And I would help deliver the crushing blow.
Fuck, I hated my life sometimes.
The bathroom door opened. She was wrapped in the shortest towel I’d ever seen in my entire life. Water droplets slid down her legs. I suppressed a groan and almost bit into my fist to keep from saying something that would destroy the oath I’d made.
I might be an assassin.
But I was still a man.
With wants, needs.
Damn, it was bad timing. I was ready to explode, and I had to babysit a woman who would tempt anyone—especially a man who’d been celibate for three years.
I squeezed my eyes shut so I wouldn’t watch her ass as she walked back into my room and grabbed her clothes.
Slowly, I backed away, down the hall, and gazed out the large windows in the kitchen.
The gate was opening.
We weren’t expecting visitors.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I noticed it was Chase pulling in. I grabbed my gun just in case, and opened the front door.
He parked.
Got out of his Maybach.
And strolled toward me like he had all the time in the world, like snipers weren’t a real danger. He always believed that he was invincible. That nobody would dare hurt him considering the power he wielded within the Abandonato family, that paired with his scary political connections meant he could do anything he wanted and it would be covered up with roses.
Bleeding roses.
But roses all the same.
“Nice night, huh, Vic?” He grinned.
Swear the man was hell bent on torturing me ever since I’d followed him around his own house and accidentally seen his wife naked.
“Yup.” I crossed my arms over my gun. “Did you need something?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Some fresh air, you?”
I glared. “We don’t do small talk, spit it out.”
“Are you alone?” He tilted his head and peered around me like he could see into the house, into my room, see the towel drop from her naked body into a heap by her feet, see her breasts jiggle with each step toward her clothes, see her bend over and—“Vic?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I mean yes.”
What was the question?
“Have you thought about our little talk?”
“No.” Yes. Every second of every day.
“Liar.” He took a step toward me, then another. The maniac pulled out a knife and thumbed the blade, then charged me. I wasn’t expecting it. I dropped my gun, my only weapon, and deflected the first stab with my right forearm before shoving him away and kicking him in the stomach.
He stumbled back, chest heaving, like he was enjoying the fight. What the hell was wrong with him?
He charged again, this time with his left hand, which oddly enough was better than his right. I ducked just as his right elbow came down on my back, his knee to my chin. I head butted him just in time for him to stumble back and laugh his ass off.
“What the hell, Chase!” I roared.
“Never say I didn’t give you anything.” Psychopath of the day tossed the knife in the air. “Better go clean up… In fact, I’m pretty sure there’s a girl in there who would be pissed as hell to see you bleeding.” A slow smile spread across his mouth. “Bet she’ll attend to your wounds.”
“What are you doing?” I growled.
He sobered. “What needs to be done. I’m pushing you. Because you’ll martyr yourself for the family, because you’re fucking losing your touch, because two weeks ago you would have at least gotten a few punches in. You’re distracted. So I’m taking away the distraction. It will be our little secret.” He shrugged. “Regain your focus before Nixon finds out, and let her help you with all the blood—”
“Damn it, Chase!”
His eyes narrowed before he chucked the knife directly at my chest. I barely moved out of the way in time.
“My point,” he said just as the knife impaled itself in the door, “has been made…”
I jerked it out of the door and tossed it back to him. He caught it by the blade with two fingers and winked. “Have a good night.”
“Fuck you!” I spat.
“Love you too!” He waved the knife, got in the car, and peeled out of the driveway just as the gate closed behind him.
I slammed the door even though he was gone.
At least it made me feel better.
Though my anger was simmering beneath the surface, bubbling, threatening to spill over and wreak havoc on my already shaky sanity.
“What’s wrong?” Her voice.
That voice.
I gritted my teeth and turned.
She just had to be wearing white.
White shorts and a short white tank top.
A matching set.
Innocent.
Not yet stained with blood.
I opened my mouth and looked to the breakfast bar to keep myself from gawking at her. “Nothing, just Chase pissing me off again.”
“Pissing you off so much that you decided to fight him?” Her voice was closer and then her hands were on my face.
No. It wasn’t going to happen.
No.
No.
I clenched my fists.
Her thumbs rubbed down my cheeks. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I said I’m fine!” I yelled, pulling away because I had to, pulling away because my body craved that tenderness in her touch. Pulling away because my heart soared for more.
An oath.
I had taken an oath.
Nobody has to know…. Chase’s voice was like a damn recorder in my head, only encouraging the things my body wanted, not reminding me why my body wasn’t going to get it.
She jumped back, hurt etched on every pretty feature. Hurt I’d put there because my control was slipping, because one more touch would be my downfall.
I stomped over to the sink, wet a few paper towels, and dabbed my cheek. I winced. Damn Chase. I ran it under water again and then touched it to my eye. The burn was soothing.
