Cynthia Eden - After The Dark

“You’ve been in my head for months. A ghost, haunting me.” Driving him to the edge. “I can’t do it any longer.”

Her hair slid over her face as she shook her head. “Do what?”

He closed the distance between them. His hand lifted, and his fingers curled under her chin. “Play the good-guy role.” A man could only pretend for so long. Then his true colors would start to show.

“You are good, Blake.” She gave a little laugh, one that held the faintest edge of desperation. “I’m not wrong about that.” Her long lashes lowered, shielding her gaze. “I can’t be wrong about you.”

Because of Latham. His jaw locked, but he didn’t stop touching her. He couldn’t. “Did you love him?”

That question had her lashes flying up. She stared at him, that beautiful gaze of hers stark.

“I want to know.”

As he waited for her answer, jealousy coiled within him. Dark and twisting. That jealousy had always been there where Latham was concerned. From the moment they’d met, the guy had rubbed Blake the wrong way. Because we both wanted her.

“No, I didn’t love him...at least, not the way a lover is supposed to. We were far better friends than lovers.” Then she gave another bitter laugh. “Though I guess we weren’t very good at that, either.”

He was about to grind his teeth to dust, but he kept his touch gentle on her. Samantha and Latham. Lovers. That damn image had tormented him too many times. But soon enough, he’d have Samantha. Blake would have her in his bed. And when he did, he’d banish the memory of Latham from her mind.

Before he could speak again, Samantha had pulled away from him. “There are things you don’t understand about me. Things that—”

“That he did?”

Her head snapped toward him.

Dial back the jealousy. “You think I can’t handle your secrets, Samantha? You think he could?”

“He didn’t mind my darkness.” Her gaze skittered to the picture window. “I guess it makes sense now, doesn’t it? He liked that part of me. The part that lets me see into a killer’s head so easily. The part that thinks about murder and death. He was drawn to all of that because he was the same way.”

“You are not the same.” She needed to see that. “I don’t care what crap Latham fed you. You aren’t.”

“He was my first lover.”

Every muscle in his body locked down.

“He told me I was perfect, inside and out, and after years of hiding the truth about myself from the world, it was nice to have someone who didn’t care about...about the things I’d done.” She’d stumbled just a bit over those last words.

And Blake knew that Samantha had more secrets. Secrets that she’d shared with Latham, and those secrets had bound the two together.

“Why won’t you trust me?” he gritted out.

She eased out a slow breath, then squared her shoulders. She met his stare, not flinching. “I want you.”

Music to his ears. Blake took a step toward her, but Samantha threw up her hand, as if warding him off.

“Wait!”

He had been waiting for her, for months.

“I want you more than I think I’ve ever wanted anyone.”

She was going to break him. He could feel his control splintering. But she’d said wait, and her trembling hand was still in the air.

“But you are wrong, Blake. You aren’t playing some good-guy role. That’s who you are.” She bit her lip. “That’s who I need you to be. And I can’t be wrong about a man I’m with ever again.”

“I won’t hurt you.” He’d never do anything to her. “You can count on me. Don’t you know that?”

Her hand fell to her side. “What if I hurt you?”

He frowned.

“You don’t know me as well as you think.”

Blake closed the distance between them. He curled his hands around her shoulders and pulled her close. “Only because you keep secrets. You don’t have to do that. I can handle anything you’ve got.”

“If you turned away from me...” Her smile was bittersweet. “I think it might break something in me.”

Samantha could never be broken. Not by him. Not by Latham.

His mouth lowered to hers, but...his phone started to vibrate. He swore when he heard the high-pitched ring. Someone’s timing was shit.

He let her go and reached for his phone. With the case, there was no way he could miss any call. There was no “off-duty” time for him when he hunted a killer. Blake didn’t recognize the number on his screen, but it had a local area code. His finger swiped over the phone, and he put it to his ear even as Samantha backed away.

Again.

Hell, no. You aren’t running. We aren’t done. In fact, we’re just getting started.

“This is FBI Special Agent Bla—”

Laughter cut through his words. Taunting, cold.

Blake’s face tensed.

“I don’t care about you, Special Agent. You’re just a means to an end. I’m calling to talk with Agent Dark.”

He nearly shattered the phone.

“Is she with you?” that taunting voice continued. “I bet she is. I bet you’re staying as close to her as you possibly can.”

“Who the fuck is this?”

He saw Samantha tense.

“The man you’re hunting, of course.”

And the bastard had called him?

“I learned Agent Dark didn’t get my champagne. I was quite disappointed with that, so I had to let the clerk know just how upset she’d made me. Poor service just can’t be tolerated, you know.”

What. The. Hell?

Samantha grabbed Blake’s arm. Put him on speaker. She mouthed the words at him.

Blake lowered the phone and tapped the screen so that she’d be able to hear the call, too. She needed to hear the bastard. The more she learned about him, the better able to profile him she’d be.

“Can she hear me yet?” the voice demanded. “Because I really need her to know what’s happening.”

“She can fucking hear you,” Blake snapped. “But I don’t buy your—”

“I’m going to kill her.” Flat, cold words. “I’ve got Tammy White here with me, and I am going to slice her open. I will watch her bleed and beg and die, and it will all be because of you, Agent Dark.”

The killer wasn’t speaking to Blake any longer. He was talking directly to Samantha. Because she’s the one he’s wanted all along.

The bastard’s voice was a rasp. Disguised.

“Do you want that, Agent Dark—Samantha?” He seemed to stumble a bit as he finally used her first name. “Do you want someone else to die because of you?”

“No.” Her voice was low, emotionless. “But I don’t believe that you have her. If you have her, you’d send—”

The phone vibrated as a text came through. Still keeping the speaker on, Blake swiped to look at the text. He heard Samantha suck in a sharp breath as she saw the brutal picture of a bleeding Tammy White.

“That’s my proof,” the caller taunted. “Now, be a good agent. Get the coordinates from the pic. They’ll tell you where I am. Then you come, Samantha. Just you. You come to meet me. You trade yourself for Tammy White, and she’ll escape with just a few...cuts.”

This was bullshit. “Not happening,” Blake swore. Samantha was not going to enter into some kind of deal with that psychopath. Yeah, they’d get the coordinates, all right. Blake was already getting them. Most folks didn’t realize that when pictures were taken...if they were using a smartphone to take pics, those phones would actually embed GPS coordinates into each photo. The coordinates were in the metadata that comprised the photo files. To see those coordinates, you just had to view the photo’s properties. You could get the coordinates, as long as the person who took that photo hadn’t disabled the feature on their phone...