Page 33 of Torched Spades

Which is why he has to leave.Now.

“This is a mistake. I’m behaving unprofessionally, and I…”God, I need air. “Continue taking your medication. We’ll talk more next week.”

Our fourth and final appointment… Because there’s no way in hell I can keep seeing him as a patient. After what just happened, my suspicions about him are stronger than ever.

The look he gives me is volcanic. “Becca…”

“Goodbye, Mr. Malone.” I duck underneath his arm, but I’m not fast enough. Johnny catches me by the throat and slams my back against the door. Now his eyes are pitch black, and his chiseled features are hard as stone, but it’s the way one corner of his mouth curves up just before his lips dust my ear that makes my breath hitch.

“This isn’t over, Doc. It’s only just begun.”

Chapter Ten

JOHNNY

Becca playeda strategic hand and won this round.

I shake my head, the endless chatter in this damn pharmacy shredding another layer of my patience. Something that, an hour after storming out of her office, is already in threads.

I should’ve seen this whole lipstick shit coming. The signs were all there seven days ago. The repetitive questions… Her refusal to accept a simple answer… Unfortunately, pissing off an infamous crime family, getting questioned for it by a hotshot detective with a chip on his shoulder, and having twenty-four-hour digital access to Becca’s pussy distracted me so much that instead of reading the room, I stirred the pot.

Mentioning how a pair of crimson-painted lips ignite just as much desire in me as a blazing fire wasn’t a complete lie. What man in his right mind doesn’t see a pair of pouty red lips and imagine them wrapped around his dick? However, that whole conversation was meant as a diversion tactic. Something to knock those straight-edges of hers sideways.

That shit backfired.

I was too busy trying to chip through that icy veneer to notice the faint red stain on her lips.A fatal mistake.Once I had her pressed against the door, our psychological chess match took a drastic turn as my ‘stirred pot’ overflowed into a blazing wet dream.

A psychiatrist specializing in impulse control disorders should know better. Especially since that little file she carts around details every facet of my fucked-up past.

Well, noteveryfacet.

Maybe that’s why it made me so damn crazy she refused to speak my name. Saying it out loud is the closest she’ll ever come to knowing therealme… My way of coaxing her to the ledge without pushing her off the cliff.

That’s why I both resent and respect her for throwing up a roadblock. If she hadn’t, there would’ve been no turning back. Touching her would’ve ruined any chance I had of flying under her father’s radar, and her…

Well, she would’ve just been ruined.

I don’t leave my toys for others to play with. I break them.

“Torch!”

My head snaps up, my hand instinctively going to my hip. There’s nothing there, of course. Why would there be? I’m just an ex-fireman turned blue-collar dock worker.

Lowering my arm, I glance over my shoulder to where two men smile and slap each other on their backs.

“George!” The taller one says again. “Haven’t seen you in months.”

Slowly, I unclench my fists.

George.

He said George, not Torch.

I turn away, so relieved Ididn’thear the one word that could fuck my life down all nine circles of hell that I ignore the one Idid…

Until it swings back around and smacks me in the face.

Fuck me.