It reminded me that I had a job.
It grounded me.
And then the sound of a bar stool getting plopped in front of me jolted me out of my pain.
The black leather bar stool was a foot away from me.
And Renee was climbing onto it like a toddler.
She got on her knees so we were at eye level.
I looked straight ahead, afraid to move.
Afraid to breathe.
Funny that fear should finally show itself in the form of a five foot six Sicilian woman hell bent on treating my wounds and not the two hundred twenty-five pound Russian I’d just shot in the head last week.
“Hold. Still.” She grabbed the paper towel from my hand and started dabbing around my face, cleaning up the blood Chase had left there.
Tying my stomach into an insurmountable number of knots.
My heart pounded as she examined my face, cradling my chin with care as she turned it left and right. “Your eye will probably bruise a bit, but other than that…he lives!” She winked.
And I was tired.
So damn tired of doing the right thing.
My rigid body collapsed. I braced her hips to keep myself from falling to the floor and just begging her to let me hold her.
She ran her hands over my hair and tilted my chin up. “Should we go watch a movie or something?”
Close quarters, thighs touching, lights off. Sign me up. Not. And yet I found myself nodding.
And mentally shooting myself in the foot as I followed after her like a puppy starving for any morsel of attention sent my way.
Pathetic.
Desperate.
Needy.
I followed her into the theatre room.
I turned off the lights just as she grabbed the remote.
And it wasn’t until the glow of the TV hit her face that I realized I’d
made a grave mistake.
I’d put myself in a position of vulnerability with a woman who wanted to watch a scary movie.
Well, shit.
Chapter Nineteen
Vic
My palms were sweaty like I was on my first date.
We were five minutes in.
It was going to be a long night.
My phone buzzed.
Nixon: Any surprises?
I almost laughed out loud. Nope, just your cousin coming by to encourage me to sleep with the nanny to get it out of my system and pulling a knife so that she’d clean up the blood.
Nothing to see here!
Me: We’re secure.
Nixon: Good. I’ve been worried…
I frowned.
Me: Why?
Nixon: Because of who she is. She’s a temptation to the Russians, a temptation to the cartels, she’s a temptation to the De Langes. Part of me thinks it would be better to kill her than protect her.
I clutched my phone so hard it almost splintered into a million pieces in my hand.
Me: I’ve got this.
Nixon: I never said you didn’t. I’m just saying we need to think about the families. They’ve already proven they are willing to attack on all sides for her blood.
Me: Her blood isn’t theirs to take.
Nixon: I know. But we can only protect her for so long…
Me: Then we send her away. We give her to the FBI for witness protection.
“No texting during movie night!” Renee laughed and tried to grab my phone. I jerked it away from her and stood.
“This isn’t a game, Renee!” I yelled out of frustration, out of fear for her. “This is my job. This is your life. So if I have to answer a fucking text during a shit scary movie, I’m going to!”
Her face fell.
Shit!
I kept losing.
Doing everything wrong when I had all the right intentions.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I’m just under a lot of stress.”
“Because of me?”
I gulped, staring at her throat instead of her mouth.
“You know, I think I’ll just go to bed,” she said in a soft voice, running more than walking out of the theatre room.
I did a small circle and threw my phone against the couch, only to pick it up and read the next text from Nixon.
Nixon: You’re right. We will deal with it day by day. For now, just make sure she’s happy and she’s safe.
Happy?
Why did my mind immediately go to sleeping with her to make her happy?
As if that was going to fix everything and not make it worse?
Me: On it.
Nixon: Have a good night.
I almost laughed. A good night by myself, with a woman I couldn’t touch? Not likely.
I hung my head and went searching for the woman who haunted me day and night.
I checked my room first.
Frowned when she wasn’t there.
Then spent the next thirty minutes scared shitless as I scoured the entire house and finally ran outside.
I breathed a sigh of relief when she was sitting cross legged under one of the large oak trees in the backyard. Everything was fenced.
Didn’t mean people couldn’t still get in.
Especially if we could get out.
“What the hell!” I yelled, not realizing how scared I was until that moment, when I should have been able to control my emotions and couldn’t.
She jolted a bit and turned. “What?”
“Never!” I shoved my gun back into my holster. “Never hide from me again. I don’t care if you’re pissed or sad or need space. I am your space. I’m your everything. You don’t run away and pout, got it?”
Her eyes narrowed. “You made me upset, so I went for a walk around the prison yard!”
“You’re so fucking spoiled!” Fear had me lashing out, that and the fact that I couldn’t touch her, couldn’t tell her why it was so important to keep her safe. “Look around you! Do you think that I want you to be stuck here? Do you think I like the fact that you can’t go to school? I can’t control this, but I can control being able to keep you safe. Let me do my job before you drive me insane!”
