His eyes blazed, and his hand dropped, fingers interlacing with hers. A kiss pressed to her forehead. He lingered, and her weight relaxed against him. How could a simple, benign forehead kiss make everything feel better?

Pulling her tighter, he kissed her forehead again, then her temple. Her cheek. Slowly. Letting his lips drag. So she was wrong about the benignity of it.