Code of Control by Jevenna Willow Page A

chuckle
never reached her ears.
    “Smelled me?” He
sniffed his armpits. Yes, he did need a shower, but from ten feet away she
could actually smell him?
    “Your shit
stinks…even if you don’t think it does.”
    “Oh, yeah? Well,
your shit stinks like high hell, Ms. Raven. Don’t call the kettle black…”
    Charlotte
whipped her face toward his, glared, and then turned back to stare off into the
night sky. She took a sip of the beer as he moved forward, sitting next to her
without permission.
    “Why did you do
it?” she asked him, seemingly forcing her gaze up and away from his. He could
see she was doing everything in her power not to let down her guard.
    “Drop you down
there?”
    She shook her
head. This time, she turned and stared at him. “No. Why did you hire me? You
don’t trust me to trust you, so this is not going to work. It’s a waste of our time
to think we can ever be partners.”
    He set his hand
on her lower arm, Charlotte flinching.
    “Ah, come on.
You can’t hate me this much, do you?” When she did not respond, he continued.
“I don’t do anything that is a waste of my time.”
    “I’m sitting on
your porch in a bloody bath towel. You don’t care that my clothes were tossed
into your room by your brother, and consequentially non-retrievable at this
point. I can’t stop shaking from what you did to me today…”
    He put his arm
around her, drawing her close. The trembling he felt under his arm made him feel
horrible. Still, he’d do it again. A destructive path was a challenging path,
easily overcome if in the right setting, and he’d wanted her to overcome at
least one of her fears before the end of two weeks.
    “I’m sorry, for
what it’s worth,” he began.
    Charlotte did not
pull out of the offered comfort. She eventually leaned into him, accepting his
arm around her.
    “I never thought
it would get to me,” she said softly.
    “The dark?”
    She shook her
head. “No, the fear. I was much tougher than this, until, you know…”
    He drew back,
staring at her profile. There was definite moisture pooling in the corners of
her eyes.
    “When did it start?”
he probed, knowing this was a huge step toward progress between them.
    Charlotte
shrugged, taking another swig of beer.
    “It’s probably in
your records. All I have to do is read them again,” he said.
    “I know,” she
muttered, almost inaudible.
    “It’s not going
to go away, no matter what you or I try to do to each other. Guilt is too
strong of an emotion to work past on first try.”
    “I know that,
too.”
    Nolan drew in a
deep breath. “Was it really that bad today? Pushed too far?”
    Charlotte
allowed one small tear to fall, her face turning toward his. Instinct, nothing
more, he reached up and slid his thumb over her delicate cheekbone, removing
the telltale history of an emotional letdown. He could tell she did not want
anyone to see the softer side of her. It was the only reason they did what they
had in that hotel room. She must have wanted one moment to be soft and
gooey—accessible, if you will. It was almost too bad it hadn’t happened between
them in a normal way, courtship and eventual relationship. Unfortunately, Nolan
had a phobia of relationships, as much as she had of buried alive, his scarred shoulder
burning like hell, worse than his eye and jaw at this point.
    “Not far
enough,” she said, moving toward him. Very gently, she set her mouth against
his, waiting for a response.
    Nolan responded,
but not in the way she likely wanted. He placed his hands on both her shoulders,
pushing her back.
    “You don’t want
this from me tonight,” he rasped out.
    “I want it more
than you can ever know. You owe me after today.”
    He shook his
head, groaning at the movement. “Tomorrow, you will change your mind about me.
New day, new outlook, new endeavor. There will always be something standing
between us.”
    Charlotte looked
him dead to rites. “No, I won’t change my mind about you, and I