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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
L.J. Hayward
Read between
January 8 - January 17, 2020
He looked like shit. Drawn, red eyed, a decidedly grey undertone to his light-brown skin, ready to snap necks if he didn’t get caffeine before attempting human interaction.
Jack was not a touchy-feely person. Not because he was wary of people in his personal space—which he was—but more because, to him, hands were something intimate. A lot of people paid no attention to what or how they touched, or just how expressive hands could be. A tender touch often said more than an entire speech. A slap expressed a deeper emotion than yelling. Reaching out to help or offer comfort or to give pleasure. Holding hands, a powerful image of solidarity. Flipping the finger, immediately satisfactory and insulting. A salute to show respect. Hands pressed together in prayer. Holding
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“it is entirely possible to miss something you’ve never had.”
Jack considered seeing how long it took to get a reaction, then decided against it. Ethan could out-patience a saint.
How many times had he come close to thinking he could like this man, then had that feeling ripped apart in some gruesome manner? Yet, every time it’d happened, he’d fallen right back into the same trap. Wasn’t that the definition of madness? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
Contrary to popular belief, I am not a heartless monster.”
He rummaged through the cargo in the buggy, tossing aside equipment he had no need for, lightening the load. He looked like a kid on Christmas who’d received everything on his wish list. If Jack hadn’t witnessed the cool, methodical killing of three men, he would have been amused by Blade’s gleeful mutterings. He had to keep reminding himself it was an act he couldn’t fall for.
What was worse? Blade’s lack of a conscience? Or the fact Jack had been feeling more and more detached from his?
The day Ethan Blade did something straightforward would be the day the Devil started knitting.
And now he was right back there, feeling the same uncertainty, the same draw towards an unstable, enigmatic assassin.
Jack didn’t bother pointing out he could probably kick the man’s teeth in before the gun cleared the holster, even if he was clutching it like a toddler with a security blanket.
Blue, yellow, and red streamers twisted together and apart, around and around. Once more, he felt like one of those ribbons, pulled against his will into a tangle of plots he had no control over.
Could the two sides of Ethan Blade—the entranced reader, animal lover, and dedicated carer; the remorseless killer and deadly warrior—exist within one body?
“Yes, what I do is wrong. But for me, I’m doing it for the right reasons.”
Jack lost himself in the furious wonder of it, of feeling another man moving so violently, so single-mindedly against him. Of seeing the blurring lines between their bodies, the contrasting skin tones twining together, chaotic and beautiful.
It was like the night with the dingoes. Ethan retreated, keeping a wary eye on Jack, who kept coming after him, predatory and crazy with confusion.
Ethan squirmed under him, submissive and obedient. So different from that first time, when Jack had had to work hard to get something honest from him. Ethan had a pathological need to be in control, a product of history Jack didn’t know—wasn’t sure he wanted to know. But this right here, the sounds and shapes of him letting that control go, was a heady concoction that boiled through Jack like a dangerous mix of alcohol and a good dump of adrenaline.
Had anyone else ever managed to crack through the tough layers of control? Jack hoped not, because he wanted this vision of surrender before him to be his alone.
He’d not thought “mine” in a long time, and if he was going to start again, the seventh-ranked assassin in the world was the wrong launching-off point.
Ethan was so damn tempting, like a deadly sin offered free with a bottle of good bourbon—all but impossible to resist.
“Uh-uh,” Jack murmured, shoving dextrous fingers away from the button fly. “But,” Ethan began, and didn’t finish because Jack flicked a finger over a peaked, damp nipple and Ethan’s voice turned into a strangled groan. “That’s not yours to play with,” Jack said, fighting his own need to just give in, to let Ethan have his way. But he held back. Not yet.
After folding up his list and tucking it into a pocket, Ethan stood. “Yes, Jack,” he repeated patiently. “That is my plan. We will, of course, try for minimal deaths, but it may be impossible, given the circumstances.” As he passed Jack, he winked and patted his cheek. “Are you saying you’re not up to the challenge?”
Kisses were like hands. Revealing, expressive, intimate—and, also like hands, most people didn’t see how powerful a kiss could be.
Love grew out of hearts and minds, and those things were most eloquently, most purely, expressed with the lips. In the words a person spoke to show their thoughts, their opinions, their feelings; the way they smiled or pouted or grimaced; the subtle touch of a tongue to a lower lip; downturned at the corners often more expressive than a gesture or walkaway; a bitten lip to keep in a throaty groan. The mouth was the most intimate part of a person and, as with hands, the least guarded.
“Scared or not, it didn’t stop you arguing with me or telling me how you truly felt. Most people, when they hear the name Ethan Blade, clam up out of fear. They don’t want to upset me or provoke me. You didn’t do that, and it felt . . . good.”
