Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 108563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 543(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 543(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
Siren arches her brows. “Bullshit. You?”
I nod. “Seriously. Her name was Becca, a cute little brunette with big ole titties.”
“There’s no way,” she laughs. “How did you possibly swing that? Did she know what you do for a living?”
I grin. “No. I told her I was an investment banker, but the night I came home after failing to outrun a grenade, she put it together that perhaps I wasn’t exactly who she thought I was. It didn’t last long after that.”
Siren gapes at me in shock, slowly shaking her head. “I just can’t wrap my head around the fact that you thought you could possibly pull off being an investment banker. Have you looked in a mirror lately? But also, you can’t outrun a grenade? Are you kidding me?”
“Says the woman who accidentally hung herself by her hair.”
She rolls her eyes. “Okay, whatever,” she says. “So we all make stupid little mistakes sometimes. It happens to the best of us.”
I shake my head. “We can’t make mistakes like that in these games.”
“Some would argue that this right here was a mistake.”
“No, Siren. This right here is a lot of things, but a mistake is not one of them.”
She holds my stare, her gaze locked so firmly on mine. “You’re surprising me, Reaper,” she murmurs, keeping her voice low as though she doesn’t trust her tone to come out right. “You’re not what I expected.”
My heart rate kicks up a gear as I lean back onto my palms and watch her. “And what’s that?”
“I thought you would have left afterward, or at the very least killed me now that you got what you wanted, and while that would have sucked, I would have been okay with it because that’s what I was expecting, but sitting with me . . . It’s messing with my head. I’m not supposed to like you.”
“Here’s the thing, Siren,” I say. “Just because you let me chase you down to the lake and fuck you, doesn’t mean I’ve had nearly my fill of you. We have twenty more days, and I intend to spend every minute we have left buried in your sweet little cunt. And as for liking me? You’re treading in dangerous waters. You shouldn’t like me. You shouldn’t even want to like me.”
She shakes her head, leaning back into me and hooking her hand around the back of my neck. “Just because you do the things you do and have seen all the things you’ve seen, doesn’t make you any less human. You’re deserving of love and affection just as much as I am.”
I let out a heavy breath, appreciating that more than she could know, but I have many demons, and this right here is one of my biggest ones. “How can people like us, people who’ve callously slain multiple men and women be deserving of love?”
“For me, I know that I’m still a good person. I have good intentions and a good heart. I don’t just walk out of my home and murder the first person I see like The Texan Reaper would. I kill those who are deserving of death. I do my homework, and at the end of the day, I can walk away from a kill with my dignity intact,” she tells me. “And while I know I don’t know you very well, and I don’t know what motivates you to do what you do, I can tell from the way you’ve protected Shadow and how you’re sitting here with me now that you have a good heart. You’re a good man, and you shouldn’t deny yourself love just because you’ve taken lives.”
I don’t know how to respond. I’ve spent my whole adult life content with my decision that I wasn’t worthy of spending my life with someone, yet in the space of three seconds, this woman has me reconsidering my whole belief system.
“I can’t lie, Siren. You’re surprising me too,” I tell her.
“In a good way or a bad way?” she asks.
“An unexpected way.”
She laughs. “Who knows, maybe this is all an act, and I’m playing you just to get close.”
I shake my head. “Like I said, I’m too fucking good, baby. You can try and kill me all you like, play me until your fucking fingers bleed, but you won’t kill me, and it’s not because you’re not capable. I’ve been watching you, Siren. You’re good. Too fucking good. The way you work is like a dance. It’s intriguing and yet devastatingly beautiful. To be killed by you would be nothing but an honor, but unfortunately, no matter how good you are, I’m better.”
Siren grins and leans into me. “You know what I like about you underestimating me?” she questions, pushing up off me and starting to walk away.
“What’s that?” I call after her.
She glances back over her shoulder, a seductive grin on her lips. “You’ll never see me coming.” And with that, she slips away into the darkness, leaving me gasping for air.