After a minute, the basement sounds like it’s completely empty.
Jett holds up his hand, telling me and Patricia to wait, and then stalks deeper into the basement with his gun raised.
He returns a moment later.
“They’re gone. We’re safe. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”
I hand Rebel to Patricia and then collapse against him, grabbing his blood-stained sweater in big fistfuls and sink into him as much as I can, holding so tightly nothing will ever be able to break us apart.
He reaches down and smooths his hand through my hair, tickling my scalp, the sensation spreading a thousand hands and smoothing all over my body, soothing me in a thousand different ways.
“I’ll never leave you,” he whispers, voice crackling with emotion, savage intensity boiling beneath his words. “For the rest of our lives, I’ll protect you. I’ll watch over you. Because you’re mine.”
“And you’re mine,” I sob, unable to keep the tears at bay anymore.
“Always,” he growls.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Jett
We take the road west, driving across the States, ending up in California. We could stay on the East Coast, but there’s too much messiness involved, too many opportunities for the Bratva to forget their discipline and try to right old wrongs.
This way, we’ll be forgotten, left to live our star-bright lives in peace.
It’s a messy ending, but they all too often are in the criminal world. In a perfect reality, Igor would be dead for what he did to Juliana’s parents, for what he’s done to countless other families.
But killing Igor would have been a mistake with so many Bratva witnesses. The only way to handle it would’ve been to slaughter all the men, and I didn’t want to start my new life like that.
With Juliana, I’m a new man.
I take us right to the west coast, to a beach house I purchased a month ago when I was planning to get out of the life. Patricia decided to come with us and set up a new event planning business out here.
“I’m sick of the cold winters and the unadventurous women, anyway,” she quipped when she told us her decision.
Juliana giggled and gave her a playful slap on the shoulder. “Is that Auntie Patricia I hear in your voice, hmm? You sound like you’re ready to conquer the world.”
The beach house isn’t decorated yet, but I know that my queen is going to right that wrong the first chance she gets.
For now, Juliana and I slump down on the simple couch in the living room together, her head resting on my chest and my arm wrapped around her shoulder. I kiss the top of her head, inhaling the just-Juliana scent of her hair.
The late afternoon sun filters through the blinds, dancing as the blinds shimmer in the light breeze through the open window.
Patricia and Rebel are elsewhere in the house, probably passed out together as they have every day we’ve been on the move. Juliana and I have always stayed together in the motel rooms, sometimes devouring each other’s bodies, sometimes just holding each other like we are now.
“What if he decides to come after us?” she murmurs, her voice catching.
“He won’t,” I growl. “In his world, having that recording released would be a fate worse than death.”
I don’t want to tell her about the other plan I put into play, right at the beginning of all this, when I spoke with my contact on the payphone.
I don’t want to get her hopes up or, if I’m being honest, my hopes either.
“I’ll always protect you,” I tell her. “And our children.”
“How many do you think we’ll have?” she whispers, her voice turning all dreamy with her lack of sleep, with her need for the future.
I keep my face buried in her hair, inhaling the scent of her with each breath, until my whole body is flooded with Juliana.
“Hundreds,” I chuckle, smirking.
“Hundreds?” she giggles. “Last time I checked, it takes nine months to make a baby. So I’m going to be giving birth until I’m – what? – ninety or something.”
“Ninety-six,” I say, moving my hands down to her belly and giving her a playful tickle. “But that’s assuming we don’t have twins and triplets. I think I can meet our target by the time you’re fifty.”
She giggles and looks up at me, her eyes bright, so stark and sincere they jab deep into my soul.
“Seriously.”
“Three—four—five,” I say. “As long as they’re healthy and happy, that’s all that matters to me.”
“Me too,” she murmurs. “Happy, with parents who love them.”
Love.
I will myself to tell her I love her, tell her the truth that’s been blazing through my mind every moment we’ve been moving west.
But I’ve got a special surprise in mind for that.
But there are things to arrange first.
There are pieces to put in play.
I close my eyes and lie back, envisioning my woman in a dress as white as an angel’s wings, radiant and wonderful as she walks down the aisle, her oaken hair cascading down to her shoulders and contrasting with the white of her dress.
After a few minutes, I feel her sleeping against me, hear her breathing turn peaceful and steady. I let warm darkness fall over me, sinking deeper into the couch, pulling Juliana atop me like the best blanket in the world.
I’m glad I’m so tired.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to keep the beast inside me caged.
But for now, we just sleep, intertwined like we’re as fused together physically as we are by fate.
I wake when my cellphone starts to blare from the table, the room dark and chilly now. Juliana leaps up and lets out a panting breath. I smooth my hand up her back, rubbing her shoulder comfortingly.
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “Go back to sleep.”
“It’s cold,” she murmurs.
“I’ll close the window.”
She slumps onto the couch and I take the chance to kiss her cheek before standing up and grabbing my phone from the table. I have to move away from her quickly after the kiss. She looks too damn sexy lying there like that, half-asleep, like perfect prey getting ready for her predator to fall upon her and claim her in every savage way.
