When he stiffens on top of me, groaning brokenly, his body shaking uncontrollably, I find my paradise, too. I gasp at the intensity of it, how the pleasure wraps around me and squeezes, turning my thighs to jelly, my femininity constricting around him as he spurts, unloading inside of me in an endless, violent rampage. All I can do is lay there and take those final, desperate drives of his body into mine, legs limp, conquered.
Benny has only pulled me into his arms, cradled me and started to rock me…
When we hear a sound out in the house. Outside of the bathroom.
His muscles stiffen, lips peeling back in a snarl.
“Maybe it’s one of the animals?” I ask, somehow knowing it isn’t.
Benny stands and crosses the bathroom quickly to the shower stall, setting me down inside, behind a partial tile wall. “Stay here. Don’t come out for any reason.”
He kisses me hard while fastening his pants. And then he reaches above my head, toward a shelf holding a stack of folded towels—and he takes out a gun.
“Who’s there?” Benny barks, moving toward the door with the gun raised, in a stance that leaves no room for doubt that he is well versed in carrying a weapon. Using it.
“It’s just me, Benny,” calls back a voice I don’t recognize. “It’s Frank. We’re due a talk, it seems. Boss to employee. I took the liberty of making us some coffee.”
Benny’s shoulders stiffen and his eyes find me in the bathroom mirror. There is fear there. Frank has been in the house long enough to know Benny isn’t alone. He’s heard my voice. Heard a lot more than that, really. There’s no point in hiding me.
“Go ahead and bring the girl out with you,” drawls Frank. “If you took her as collateral—which is against the rules, as you well know—then she technically belongs to me. And ooh boy, does she sound like a feisty one. I’ll be taking her with me.” He chuckles. “Think I can get her to call me Daddy, too?”
I’ve never seen a man transform so quickly.
My sweet giant turns into berserker in the blink of an eye. So much violence floods into his expression that the whites of his eyes turn red.
Sensing he’s about to break his promise to me, I shake my head. “No. Benny—”
But it’s too late. He kicks open the door and aims the gun, firing a shot straight into the chest of the man standing on the other side. The blast echoes in my ears, making them ring. I stand in a daze for a slow-motion moment, watching the blood pour from the man’s chest. He coughs and another spray of blood paints his chin in a fine mist—and that’s when my trance is broken. That’s when I wrap myself in a towel with shaking hands, throw open the bathroom window, climb out and run. Away from the violence.
Away from the man whose life is so intertwined with murder that I was an idiot to think he could ever truly give it up.
Chapter Seven
Benny
I lower the gun and stare down at my boss. He has dropped to the floor of my living room and slumped sideways, clutching at his chest, wheezing for air. Do I feel a hint of sympathy? No. When he claimed that he would be taking Fawn with him and…and touching her, touching what’s mine…he signed his death warrant.
So no, I have no remorse for what I’ve done.
My only regret is that I didn’t strangle him with my bare hands.
The longer he remains still on the ground, the more my rage begins to ebb. Reality comes back into focus. I’ve just killed my boss. A powerful man. And I did it in front of Fawn.
I’ve subjected her to violence after I promised repeatedly to keep it out of our lives.
Still, this has to be an exception, right? He threatened to take her away from me. He has the means to do it, too. A hundred men at his disposal. I would have fought like an animal. I could have fended off ten men, maybe even twenty, but I can’t be everywhere at once. And I’m not bulletproof, either. This was kill or be killed.
One last death on my hands.
Commit murder or lose the best thing in my life.
My angel. My poor angel must be terrified.
She’ll understand, won’t she? She’ll understand I had to do it.
My heart bounces side to side in my throat as I stumble into the bathroom. I lunge toward the shower, my deafening roar of denial echoing off the walls. Red coats my vision. A fine sheen of icy cold sweat becomes a layer on top of my skin. Spinning around, I notice the open window and I don’t think twice, I simply start running. Past my boss and out the front door of my house, searching left to right wildly. Straight ahead.
The only entrance and exit to the compound is closed. And unless she knew what to look for, a slight break in the greenery, she’d miss it. There is no other way out. Not unless she climbed the walls. But my property is large and dense. There are plenty of places to hide among the foliage. That she would hide from me at all makes me bay brokenly, turn in a dizzy, sickening circle. Where is she?
“Fawn!”
My heart breaks into a million pieces at the silence that follows. For a moment, I wonder if she was only ever alive in my imagination. How else could such a perfect being want to be with me? But no. No, I can smell her on my skin. Her claw marks are still visible on my chest. My fucking head is full of her. Every smile, every giggle, every word she’s said to me.
“Fawn, please. I’m sorry.” I circle around the right side of the house, searching the tree line for any sight of her. She’s scared. She’s probably so scared and it’s my fault. I should have prepared her for my boss’s murder, even briefly. I should have handled it differently. At the very least, I should have closed the bathroom door so she wouldn’t have to witness the taking of another man’s life. “Baby, come out. You know you don’t have to be scared of me. I would die a million deaths before I let someone nick your pinkie finger.”
There’s a rustle in the bushes up ahead and I see a flash of light blue.
I run in that direction and find her huddled in a ball on the leafy ground, her knees pulled up to her chest. Tears are streaming down her face. She’s trembling so hard, her teeth are chattering. Wearing nothing but a hastily pulled on towel. The sight nearly fells me. Someone might as well rake a claw hammer through my gut.
“Fawn…”
“I know.” She swipes at her eyes. “I know what you’re going to say. You had to kill him. You had no choice. But you didn’t even try to reason with him. You didn’t even try.”
“I’m sorry for breaking my promise to you. I never should have made it in the first place, knowing what Frank is capable of. I should have known he’d want you for himself.” I dig the muzzle of the gun into my temple, possessiveness spearing me like a freshly sharpened sword. “Every man in this fucking world is going to want you for himself!”
“And you’ll want to kill them all.” She sniffs, shakes her head sadly. “I can’t watch that happen over and over again.”
She’s right. I won’t be able to control myself when she’s at stake.
There is no reason or rationality when it comes to this girl.
“Come here.” My breathing is ragged. “Let me hold you and we’ll talk about this.”