Page 81 of Selling Innocence

“Who’s Bray?”

“My bodyguard.” She crawled off my lap, moving to the other side of the couch, her motions uncoordinated. It was only a quick grab from me that kept her from toppling right off the couch and onto the hard floor.

She’d passed the slightly out of it stage of drugs and was in the ‘entirely fucked up’ phase of it, now.

I looked past her to Hayden, a question in my eyes. We had quite the opportunity here, didn’t we?

He pressed his lips together, but that didn’t shock me. Hayden was surprisingly honorable given what we were doing.

Still, when would we get a chance like this again? The pill had loosened her tongue, and this might be our only chance to find out the truth about her. Sure, drugging someone to question them wasn’t the noblest of choices, but wasn’t that better than continuing to go into this blind?

Kenz let out a high-pitched sound that could have come from a six-year-old, making me jump. She clapped, and another quick save kept her from toppling off the couch.

And boy did Tor look strange with that smile on his lips. It seemed Kenz could tame even the surliest of men. He had a large green mug in his hands with a swirl of whipped cream on the top.

Kenz reached for the drink, and I wrapped my hands around hers because if I didn’t, I was pretty sure the night would end with us trying to clean hot cocoa off…well, everything.

Tor reached into his pocket and pulled out an empty packet for sugar-free cocoa, showing it to Kenz and me.

I chuckled at the soft-hearted bastard. Since he’d known about it, I could only guess he’d been the one to get it.

“Thank you.” Kenz smiled widely before leaning forward and taking a sip. I tipped the cup, ensuring she didn’t pour it down her front. When she lifted her head, she had some whipped cream stuck to her top lip.

How was it that she could be even cuter than before?

Hayden spoke softly to Char, lowering his voice so Kenz didn’t catch the words. “You’re better at questioning. You do it.”

Char showed no signs of hesitation as he nodded. Of course, he was one of the most morally ambiguous men between us, so the idea of questioning a drugged woman probably didn’t bother him much.

Char came over and sat on the coffee table just in front of Kenz and me. He smiled, the false one that could charm anyone.

It was one reason I got along with Char better than Hayden or Tor. Char and I were similar, both more than willing to put on a mask to get what we wanted.

“Hey there, Kenz.”

She frowned, as if she didn’t care for something he’d said. She lifted her gaze from her drink to Char, giving him a glare. “I don’t like you like this.”

“Like what?”

“Nice.”

Funny enough, he didn’t seem bothered about the ethics of questioning her like this yet he was taken back by her words.

“What do you mean? I thought you said you didn’t like when I was mean.”

She removed one hand from the mug, and thankfully I held it or it would have spilled everywhere. She dragged her finger through the whipped cream then licked it off, the motion nowhere close to sensual. “I like when you’re honest. Sure, it’d be nice if you wanted to be nice to me, but I’d rather you be mean than you be fake. I don’t like when you call me Kenz, either.”

“No? What do you want me to call you, then?”

“I like when you call me ‘kitten’.”

Char remained silent for a moment before he chuckled, this time the laugh sounding real as opposed to that fake one from before. “Okay then, kitten. Will you tell me what happened? How you got hurt?”

He didn’t use the word shot, but that was probably on purpose. While the meds Kenz had taken would take the edge off her, they wouldn’t entirely prevent another panic attack.

Some of that childish humor she’d had disappeared. She curled her shoulders in, seeming to want to make herself as small as possible. It broke my heart, which I didn’t think I could even experience anymore.

“It hurt. I didn’t think it would, because people always said getting shot didn’t hurt right away. They said they were surprised and sometimes didn’t notice at all.” She sighed, then brought another finger covered in whipped cream to her mouth. “Maybe that just proves that I’m not as good as everyone else, because it hurt. Even though I was in shock, it hurt more than anything I’ve felt before. And healing wasn’t much better.”