Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 51889 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 208(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51889 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 208(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
I sat up and gave him a look.
“I’m not in bed.”
“Fine,” he said, saluting me with his cup of coffee, which I desperately wanted a sip of. “Go back to couch,” he quipped.
I groaned and lay back again, but I was smiling. I turned my face into the inner corner of the couch and wiggled around to get comfortable. I thought I heard him groan but I was already drifting off again.
At least until I remembered what today was.
“My cousins!” I almost shouted and sat up again. Vice quickly looked away. I narrowed my eyes at him.
“What were you looking at?”
“Sweetheart, you don’t want to know.”
“Tell me.”
“No,” he said firmly. “But if you are up, you might as well catch a shower.”
He turned his back on me as I glared at him. I watched as he went back into the kitchen and his computer, ignoring me completely.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Vice
This could be it, I thought, watching the exquisite beauty sitting at the kitchen table. She looked like a doll, too pretty to be real. But she was real, and she was in trouble.
And goddamn if I wasn’t head over heels in love with her.
I was painfully aware that this could be our last day together, our last morning, our last hour. I wasn’t ready for it to be over. Not now. Not ever.
We’d had such an unexpected journey. I’d never expected to meet anyone like her, much less get involved with her. Involved. That was a joke. I was done for, hook, line and sinker.
I’d had a kiss. One kiss. That was it.
It had been fucking magnificent. And it was not even close to enough. But even if I died today, I had no regrets.
Just getting to be close to her, to protect her, was more than I could have hoped for. She was that precious to me. That beautiful. That remarkable.
But for the first time in my life, things were different. I had goals. I had ambitions. All. Of them revolving around her. I hadn’t exactly had a death wish, but I had been realistic about my chances with my lifestyle, riding, and in combat. I’d made my peace.
But now? Now I desperately wanted to live, if only for the chance of kissing her again, of holding her through the night, maybe even more.
Man, I fucking wanted to marry the girl. Had since day one. If there was something more committed than marriage, I would have chosen that. I’d die for her. Hell, I’d sign my soul over to her, in blood. I was gonzo and I was too blissed out to even worry about it.
The fact that she even existed had changed the way I saw the world. It was a better place than it had been a month ago. It was beautiful. As long as she was in it, it would stay that way.
Bliss. Heaven. Hell.
Preacher would laugh his ass off if he could see me now. I was practically religious. But maybe he wouldn’t laugh, I thought, thinking of how Cynthia and those kids had turned his life around. Maybe he would laugh, a little. It was funny as hell. But he’d be happy for me, too.
Maybe he’d even be the one to marry us…
“More bacon?” I asked, watching her eat with impeccable good manners, but a surprisingly hearty appetite. The girl loved food in a way that was absolutely fascinating. It was adorable. And it gave me a daily opportunity to impress her with my cooking.
So far, I was killing it in that department.
“Yes, please,” she said primly, then gave me a borderline wolfish grin. She reminded me of that old song Tiny Dancer… my girl definitely had a ‘pirate smile’.
My girl. She was getting to be just that. And I wanted to keep her, damnit. But more than that, I needed to keep her safe.
“Aren’t you hungry?” She asked. I just shook my head. I wasn’t hungry. I needed my edge. I was drinking coffee like it was going out of style. If I had been in the desert and getting ready for combat, it would have been Red Bull.
“Tell me the plan again,” I demanded.
She gave me an exasperated look.
“Again,” I insisted. We had reviewed the plan over and over. We had pinpointed a couple of locations where I had already arranged for places to lay low. She knew Trace’s and Cain’s phone numbers by heart. She knew how to make a fist in case someone tried to secure her wrists so she could slip out later. It made your wrists wider and it was possible to get enough wiggle room in a zip tie or handcuff to escape. She knew a couple of strategic moves to get away from a larger opponent. That was if her cousins didn’t play nice.
If they did play nice… well, that could go a long way to easing things with the rest of her family and maybe even give her a chance to settle down somewhere. To stop running.