Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56232 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56232 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Are you getting ready? I text her once I finish.
For what?
For our four a.m. date. What else?
Are you serious? It’s the middle of the night.
So what? When I can’t sleep, I often take Shadow on nighttime adventures.
I’m just trying to prove I’m the mature one, she replies, making me chuckle. Okay. I’ll get ready.
I wait at the end of her street like she asked me to. Hell, like Luca waited for Ruby when they were getting close. When he told me about that, I remember thinking I’d never let myself get that deep with a woman. I’d never let myself bond so close to the point of having to sneak around to see her, but that was before Lexi. Now, I’d wait ten hours for her, a hundred, a thousand.
She walks down the street, her silhouette obvious and tempting. I crack the passenger-side door, and she slides inside, wearing a dark hoodie and black jeans. Her hair is tied up in a messy bun, and her eyes look sleepy. She looks so naturally beautiful.
It awakens something in me just by being close to her. I lean over and kiss her. She makes a soft moaning noise, then grabs my shirt, pulling herself closer.
“So you’re not mad at me?” she says.
“Relax, Lexi. You got me here. You brought us together.”
I kiss her again, but then I lean away, feeling my dick start to get hard, my balls tingling now she’s here in person. It’s like I’m something flammable, and she’s the flame.
Turning, I nod to the backseat toward my nominated cockblocker of the evening. “You don’t mind some company, do you?”
She turns, her blue eye shining with surprise, her green eye gleaming with genuine affection when she sees Shadow lying across the seat. “Hey, buddy. Tired because Daddy’s got you up late?”
Shadow makes a puppy-like noise and leans toward her, offering his chin to be stroked. When Lexi does it, he whines again.
“He acts like a puppy around you,” I tell her.
She laughs. “He’s not normally like this?”
“He’s ex-military, trained to be a weapon. He’s often his own person. He’s not like other dogs. In fact, sometimes, I think he looks down on other dogs. He thinks he’s too smart for them, but he’s like a house pet with you. It’s good to see.”
Lexi smiles, then turns to me. “So, where are we going?”
“I thought we’d take a late-night walk. Thirty-minute drive out to the reserve, wander around, thirty-minute ride back…”
She nods. “Sounds good.”
When I pull out of the spot, she drums her fingers against her knees. I can feel her watching me, the pressure of her gaze against me. “What?” I say.
“You weren’t even looking at me!”
I laugh. “But you were looking at me.”
“I was just going to say… I know more about Shadow than I know about you now. Ex-military, trained to hurt people…”
“I feel like you’re hinting at something.”
“Could that be used to describe you, too?”
“There’s nothing special about me. A Green Beret, then a contractor, and now I just work out and chill with my dog.”
“And help people,” Lexi says. “Back when all that craziness happened, you were following him for a reason.”
“I knew he was a bad person. There are too many of them in this goddamn world. Luca was right to…” I trail off. “But anyway, this is supposed to be a nice night.”
“What about when you were a kid?” she asks, full of energy like she can’t contain herself. It reminds me of the way she trembled during her orgasm, her release bubbling out of her.
“That’s an abrupt question.”
“Well… we have to talk about something, don’t we?”
“I normally talk to Shadow about different kinds of rifle attachments.”
“I bet he finds that fascinating,” she says with adorable sarcasm.
I think about what I said to Dante earlier. I was raised like a dog. Why did I share that?
“My dad was a famous serial killer. My mom was one of his victims.”
For moments after, the car seems even quieter. I pull onto the dead-of-traffic bridge and cross over the water, glistening in the moonlight.
“Whoa,” Lexi mutters. “That’s not what I expected you to say.”
I shrug. “I don’t talk about it much. I never see much use. It was a long, long time ago.”
“So, who raised you?”
“My uncle on my mom’s side. He was a pastor. He played it nice for the community but wasn’t a good man. He used to lock me up in the shed until I got too big for it. I only ate if I worked, so I started working early. As soon as I could, I left to join the military.”
“Wow,” Mia says. “Thank you, Colt. I bet that’s hard to talk about.”
I shrug again as if it doesn’t matter, but my chest feels a little lighter.
“What about you?” I ask.
“Nothing compared to that! My mom sometimes yelled at my dad, and…” She pauses. I glance at her, sensing some darkness in her gorgeously contrasted eyes. She turns away and looks out the window. “And a few comments at school, but nothing major. Mine was very normal compared to that. Not that I’m calling you weird.”