Out of the Shadows (Tangled Ivy #3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

happened, we had right now. I kissed him, the feel of his lips against mine grounding me in a way that was comforting. We were together, and despite everything, Devon loved me and wanted to fight for us. I couldn’t ask for more.
    Tugging at his shirt, I pulled it up over his head and tossed it aside. His skin was warm and smooth under my hands. I ran my palms over his shoulders and down his arms, admiring the hard expanse of muscle that curved and contracted as he moved.
    “You’ve been through a lot,” he murmured against my lips. “You sure you wouldn’t rather take a nap?”
    “Why waste time sleeping?” I asked. “Besides, I trust you. You won’t hurt me.” And I didn’t just mean physically. Devon understood me, the Ivy I’d hidden away all these years who’d pretended everything was okay. He’d found her—found me—and made me face and conquer all that had kept me prisoner inside.
    “Never,” he breathed.
    He undressed me carefully, kissing every inch of skin he revealed. His lips gently traced the cut on my arm, as though he could heal the wound himself. Skin glided along skin, our bodies touching, and it was more than arousal, more than desire. It was coming home.
    “I thought I’d never see you again,” I whispered as his mouth brushed a kiss along my jaw. My hair was spread on the pillow as he settled above me.
    “I was a bloody fool to let you go,” he murmured. “I won’t make the same mistake twice.”
    Making love had been a phrase I’d always shied away from, the words feeling melodramatic and overwrought to describe the physical act of sex. But I’d been wrong. I’d just never felt this way, never had a man who felt the same in return, and that transformed everything into more than the physical. Devon gazed into my eyes, pressed light kisses to my cheeks, and murmured words of love in my ear as he moved inside me. I held him close, glad beyond words that I’d stuck with him even when it looked like our relationship would never amount to anything.
    He wrung two orgasms from me before allowing himself to come, his body shuddering against mine. Our bodies were slick with sweat, his chest heaving as our lips clung together.
    Spent, I lay cradled in his arms. He played with my hair and I listened to the sound of his heart beating.
    “I don’t want tomorrow to come,” I said, my voice quiet in the dim motel room. “I wish we could stay like this and pretend nothing else existed.” A ridiculous, childish hope.
    “It’ll be all right,” Devon said.
    “You don’t know that.” I turned, resting my chin on my arm as I lay on his chest and looked up at him. “Can we just run away? Far away, somewhere they’ll never find us.”
    “We have the means, yes, but I don’t want to be constantly looking over our shoulders, waiting for the day they track us down, because they certainly will. That’s no way to live.”
    He was right and I knew it, but I was still disappointed. I noticed he’d placed his gun under the pillow and his right hand lay tucked beneath his head. Devon keeping a weapon within easy reach even as we slept only reinforced the danger we were in.
    A deep sense of foreboding hung over me, and I couldn’t help being afraid that one or both of us wouldn’t make it out of this alive.

M orning came too quickly, and when I woke up, Devon had already gone and come back, bringing me clothes and a cup of coffee.
    Beau and Ty showed up soon after I’d showered and dressed, also sipping from paper cups of steaming black coffee.
    “So Beau said he’d been keeping an eye on me for you,” I said to Devon. At the time, the interest Beau had taken in my life had seemed so strange. He’d given new meaning to nosy neighbor . I’d thought him eccentric—friendly but odd. Now it turned out he’d been spying for Devon.
    “I didn’t like leaving you alone,” Devon said. “Beau lived right across the hall from me, so he kept tabs on you, yes.” He didn’t sound