I swipe answer on the screen as I walk over to the window, pulling it shut.
“Yes?” I say, walking out onto the beach-facing porch.
Moonlight dances across the lapping waves, making them seem even more alive than they are, glittering and shining.
“You did it,” my contact says, his voice altered as it always is with a voice changer. “It worked.”
I grit my teeth to stop a noise of celebration from escaping me.
I can’t afford to get my hopes up.
Not until I know for sure.
“Igor and his men are in police custody?” I say.
“The FBI has apprehended them,” the robotic voice tells me. “That evidence you gave me was top-tier. What made you gather all the locations for their warehouses?”
“You can never be too careful when working on the East Coast,” I tell him. “I’ve got evidence on every other criminal enterprise, too. It’s how I spent my time between jobs. I thought one day some good could come out of all this work. But tell me, is Igor going down, really going down, forever?”
“They’ve got him on a dozen federal crimes. He’s done.”
“Can it be traced back to me?”
The derisive laugh sounds strange with the alien voice.
“It can’t be traced back to anybody. That’s not how we do things.”
“Good,” I say, letting out a sigh of relief. “I have more. On the mafia. On the triads. On the yakuza. You can make a career for yourself with all the dirt I’ve gathered over the years, Liam.”
The voice falters, and then the man chuckles, the voice changer fading away. Liam’s voice is deeper than I expected.
“How long have you known?”
“For five ye
ars now.”
“Motherfucker,” Liam chuckles. “Send over that intel, Jett. You’ll be reimbursed very generously. And then, I’m afraid, we’ll have to cut all contact with you. You’ll be a civilian. You’ll have to obey the law. Live a normal life. Maybe raise a family.”
A smile spreads across my cheeks. I can’t help it. It just widens, gloriously, until I’m grinning from ear-to-ear like a kid with his whole life ahead of him.
I might be over forty, but I’ve never felt younger, more hopeful for the future.
“I was counting on that,” I tell him. “Happy hunting, Liam. Keep an eye on the dropbox. I’ll have the evidence there in two days’ time.”
“Sounds good. Take care of yourself, Jett.”
We end the call and then I punch the air, my chest soaring with the heat of a thousand fires. All this time, I’ve been working on the side, scouting, gathering information.
I could never be sure if Liam Greenwald – a mid-level operative in the CIA – would take it. But maybe he’s finally realized that it’s better to do what’s right than rot in the grime of the underworld.
Maybe he’s finally realized – like I have – that there’s nothing wrong with being a normal man living a normal life.
I turn back to the house with warmth surging through every part of me.
Now I get to tell the love of my life that I’ve put her parents’ killer behind bars.
I get to tell her that we’ll never have to look over our shoulder, that this is over, really over.
We’re free to begin our lives together.
I just know it’s going to be the most amazing life a man could dream of.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Juliana
I wake with the sun shining heavenly bright through the window, a golden shaft dappling the room and coming to rest on the bottom half of the bed. Rebel sits on my chest, curled up, and on the other side of the room, I can hear Jett doing his morning workout. He grunts and breathes steadily.
For a few long blissful moments, I lie there without telling him that I’ve woken up.
I listen to his growling breath mixing with the sounds of the ocean, the wind whispering past the house. Children play on the beach, their voices pitched high, laughing, cheering, clapping.
My heart glows with starlight when I think about last night when Jett told me that Igor was in the custody of the FBI.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” he said, his mouth close to my ear, his breath tickling me. “But I didn’t think it would work. It was a long shot. Liam’s been in the game for years and he’s never made a move against them.”
“Because he never had your evidence,” I said passionately, everything inside of me growing brighter and lighter and fuller of radiance with each passing moment.
My parents’ killer is going to spend the rest of his life in a maximum-security prison.
We’re free to start the rest of our lives in this sun-swept land, never having to worry about our lives or our children’s lives.
Rebel yawns as I sit up, licking my chin a couple of times and then moving to the sunny portion of the bed, curling up and giving me a look that says, No more disturbances, human. I’m relaxing here.
Jett stands at the end of the bed. When he reaches down to stroke Rebel, the muscles of his bare torso constrict tightly. Sweat glitters in the light against his well-defined abs, his arms looking huge as they throb and pulse. He sees me looking and smirks.
“You’re lucky we’ve got plans this morning,” he says. “Otherwise I’d take you for round two.”
“Round two?” I banter, my hands toying with the sheets pulled up around my bare breasts, my nipples tingling, my thighs afire. “I’m pretty sure it would be round four. Anyway, what plans?”
His smirk twitches and he runs a hand through his sweaty hair.
“Let me finish and then I’ll show you.”
“Fine, but I’m watching,” I laugh.
I grab my tank top from the floor and pull it over my head, feeling a thrill move through me when Jett’s eyes snap predatorily to my breasts. His jaw tightens, and I can tell it costs him a great effort to turn away. We won’t do anything sexual in front of Rebel, which I know full well.
