Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 44963 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44963 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
He’s here to do us harm. A home invader, meaning to rob us, meaning to ruin our lives. His hand trembles slightly, causing the silenced pistol at his side to shake too. I can see the tension in him, cutting through his tight-featured face, as if he’s trying to work himself up to something.
Then his eyes stray to my chest again.
Okay, this is just getting insane. How is my body responding with layers of heat, my nipples tingling, my sex aching? I’ve never been the most sensual person, and my body chooses now to wake up that part of me?
“Why are you here?” Dad says, backing away to the bed.
The man turns to Dad. The moonlight shines on his neck, highlighting the firm muscles there, the strong sinew of him. I need to stop noticing stuff like that. Inappropriate doesn’t even come close.
I’m existing on two tracks. Fear dominates one of them. My body is coated in a sheet of fight-or-flight sweat, my legs twitching, telling me to run, but there’s another track. This one is thinking about all kinds of crazy things. About him, this gun-wielding stranger.
“They sent me here to kill you,” the man says gruffly.
“No,” I yell, reflex making me move toward him.
I’m not sure what I think I’m going to do. I walk until I’m standing barely feet from him, close enough to see the flicker of humanity in his eyes. Or maybe I’m just projecting what I wish was there. If there was something humane in this man, it would mean these feelings could make some sense.
“Was?” Andrew says. “You’re having second thoughts?”
The man groans and looks at me again. I have to keep reminding myself not to indulge in insane thoughts, like dragging my hands down his arms, feeling how powerful they are. Or falling against him and feeling the security of his embrace.
No, brain… stop!
“If you even think about hurting my dad, I’ll hurt you. I’ll find a way to do it. I swear.”
He smirks. Pride in the smirk, in the glinting of his eyes, as if he finds it interesting, me standing up to him.
“Stop smiling at me,” I snap, ignoring the piece of me that likes it, that feels an overwhelming pride in answer to his expression.
His face hardens. “Pack a bag. Both of you. Take only what you need. You’ve got five minutes. Then we’re leaving.”
“What?” My mind goes to college, my marketing course. Sure, I won’t be leaving behind a vibrant social life, but I’ve still got things to do here. “I can’t. I’ve got a class tomorrow and—”
“The Italian mob hired me to come here and kill your dad,” the man growls. “If it wasn’t for… You would’ve found him. You would’ve thought he was sleeping at first, but then you would’ve known.”
“If it wasn’t for what?” I snap, my voice tangled as my emotions clash.
How can even a little part of me want this man? There must be something wrong with me. I can’t fight the confused magnetism drawing me to him.
“Do you want to die?” the man snaps. “Pack. A. Bag. Or wait here for the mafia to send somebody else. It’s your choice.”
The mafia. It would sound like a joke, but Dad stares at me bleakly. “We have to do what he says, Violet.”
“You want us to go with this stranger?”
At the word stranger, Dad winces. “I can’t explain right now. There isn’t time, but he’s right. The mafia wants me dead. I wasn’t sure they knew… but clearly, they do.”
“I don’t understand. Knew what?” A crazed laugh escapes me, no humor in it at all, just pain. “You’re an accountant. What would the mafia want with you? And we don’t even know this killer’s name.”
I put acid into the word killer. Letting him know what I think of him. Or what I want him to think my view of him is, stifling everything else, battering down the voice that whispers, Fall into his arms. Lay your cheek against his chest. Listen to his heartbeat and let it convince you everything’s going to be okay.
“Do you trust me?” Dad says, approaching with his hands raised, his half-butterfly birthmark puckering as his eyes widen.
“Obviously, I trust you,” I whisper.
He’s all I have. The only family I know.
“Then pack a bag, please. We have to do this. This man’s right.”
I glare over Dad’s shoulder at the silver-haired man, his icy eyes locked intently on us.
“Why didn’t you do it? If they hired you, why not go through with it? It sounds like you’ve done this sort of thing before. It sounds like this is nothing new to you.”
The man’s eyes flit to Dad, then back to me. He can’t stop from roaming up and down my body, his gaze sending tickles over the surface of my skin, even with Dad here, even with murder in the air.