Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90252 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90252 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
I don’t deserve this. I will never deserve this. She’s already given me the best few days of my life. If I died right this second, I’d go with a heart full of gratefulness.
As she dozes, my thoughts go back to the assassin who’d been sent to kill her. He was a freelance merc. Not with the Brotherhood or any other outfit I know. That means Kent Kingston is putting out offers somewhere on the black market instead of going to the heavy hitters. Fucking amateur.
Without jiggling Aurora too much, I grab my phone from the nightstand and shoot off a message to one of my old associates. I want to know who else might be coming after my songbird. I’ll break their necks before they get anywhere near her.
Settling back in, I stroke her soft hair.
It’s done. Locked in. I already knew the truth, but it whispers with every single heartbeat of mine—I will never let her go. This songbird is mine and mine alone. The taste of her, the feeling of being one with her… I never thought I’d have anything so sweet. And now that I’ve had it? I’ll kill anyone who tries to take it from me.
“Tense.” She looks up at me. “You just turned into a rock. What’s going on?” she asks sleepily.
“Just thinking.”
She snuggles against my chest again. “Sounds dangerous.”
I smile. “You’re the one that’s dangerous.”
“Me?” I feel her blinking against me, her eyelashes tickling my skin. “I’m dangerous?”
“Very.” I pull her on top of me, her legs parting so she straddles me.
“You’re the killer guy, right? I mean, I saw what you did to that jerk who came here to kill me. And you haven’t really talked about your past, but I can guess you weren’t loading groceries or working in an office when you got those scars.”
I shake my head. “No. Not at all.”
“Want to tell me about it?” She props her chin on my chest, and when she squirms closer, her hot pussy comes into contact with my cock.
I hiss and grip her hips. “No. I want to feel you again.”
She nibbles her lip and moves her hips against me. “I want that, too.” Then she cups my cheek. “But I want to know you, all of you, everything.”
I sigh and pull her up my body, hating to lose the heat of her from where I want it most. But this conversation requires focus. And I can barely even think as it is. She’s on top of me. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen is trusting me with her body, her mind, her heart.
“Bad childhood.” I throw that out there. “You don’t need details. But my father had fists and liked to use them.”
Her face falls. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was a long time ago. I forgave him even though he never asked me to. I had to. If I didn’t, I’d be full of hate and looking for death. Forgiving him also saved me.”
Her lips tip up in a sad smile. “You don’t talk much, but when you do, you get your point across beautifully.”
I grunt a low laugh. “I left home young, made my way all across the country. Got into a fight in NYC when I saw a guy trying to abduct a young woman. He got away. I got arrested.”
“Oh no.” She tries to wrap her arms around me, but I’m too big for her to get far. “Of course you were someone’s hero.”
“She was just a kid, you know? He was following her and grabbed her. I stopped him, but the cops actually showed up for once, so I got tossed in jail. While I was waiting for everything to get settled, someone from a clandestine mercenary group came to see me. They’d seen me fighting on some closed-circuit video from the incident. They recruited me right then and there. Got me out of lockup. Trained me. Put me through hell. Then put me to work.”
“What kind of work?” She traces her finger around my nipple, then strays to one of the long scars across my chest.
“Dirty work. Nothing good. Private security for bad men. That’s how I met Tiernan.”
“He was private security, too?”
I smirk. “No, he was one of the bad men.”
“Oh.”
“I did my job. Lots of fights and assignments that never made the news. Settling scores for underworld players. Bad things, songbird. Things I’ll never give you specifics about.” Just the thought of confessing my sins to her makes my skin crawl. “I’ve put that life behind me. I’ll have to pay one day. I have no doubt of that. But until then, I’m here. I’ve kept my head down and my nose clean. Then one day a beautiful songbird fluttered into my hands.”
She sings an octave in perfect notes. “Guilty.”
“And now I’ll never let her go.”