Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 153571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 768(@200wpm)___ 614(@250wpm)___ 512(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 153571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 768(@200wpm)___ 614(@250wpm)___ 512(@300wpm)
One of them, a petite blonde, turns to her friend as I walk by.
"Who is he?" she whispers.
"He's here with a freshman. I guess he's her dad."
"He's fucking hot," the first girl whispers, giggling. "I'd totally call him daddy."
"Jesus Christ," I mutter, shaking my head when the entire group collapses into a fit of giggles. I'm far from a saint, but I'm not nearly stupid enough to go after a teenager…especially when I have one of my own upstairs. And I would fucking kill a man for trying to get with my daughter.
Christ. Is it too late to forbid her from going to a school with men?
I grab her last two bags from the truck and sling them over my shoulder before heading back inside. Thankfully, the group in the lounge is preoccupied by a group of frat boys bragging about some party, so I make it through without being ogled this time.
By the time I make it back to Tahani's dorm, she's hanging shit up in the closet.
"Here." I drop the last two bags on her bed and then recline against the desk, watching her. "You sure you're going to be all right here, Hani?"
"Daddy, I'm seventeen," she says, rolling her eyes like I'm annoying her. "I'm going to be fine. I'll probably be completely boring and spend all my time studying. My course load is crazy heavy."
"Try to have some fun," I mutter, even though I really want to tell her to stay her ass in her room and away from every boy—and party—here. "Just…don't be stupid, okay? You're too smart to do half the dumb shit I did when I was your age."
"Like what?" she asks, hanging a dress in the closet before grabbing another. Her eyes meet mine, mischief lurking in the depths. "I thought you said you were boring and respectable when you were my age."
"I lied like a motherfucker," I grunt. "I didn't pull my head out of my ass until your grandfather was shot and killed." It took losing my dad in the line of duty to make me grow the fuck up and realize that I was headed down a dark path.
Everything changed when we lost him. I realized that I wanted to be one of the good guys in life, not another asshole like the one who murdered him. There are terrible people in this world. I will never let myself be one of them.
I'll never let my daughter know them, either. My goal in life is to keep her young and innocent for as long as humanly possible. She knows I'm an ATF agent and that I work undercover, but I refuse to divulge details to her. The less she knows about what I do and the people I deal with, the better.
"I wish I could have met him and Grandma," Tahani says, her voice soft and sad. That kills me. My dad died when I was eighteen. My mom followed when I was twenty-three. They never knew I had a daughter and never got to meet her. I will never be okay with the fact that Lucinda stole that experience from them as much as she stole it from me and Tahani. It fucking kills me that my daughter will always long to meet her grandparents.
"I already know they love you, kid," I tell her, trying to make it hurt a little less for her. Hell, for me, too. "Your grandfather is probably looking down at you right now, bitching to your grandma about you going to college at seventeen. And she's probably shushing him, telling him that you're a good girl who doesn't need him hovering. And for God's sake, put that gun away right this instant."
Tahani throws her head back and laughs loudly, which is all I want. But if there is a heaven, I imagine it's going down exactly like that right now. My parents met when my mom moved here from Mexico when she was fifteen. They were inseparable from the moment they met. My father worshipped the ground she walked on. She ran the house, and he fucking loved it.
Something thumps against the door, and then it flies open, making Tahani jump. She spins toward it, her eyes wide.
I move my head slowly in that direction…and damn near come in my pants when I catch sight of the blonde stumbling into the room. My cock roars to life, pressing insistently against the zipper of my jeans as I stare at the girl.
She can't be much older than Tahani, but she's the prettiest little thing I've ever seen. Her blonde hair is up in a loose bun, accentuating her pink cheeks. The gleam in her emerald green eyes and the confidence in the way she carries herself is alluring as hell. She looks like a fucking pinup model.