Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 115964 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115964 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
“What about the women?” I had to know.
He tensed, before lifting up to look at me better. “The women?”
“In Philly, you had so many women. They’d come to your room. I heard them, Raize. Do you miss that?”
He stared at me long and hard before his hand lifted, cupping the side of my face. “I was a different persona then. Had to be. Carloni must’ve learned at some point I worked for Roman, but for a while, he didn’t know. I needed to be a different person.”
He hadn’t answered me. “The women? Do you miss them?”
His mouth curved up. “They were cleaning my room.”
It was the mouth. Everything was straight face, monotone voice for that monotone answer and I hit him in the shoulder. “Are you kidding me?”
He laughed before lowering his head, pressing a kiss to the crook between my neck and shoulder. “I don’t miss any woman except you, my sister, and my mom. I never will.”
Well.
I might let it slide then.
Moving my leg between his, lifting it, twisting the curve of my foot to slide down the outside of his leg in a caress, I smiled at him.
He looked down, grinning at me.
“What do you think is going to happen with Marco?” I asked, knowing we needed to talk about it.
He held my gaze a bit and loosened his hold on me. “I don’t think he’ll make any move to progress into the US until he’s taken over the Morales Cartel. That would require him killing his father, and I don’t know what he’d do to my mother and sister. We share our sister, so he might leave my mother alive.”
“But if he did that? Took over the Morales Cartel?”
A darkness flared in Raize’s eyes, and he looked over my shoulder. “Then he’d come for me, and since I’m tied to Marakov, he would have to declare war against the Marakov family.”
“Will there be fallout for Roman?”
His gaze came back to me, softened, and he shook his head. “No. It’s him and his uncles now. They’re in Russia. Marco is here. They’ll follow the stronger Marakov, and that’s Roman. He gets everything and everyone now. He’s put himself and them in a position where they have to accept what he did.”
“And if Marco comes for you?”
“Then I’ll go to work.”
He pulled me up and in one motion, stripped my underwear down my legs.
He said, “Enough war talk.”
Rolling me to my back, he slid a finger into me. His mouth fell to my neck and he breathed there, his finger moving in and out of me. Pleasure and other emotions were rolling around inside of me, but for now; I let it go. I only felt him, what he could do to my body, how he could make me feel.
I was addicted to him.
My mouth found his, and I yearned for him to be inside of me.
This time felt different.
Every time with Raize was different, but right now there was an almost desperate, frenzied need to get our fill before that call would come, before the world changed again. Raize let me rest for a bit after the first time, but then he flipped me over to my knees, and he worked us both up all over again.
Carnal need pulsated between us, one that neither of us could totally satisfy.
Dawn came peeking through the windows as Raize brought us to another climax. Only then did we rest.
I shivered. What would happen if we ever fully satisfied that need?
I didn’t want to find out.
“It’s a canary.”
“Yeah? So?”
“So,” Brooke held it up and let it go. It flew away. “It’ll come back if it’s not safe out there.”
It never came back.
The neighbor’s cat killed it.
48
Raize
We stayed in West Virginia for four more months.
I hated it. Mostly.
I wanted to be traveling, working. I’d gotten used to the constant go, but this staying, waiting, it had its benefits, too.
Ash laughed more.
She relaxed.
She ate more.
Cavers took Gus on daily walks. Sometimes Ash went with him. Sometimes she played with Gus in the backyard. She liked to spend time watching the creek. A lot of time.
I think she’d started meditating down there, but I never asked.
Jake was in charge of going into town, getting food for us.
He’d also started seeing a local woman, though he thought no one knew. We all knew. He giggled when he was getting laid. We learned that.
Every time Jake came back after seeing his woman, Ash and Cavers watched me. I knew Ash was concerned that I would kill the woman. She was a liability because eventually she’d get curious about Jake, want to see where he lived, what he did for a living. Cavers just watched me to see if he needed to help in any way.
But I’d followed Jake.
I’d bugged the woman’s house, put a tracker on her vehicle, and was listening on her phone. So far she believed Jake was a traveling salesperson, and she hoped he’d marry her one day—or that’s what she told her sister about him. So far, “Brian” was satisfying her in bed.