Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
I was saying a silent prayer that the man woke up, that a little time and therapy would get him back on his feet, and then he could tell us who was after him.
If he knew.
Because if he did know, wouldn’t he have been more careful?
Who the fuck knew.
All I knew was we were all feeling pretty fucking defeated as we stuffed ourselves with pasta and garlic bread.
“Alright, kids,” Aurelio said a while later, taking the bag full of now empty takeaway containers with him as he moved out of the kitchen. “That’s it for me. I managed to get myself my own room,” he said, making Traveler’s head shoot over so fast she must have seen fucking stars.
“What? Why?” she asked.
To that, he gave her a bit of a self-deprecating smile. “As much as I hate to admit that I’m not as young as I used to be, that couch has had my back fucking killing me all day,” he told her.
“You could take the bed,” she offered, then seemed to remember it would mean she would be stuck in the living room with me, because she winced a little at the idea of him taking her up on the offer.
“It’s all settled,” he said, shaking his head at her. “I’m down two floors and I don’t have my own kitchen, but as nice as this suite is, I think it would start to pinch a bit if we all were staying together any longer.”
There was a false note to his words.
Granted, I didn’t know Aurelio as well as some of my other cousins, what with him being older, and me being closer in age to his brother Milo, but I knew him well enough to know when he was bullshitting someone.
And he was bullshitting Traveler.
Likely not about his back. I’d seen him wince when he’d moved to stand before. But about… something.
He was gone before I could question him on it, though, wishing Traveler a good night, and saying he’d be by in the morning to talk about next steps.
“I want to see my shop,” Traveler said, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“What?”
“My shop. I want to see it.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s practically my second home, and its been fucked with. I want to see what they did.”
“Alright,” I agreed, nodding. “We can do that tomorrow. With Aurelio,” I clarified.
“You really think it’s that unsafe?” she asked.
“I really think it’s that unsafe.”
“But…”
“Baby, they attacked, and meant to kill, the chief of police. Take it from a criminal, that’s a big fucking deal. Organizations, they might take out a cop, maybe a detective here and there. But when you start getting up there in the chain of command—chief of police, district attorney, judges—that’s serious shit. It brings a lot of heat. And we are hardwired to avoid that kind of thing.
“So if someone is going out of their way not only to try to take him out, but then attack his daughter too? Yeah, this is not something we should be taking lightly. It is very fucking unsafe for you out there right now.”
Traveler let out a shaky breath, but nodded.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” I asked, brows raising.
“What?” she asked.
“You’re just… agreeing with me? Going along with what I’m saying?” I asked, dubious.
“You’re more of the expert in this,” she said as she got to her feet, stretching long as a cat; I tried not to think of the curves of her body as her clothes strained against her with the movement.
I’d done a decent enough job not thinking about the stairwell. I’d go a solid five minutes in between my mind flashing back. Which was a pretty big feat, to be honest.
Because I’d been right about my thoughts regarding her.
That hard and prickly outer shell was hiding something a lot softer and sweeter underneath. And being able to experience that side of her? Fucking priceless.
Then some other idiot had to get ideas about being healthy and using the stairs, cutting things short that I knew would have progressed.
My face between her thighs.
Her legs wrapped around me as my cock surged inside.
Her walls squeezing me, her voice in my ear as she came.
“I’m going to need you to repeat that,” I said, looking up at her.
“You know more about this kind of thing,” she said.
“Fuck, did you just feel that?” I asked, faking a shudder. “I think hell just froze over.”
“Listen,” she said, narrowing her eyes at me. “If you want—“
She didn’t finish that sentence.
Because I reached up, grabbing her hand, and yanked until she was forced to move to stand right in front of me.
My hands went to her hips then, pulling her down.
She didn’t even pretend to fight it.
She just placed her legs on either side of mine, and straddled me, her dark gaze holding mine.
“There’s a lot of things I want to do,” I told her. “Argue over shit once again is not one of them.”