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face of Taryn, all I could do was tremble.
    She was my judge and my jury, my past and my present all rolled into one.
    “Come here.” Taryn reached for me, her soft hands tugging at the back of my t-shirt until I ducked, letting her pull it over my head. “Do you remember,” she started wetly, her eyes still rimmed in red as I knelt between her spread legs, “when we broke into the ranch that night and took a tractor ride out to the edge of the property?”
    I did.
    I coughed a laugh, shocked that I could in that moment. “Yeah.”
    “We made love under the stars by the stream.”
    “Made love,” I scoffed, and Taryn laughed too.
    “Okay, we groped and fucked like a couple of ridiculous horny teenagers.”
    “You brought stolen beer from your parents’ diner.”
    “Oh, yeah,” she marveled, like she hadn’t remembered that part. “And you lasted about three minutes.”
    “The first time,” I corrected. I felt the crushing weight of all that sorrow and regret ease off, just enough so I could breathe again. Just that small statement, reminding me who I was—not the stone-cold hitman who killed for cash and cared about nothing but a good time, but the young man who’d fumbled for a girl in the dark, stupid with lust and anxious to make her happy.
    I’d forgotten that was me. I’d forgotten all about that boy who’d killed for the mother he’d loved so fiercely and run away to protect the women he’d adored.
    He was me, and Taryn still saw him through my eyes. I didn’t think such a thing was possible.
    She looked up at me, now, reaching out to splay her hands on my bare chest. “The second time was pretty memorable, though.”
    I smirked. “It was.”
    We’d had so many last times. The night before I set out to kill Foster, I’d laid her in our bed and said my silent goodbyes. Yesterday in the kitchen, I’d thought I was lucky to get one last taste of her.
    I knew this could just as easily be the last time.
    I’d learned, in my long years of running, fighting, killing, to live in the moment, but I looked down at Taryn, at her small hands spread possessively on my body, and saw the past and the present blurring together at the seams.
    “Remember our first date?” Taryn went on, her voice a vital distraction from my churning emotions.
    “Milkshakes at the diner and that crappy movie…”
    She gave my chest a light slap. “ The Lake House was not a crappy movie.”
    “If I recall,” I drawled, “I wanted to see The Hills Have Eyes .”
    “Yeah, that would’ve been a great first date movie,” Taryn said dryly.
    “I kissed you in the back row,” I remembered out loud, my voice almost faint.
    She stroked upwards, fingers curling underneath my chin. I took her wrists in my hands, leaning over her and pinning her to the mattress.
    “We were good together,” she said, and then bit her lip like she regretted it. “ God , Mason. I wish I didn’t feel—”
    I hushed her gently. “Hey, it’s okay.”
    I couldn’t handle hearing her struggle with her feelings, painfully aware that I’d caused her yet another heartache. She’d been so angry at the wedding, and again yesterday. She’d almost hated how bad she’d wanted me in the kitchen.
    But, more than that, I couldn’t handle knowing, deep down, I was pleased, because it meant that on some level I still affected her deeply.
    Indifference was the antithesis of love but hate, passion, grief, torment—those things gave life to feeling.
    I was cruel, a selfish bastard, but I couldn’t help it.
    My mouth found her jaw in a silent apology, sucking soft kisses down her throat and over her fluttering pulse. She tried to arch against me, but I was in no mood to rush, holding her down with my hands over her delicate wrists.
    “Let me,” I said, nuzzling between her breasts through her tank top. I let go of her, shifting lower, and she stayed still as I pressed kisses against her stomach through the cotton of her shirt, dampening the material.