Page 91 of Until the End

Unbelievable. Simply being snuggled close to him had her practically on the verge again.

Smiling, she pushed herself up on an elbow. Her fingers traced the lines of sleek muscle on his abdomen, over his solid chest, up his neck to his incredible jaw.

“Did you get it out of your system?” she asked, staring down at him.

The look of contentment on his face shifted, his gaze shuttering as he considered her question for a protracted moment. She’d only been teasing him, but now she regretted letting her mouth somehow spoil things.

His brows furrowed like he was deep in thought, wading through a river of worry. “No. I’m afraid I didn’t.” He threw the covers aside and put his feet to the floor. With his back to her, he sat there for a few uneasy beats before he went to the bathroom.

Dread congealed in her throat. She sat up, bringing her knees and the sheet to her chest.

The toilet flushed. The water ran. Her mind spun.

Castle left the bathroom. He came to her side of the bed and sat on the edge, a someone-just-died look on his face.

A sickening sensation clenched inside her gut. “What’s wrong?”

“I care about you. And I still want you. More than I did before.”

That should’ve been a good thing, but she saw the conflict stretched across his face and hardening his eyes.

Every time he took a chance on her, chose to trust and protect her despite her mistakes, he’d made her believe in honor and chivalry. In the possibility of love. Each kiss and caress had healed a little of the damage inflicted by the men before, the Jaspers and Lennys.

All of them an overture to Castle.

She wasn’t foolish enough to think they’d have more than a few days together. Then he’d be done with this assignment, with her, and be off on another mission. But she wanted those days. The heat of his body tangled with hers, soothing something inside them both.

She wasn’t ready to lose him. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Kit slid an arm around his neck and pressed her lips to his. He didn’t kiss her back. Both with their eyes open, staring at the other.

For a few agonizing seconds, she was frozen.

But the look that surfaced in his eyes shredded her.

31

It caused Castle actual physical pain to pull away from Kit’s embrace, and that was the problem. He’d tried chalking up his affection for her to a little bit of pity and a whole lot of lust. Most times, he wondered if he simply reveled in being a savior. They were contributing factors to the hold she had on him, but now he knew this growing attachment was something much stronger.

“What I feel for you will make my job harder, the mission messy.”

Being with her had shifted his perspective, but game changers were always bad news.

“Do you regret it?” she asked. “Sleeping with me?”

“It wasn’t smart. I gave in to weakness.”

“That’s not a no.” She winced, the look cutting right through him, and bowed her head. “It was just sex, Castle.” Her voice broke. “Let’s not make it a big deal by talking about it anymore. Okay?”

“No, it’s not okay.” It was a big deal, and he wasn’t going to dismiss it and pretend. That wasn’t him. “Because it wasn’t just sex and I don’t regret it. What happened was inevitable.”

After the navy, sex had become a ritual of riding the buzz from a Gray Box mission. He’d been more connected to the thrill of beating death than to the woman. He’d convinced himself he was better suited alone and never opened up, never shared, never got close.

Everything before Kit had been superficial. She roused him on a soul-deep level, awakening something in him that he’d thought had grown cold forever. Touching her was like being drenched in sunlight. He was a sponge that needed to soak up every damn drop of warmth.

But with Kit, so much was at risk.

“I have a lot to lose by handing over a copy instead of the original hard drives. By protecting you, trusting you, sleeping with you,” he said.