I’m teasing him. And it feels absolutely amazing.
I scoot down to the end of the bed, sitting there in my tank top and my underwear, watching as Jett collapses into another set of push-ups. He catches himself easily on his fists, burying them into the white-fur rug and bringing his body right down to the floor. Hundreds of muscles crunch together on his back, grinding tightly, a whole landscape of power laid bare across his skin.
“Getting a good look?” he chuckles between reps.
“Pretty good,” I say, trying to keep my voice bantering.
But I can’t mask the moan that quivers beneath my words, betraying the lust that beats against my pussy, making my lips hot and needy.
“You still haven’t told me what plans, by the way.”
“Wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise, would you?” he growls, pumping, like a machine, like he could do it all day.
Surprise.
The word flutters like a hummingbird through my body, making my heart hammer compulsively, making my skin tingle and dance, and a thousand fireworks erupt within me.
I can’t dare to hope, can I?
I can’t let my mind go there?
“Shall I guess?” I say.
He chuckles. “Be my guest.”
“Is it … a dildo made out of chocolate?”
He turns over to start his sit-ups, grinning wolf-like up at me. “Now that wouldn’t be a very effective dildo, would it? But you better watch your mouth. The only thing that goes near that sweet fucking hole of yours is me.”
“You’re all I want,” I moan. “I was only joking.”
“Good girl,” he says, sitting up so that his abs contract, the crevices of them getting deeper and more well-defined with each set. “Any more guesses?”
“Um, a handsome little dog for Rebel to settle down with?”
“No, but that is a good idea …”
I don’t know what happens to me, but some crazy confidence drives me across the room. I leap down at him and open my legs, landing in his lap, bringing my lips down to his to taste him sweetly. He kisses me back, hunger quivering through him, and then I lean back before he loses control.
God, he’s always on the edge of losing control with me.
“Stop teasing me,” I say, pouting in the way he likes.
“Have I told you how much I fucking love how confident you’re getting?” he snarls, thrusting his hips so that his rock solid manhood grinds through my panties against my sore and needy sex. “And the way I see it, you’re the one teasing me, sitting there looking like you’re ready to be fucked all over again.”
“Nah uh,” I giggle. “Rebel is my sex-shield.”
“You evil beautiful thing,” he smirks.
“So you’re not going to tell me?” I say.
“Nope,” he says, smoothing his hands up my thighs and gripping my hips. “You’ll just have to wait. Now go and put some clothes on before I lose my mind. Put a nice dress on. I want those legs out today. But don’t show too much breast, you hear?”
“Yes, sir,” I laugh, snapping off a salute.
He smirks and then his hands move from my hips to my belly, finding all the special tickling places that drive me into fits of laughter. I try to move away from him, but it’s too late.
Before I know it, we’re in a full-fledged tickle war.
I gasp when I walk out the front door to find a limousine sitting in front of the beach house. Jett smirks down at me, a smile playing at the edges of his mouth, his face clean shaven. He wears a light gray suit, highlighting the experienced silver of his hair.
His touch shimmers up my back when he brings his hand to just above my ass, leading me firmly toward the car.
“Don’t just stand there staring,” he grins.
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“I can’t believe you did this,” I say.
“You can’t believe I treated a queen like a queen?” he chuckles. “Come on, Juliana. I know you’re not that naïve anymore.”
I nudge him in the side playfully, so happy we can tease each other like this, both knowing that it’s all in good fun and, when you get right down to it, we love each other.
Love each other, I repeat the phrase again and again in my mind as we walk together toward the limo.
I can’t lose myself too deeply in those words.
If I just blurted them, he might not say them back.
He places his hand on my leg and gives a soft squeeze, but when I turn to him, he’s facing the window, the ocean flitting by beyond him. I swallow and wait for him to turn to me. There’s something about the way he clutches at my leg, a slight tremor that tells me he’s nervous.
It seems impossible that Jett is nervous. But I’ve never seen him like this before.
“Are you okay?” I murmur.
“Okay?” he repeats, slowly turning those startling blue eyes to me. “That doesn’t even come close to what I’m feeling right now, Juliana. My whole life—No, just wait. Okay? We won’t be much longer.”
Just wait.
My heart flutters wildly at the words.
What are we waiting for?
I think I know, but the last thing I want to do is get my hopes up only to have them dashed and shattered and broken into a million pieces. I can’t help but imagine his lips splitting apart in a wolfish laugh if I told him what secret hope was flurrying around inside of me.
We stay silent for the rest of the car ride, one of our silences, the kind that constantly stuns me every time we fall into them.
It’s like we’ve been together for years and we don’t always feel the need to fill the silence with our words like we can just sit and be without worrying about what it says about us.
We drive from the coast deeper inland, through a valley, and into a large suburban neighborhood. White picket fences and big luscious garden fronts, with children playing in the streets, stopping to gape at us as the limo drives by.
Saved By The Hitman: An Instalove Possessive Age Gap Romance Page 12
