Snow Blind-J Collins 4 by Lori G. Armstrong Read Free Book Online Page B

Maybe I’ll give it a shot if you do something nice for me.”
    “Which would be?”
    “Don’t turn off your phone. Put it on vibrate, but I need to know I can get in touch with you at all times.”
    Not a casual request, and my warning bells jangled. “Tony, what’s going on?”
    He sighed. “Some Hombres shit.”
    I treated him to the narrow-eyed stare he usually leveled on me. “Not a good enough answer. Try again.”
    “Until I know more that’s all I can tell you.”
    Or all he would tell me. “Is that why you barged in here? To put the fear of Verizon in me?”
    “If that’ll work.”
    54

    “Fine. I’ll sleep with the goddamn thing if you’ll stop nagging me about it. Seems I could use a bad dream talisman anyway.” I sidestepped him and opened the refrigerator. “Am I cooking dinner for two? Or did you just show up here to piss me off before you leave me to my own devices again?”
    Martinez didn’t move. I felt his searing gaze on my neck as I studied the humble contents inside the fridge.
    “Why didn’t you call me last night after it happened?”
    “You’d’ve driven out here at two in the morning to hold my hand?”
    “I’d’ve been here in a fucking heartbeat, Julie, and you damn well know it.” He paused and asked, “Who?”
    The unwanted images slammed into my head. I couldn’t pretend the horror in my dreams was a freakish one-time-only nightmare. The faces might change, but the truth didn’t: I’d killed someone. My subconscious decided I needed to pay for that. Repeatedly.
    “Tell me,” he demanded.
    “It was you this time, okay? So you understand why I didn’t rush to the phone to spill my guts that we were in a shoot-out and you killed me.”
    “Fuck.”
    I swung the door shut. “Yeah. Forget it.”
    “No.”
    “Tony—”
    He spun me and clamped his hands around my biceps. “You don’t have these goddamn nightmares when I’m in bed with you.”
    55

    “No shit.”
    “When are you gonna admit . . .”
    His shrewd gaze lingered on the dark circles under my eyes that makeup couldn’t hide. I stayed mum and stared back defiantly.
    “I will hammer away at you until you talk to me about this.”
    How well I knew that. “Fine. Everything was in bloody extreme slow-mo. A light flashed and we were blowing chunks out of each other. When I inhaled, my lungs hurt so fucking bad it was like I was breathing lead, which made it worse because everything smelled like you, then rot and death. And I was crying except when a bullet hit you, I’d laugh. Laugh , like she did after she shot me, and then I woke up alone.”
    Screaming. I didn’t tell him that part, but I suspected he knew anyway.
    Martinez didn’t haul me into his arms for a hug.
    His hands dropped like I’d become radioactive.
    Great.
    I fled to my bedroom to avoid the argument.

    Martinez’s solution to my nightmares was simple: sleep with him every night, wherever that might be. It wouldn’t be an issue if it meant crashing at his house regularly. But we spent less time at his hilltop for-tress than any other place. I didn’t mind spending the night in his private rooms at Fat Bob’s, the biker bar he owned, or at Bare Assets, the strip club he owned
    . . . once in a while. Problem was, even he didn’t know 56

    where he’d end up after last call, and I didn’t enjoy playing musical beds.
    Consequently, we weren’t together every night—a situation he blamed on me. And it drove him insane he wasn’t around to protect me from myself, which was sweet, if an unrealistic expectation on his part.
    I pressed my hot forehead to the window, welcoming the cool sting of icy glass. Would he leave or stay?
    After a time, footsteps stopped behind me and I was surrounded by the familiar scent of leather. Of him.
    His heavy sigh stirred my hair. “I’m late for a meeting.”
    “So go.”
    “Jesus, Julie. Don’t.” Warm lips brushed the back of my head. “I know you want me to stay, and I wouldn’t leave if