Jake might actually agree not to mess with Ian’s personal life, but he could still do whatever he wanted with me. How would Ian react if Jake sent me to recruit someone else, under the same circumstances? Jake would do that—and worse—just to prove he could. To punish me. And maybe to punish Ian for trying to protect me.

“We can’t do what?” Ian’s hands slid up my back, touch demanding nothing. Offering everything. I’d never met anyone like him. I could step back, and he would give me space, but he’d still be there, ready to accept more whenever I was ready to give it.

“This. We can’t do this. It won’t last. It can’t.”

“I don’t like how easily you toss that word around.” He frowned, his green-eyed gaze narrowed on me. “Why is everything ‘can’t’ with you?”

“I speak from experience.”

“Not this time, you don’t. If this had ever happened before, it couldn’t be happening now. That’s what they mean by ‘once in a lifetime.’”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But that was only half-true. I might not have followed whatever convoluted logic his words mapped out, but I knew what he meant. I could feel it, too.

“I’m talking about you. Us. You can’t possibly know how this is going to end, because this doesn’t fit into the boxes you shove all your other issues into. This is bigger than that. This is bigger than you, and bigger than me, and it’s sure as hell bigger than Jake Tower.” He ducked, drawing my gaze back up with his, and the look in his eyes was so intense my pulse started whooshing in my ears almost loud enough to drown out his words. “Kori, I—”

“Don’t.” I stood and backed across the room in mounting panic, trying to hold myself together by pushing everything else out. “Don’t tell me how you feel, and whatever you do, don’t tell Jake. But don’t lie about it, either, because he has Readers, and he’ll know the moment you tell an outright lie. And he’ll know you’re hiding something even if you only think about lying. It’s a trap. The whole thing is one great big trap and we’re flies flapping our wings, trying to pull free from the sticky paper. But the harder we flap, the tighter we’re caught.”

Ian frowned and came closer, but I backed away again. “You’re starting to sound paranoid, Kori.”

“I am paranoid.” The bitter laughter that bubbled up my throat actually burned. “But that doesn’t mean he isn’t out to get me.”

“Okay, calm down.”

I shook my head and backed around the glass coffee table, but he followed me slowly. Persistently. “You don’t understand. You don’t know what happened. I can’t come back from what I did, and even if I could, I don’t think I want to.”

“I know what happened.” Ian reached for me, but I backed away again. I couldn’t help it. I wanted to let him hold me, and that’s how I knew I should keep distance between us instead.

Wanting things is dangerous—it gives people power over you.

Wanting things you can’t have is even worse.

But giving in to desire just because you want something is weakness. Inexcusable weakness of character and will. I didn’t get many opportunities to exercise my own will, and I wasn’t going to let any of it slip between my fingers just because his arms felt strong. Just because it felt good to let someone else stand guard for once. I wasn’t that weak.

I couldn’t be.

“How do you know?” I didn’t want to believe him. If he knew what I’d done, he might also know how I’d paid for my crimes. And I desperately didn’t want him to know that.

“People talk and I listen even when they’re not talking to me.”

That was the truth, and part of me was glad he respected me enough to give it to me without the sugarcoating. But the rest of me… The rest of me was…

I don’t know what I was.

Something crawled beneath my skin, fighting to get out, and I wanted to scratch, but that would bring no relief. My throat ached from holding back words I couldn’t say. My eyes burned from holding back tears I couldn’t let fall. And in my head, one word played over and over, and I couldn’t make it stop.

Nonononono…

“Kori…”

“No! Stay there.” I backed toward the short hall, instinctively pulled toward the dark bedroom. Toward escape.

“Okay. I’ll stay here.” Ian stopped in the middle of the living room, reaching for me with his palms out. Unarmed. Unsure. “But you stay, too. Don’t go, Kori. Please.”

“I got him shot.” The room blurred beneath my tears. “I was supposed to protect him with my own life, and I let Jake get shot instead. His kids could have been killed. He hates me now, and even though I’m out of the basement, I’m still being punished, and that’s never going to stop. I’m poison, Ian.” I looked right into his eyes, trying to make him understand how serious my predicament really was, because the words alone weren’t enough. I wasn’t overreacting. I wasn’t unreasonably paranoid. My fear was justified, for us both. “I’m the most dangerous thing that could ever have happened to you.”

“No. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Doesn’t matter.” I shook my head, and I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t make my hands stop shaking, and my breaths were coming too fast again. “If you try to stay with me after you sign, you’ll piss him off, and you’ll go down with me.”