“I drive you insane, huh?”
“That’s what you took from this heart to heart?”
“Oh, it was a heart to heart? Must have missed that with all the yelling.” She crossed her arms and glared.
I dropped my head and ran my hand over the back of my neck. “I thought something happened to you.”
“I was safe.”
“I didn’t know you were safe,” I whispered, taking a cautious step toward her. “I need to know you’re breathing… it drives me crazy when I can’t see you.”
She smiled up at me. “Because you like watching the nanny?”
“No.” I shook my head and tilted her chin up. “I love watching the nanny.”
I wasn’t ready.
I wasn’t prepared.
I was a soldier.
A killer.
It was unexpected for anyone to touch me. To seduce me.
So when she stood on her tiptoes, I didn’t see it coming.
Maybe I didn’t want to.
And when she pressed her mouth to mine.
I was still in such shock.
That I reacted.
Violently.
I shoved her against the tree and braced her hips with my hands. I rubbed small circles with my thumbs against those hips. I shamelessly devoured her lips, I swallowed each moan and lost myself.
I lost myself.
Or maybe—for the first time in years—I’d been found.
Chapter Twenty
Renee
I tasted his fear.
It mingled with his lust.
His desire.
I wanted him.
So I took him.
Because waiting for him to snap was like watching someone slowly burn from within until they lash out at everything around them. He felt the attraction. We were heat, we were untamed, we were greedy.
He reached for the front of my shirt and ripped it with his right hand. I gasped as he exposed my bra and then ripped that too, like I could go out and find another one just like it.
It would be easier if he was clumsy…
If he didn’t know exactly what he was doing when his tongue slid past my lips and teased every inch of my mouth.
He knew.
He knew my body better than I did.
I arched into him wantonly.
He responded by lifting me with one arm and bracing me against the tree, running his wicked mouth down my neck and licking one nipple, only to go to the other like he’d been waiting to do it all day.
Each moan was swallowed by more deep kissing.
More, more, more.
“You’re bad for me,” he whispered against my neck. “I want you anyways.”
“You’re bad for me,” I admitted. “I’ll take you any way I can get.”
He growled against my mouth, and the vibration of it sent shivers down my spine. Abruptly he pulled away.
I wanted to protest, to tell him not to run.
I didn’t have to.
He threw me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing and carried me into the house, slamming the door behind him, locking it to keep bad guys out—or maybe to keep the baddest of them all…
In.
He tossed me onto the nearest couch and attacked. His mouth came down hard, next his body, until all I knew was him.
Vic’s scent.
His taste.
The weight of him pressed against me.
I opened my mouth to him as he deepened the kiss. His rough hands cupped my breasts, weighing them, squeezing, as he sucked my tongue with his lips, bit down with his teeth.
Heart racing, I couldn’t even form a logical thought beyond how good he tasted and how hot his skin was.
“This happens once.” He pulled away abruptly. “P
romise me.”
I gulped.
“Renee.” It was his tone, the sound of my name falling from his lips like he was tortured by my name—by me. I knew that kind of torture, I knew what it was like to kiss my enemy and want him in my bed.
To hate myself for wanting the murderer.
“Renee.” His forehead touched mine, his chest heaved up and down, his eyes were fire, his touch almost painful as he gripped my shoulders. “Please.”
“Yes,” I whispered. “Only once—unless you initiate it.”
He pressed an open-mouthed kiss to my neck. I bit down on my lower lip to keep from screaming his name when he sucked my collarbone between his lips and dragged his mouth along my chest, plunging a trail of desire all the way down the center of my body until he stopped at my belly button.
I waited.
He slowly lifted his head and smirked.
I almost orgasmed on the spot from that smirk.
He used both hands.
Both hands gripped my shorts.
Both hands tugged while he smirked.
His fingers dug into my skin as he pulled my shorts down my legs, taking my flimsy underwear right along with them.
His eyes locked on mine the entire time while his knuckles grazed my skin.
I gulped when he lifted my hips with both hands and in one swift motion pulled my entire body down the couch like he was ready for a feast.
I’d never seen this side of him.
It was predatory.
Focused.
Not on killing.
His job.
But on me.
I let out a yelp when he spread my legs open. There was no warning, no easing into things with him. It was action followed by more action, and God help me if he started to smirk again.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Did you need a play by play?” he asked, one eyebrow arched.
“Don’t smirk at me.” I somehow got the words out.
“Smirk?” He frowned. Thank God.
“Yeah.” Basically stop being sexy and irresistible. Thanks.
He lowered his head between my legs. I could still see his eyes over my own nakedness. What was he waiting for? And why was I shamelessly just presenting myself to him?
At least the lights were low.
Envy: An Eagle Elite Novella Page 9
