Page 71 of Ghost

The battery was at 20 percent.A missed-call notification lit the screen.She quickly noted the time.Neo had called ten minutes ago.Her phone had been on silent.She switched on the ringer.She’d call him as soon as she made it back to her place.

“Go ahead,” she said to Ghost.

He rattled off his number.She entered it into a new text message and sent himHi.

His phone beeped and he smiled.“Good.I’ll call you later.”

He swept his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her lips to his.His warm, invasive scent of musk and cedarwood tickled her senses.His tongue slipped between her teeth and she melted into him.

A moan rolled at the base of her throat.

God, he was intoxicating.Dangerous.Capable of stealing all her self-preservation instincts with just one kiss.His thumb tipped up her chin.

“I have to see you again, Mila.This doesn’t end here.”

She stared into his deep, possessive eyes and chills raced over her skin.The good kind.The kind that told her he meant every word.“Okay,” she whispered.

“I’ll follow you home.”

“No, it’s fine.”She forced a smile.“The sooner you finish what you need to do, the sooner we can see each other again.”

He sighed with reluctance and pecked her one more time before easing away.“Call me if you need anything—for any reason at all.”

“Okay.”Her mouth tingled from the warmth of his tongue.

She wanted to invite him back to her place, to lock them in her rented apartment for days...but she couldn’t.He had people to kill and she had a past to resolve.

She slipped out of the vehicle, grabbed her bags from the back of his truck, and then dropped them into the passenger seat of her car.He watched as she got into the driver’s seat.Once her car started, he waved and pulled a U-turn.

Her stomach bunched in knots as she watched him leave, her heart in her throat.

I might never see him again.

Forcing that thought from her mind, she drove to her apartment building.Doubt crawled around her heart.She had to prepare herself for the very real possibility this was the end of Ghost and her.

And dammit, that hurt.

She parked on the street, got out, and swung her bags over her shoulders.In the lobby, she got into the elevator and rode up to the third floor.

When she reached the hallway, her phone rang.Hoping it was Ghost, she fished it out of her purse.Neo.She tucked it under her ear.

“Hello?”

She entered her code in the keypad.It flashed green.

There was a muffled sound on the other end of the line.“Neo?Are you there?”

She bumped open the door and dropped her bags on the floor.

“Mila, run!”

A rush of movement from behind the door summoned a scream into her throat.A masked man wearing all black slammed his fist into her face, cutting off the scream before it escaped.

CHAPTER 19

Ghost’s mind didn’tstop spinning the entire drive to his townhouse.Mila’s apartment was close to his place, which was surprising in itself.What surprised him most was how relieved he was to know she wasn’t far.

Regardless of his eagerness to get back to Seattle and find Hunter, he hadn’t been prepared to say goodbye.