Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 16396 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 82(@200wpm)___ 66(@250wpm)___ 55(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 16396 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 82(@200wpm)___ 66(@250wpm)___ 55(@300wpm)
“You son of a—” someone gasps.
There’s a blunt, fleshy sound, and Hank’s partner goes down hard on his back, knocked out, eyes open, staring vacantly into space. I gasp and clasp a hand over my mouth so I don’t scream. Not that it would matter at this point.
I want to help Magnus, but what help could I really be at this point? Still, this is all my fault, so I quickly roll out from under the couch to see him facing off with Hank, who is clutching a knife so long it could practically count as a sword. He lunges at Magnus with it, but Magnus simply sidesteps the attack and drives his elbow straight into Hank’s nose.
Hank’s legs give out from under him, and he hits the floor beside his companion. I don’t even have a second to recover from what I’ve just seen before Magnus is lifting me into his arms and carrying me out the door.
“W-wait,” I stammer. “Where are we going?”
“We have to get out of here now,” he replies as he carries me back over to his truck. With one swift motion, he sets me into the passenger seat. I’m blinking my eyes, trying to bat away the reality of what just happened as he gets in beside me. “They know about us now. They’ll send more men to the apartment. We have to get to somewhere they don’t know about.”
The truck tires squeal, and I’m pushed back into my seat as Magnus hits the gas and we speed away from his apartment.
“I-I’m so sorry,” I sigh. “About the sneeze.”
Magnus smiles and takes my hand in his. “Don’t blame yourself, gorgeous. Blame that son of a bitch Vincent for everything he’s done to you. But don’t worry. I’m gonna take care of him, and then you’ll be safe forever.”
3
Magnus
I should have killed them.
That’s thought has been plaguing me for the entire drive away from my apartment. My old apartment. I’ll never be able to go back there now. Not unless I find a way to take down Vincent and his entire organization, and believe me, I would do that for Josie. But that will take a lot of planning and more resources than I have. For now, the best I can do is make sure she’s safe and that nothing like what happened back at my apartment ever happens again.
I look over at her, curled up beside me in the passenger seat, looking absolutely gorgeous in her red dress with her blond hair spilling over her shoulders like a waterfall of gold. She’s the sexiest goddamn girl in existence, and she’s in my truck, and that makes me the luckiest goddamn man in existence. The way she’s sitting, and the way her dress is cut has the top of her left thigh exposed and even some of her ass, which I can see is perfectly sculpted and firm, just like the rest of her. Yeah, that’s a young woman’s body for sure. My testosterone is absolutely flowing through me after that fight, and all I can think about is being balls deep inside her right now.
How tiny she is compared to me…how easily I could just throw her around…Christ, what her slim little waist would feel like between my hands.
She glances back over her shoulder and catches me looking at her. I quickly look back at the road and try not to make it too obvious what I was doing, but she’s no dummy. She knows what I was doing. She’s drop-dead gorgeous. She must be used to men checking her out her entire life. The corners of her mouth twist into a tiny smile.
“Where are we going, Magnus?”
“It ain’t the Hilton, I’ll tell you that,” I reply. “And it ain’t my old apartment either.”
“I told you I don’t mind, Magnus,” she replies.
“Yeah, well when you see this place, you just might,” I laugh. “We’re almost there.”
A few minutes later I take a turn I haven’t taken in years, but still it feels like I took it yesterday. I remember the familiar old bump on the left side as the road turns from paved to gravel and pull right to avoid the large rock that popped my front left tire when I was seventeen. I take a deep breath as the old house comes into view through the trees.
“This was my pops’ old place,” I say to Josie as I pull up in front of the porch, which looks dangerously close to collapse. “Only thing he left me when he died.”
I hop out of the truck and walk up to the stairs and test them with my foot. They seem to support my weight, so I make my way up onto the porch, which also thankfully doesn’t give way into a pile of rotted-out lumber. I turn around just in time to see Josie take her heels off and hop out of the truck barefooted into the dirt.