Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 109562 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 548(@200wpm)___ 438(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109562 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 548(@200wpm)___ 438(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
Bullseye.
I stare at the hole in the center of the target with an open mouth. There’s little in life that dumbfounds me, but Anya just aced it.
“There,” she says, handing me the gun with the barrel turned away from me. “Anything else you’d like to teach me?”
Motherfucker. “You can shoot.” She didn’t even fit the earmuffs.
A mischievous smile curves her lips. “My mom had a boyfriend whose sole pastime was shooting cans off the fence. He taught me.”
My chest draws tight. “How old were you?”
“Ten, I think.” She squints. “Maybe eleven.”
“For the love of God.” I grind my molars. “You were just a child. You could’ve gotten hurt.”
“I didn’t.” She grins. “As it turned out, I was quite good at it.”
“What happened to the boyfriend?”
“I shot him in the ass when things got violent between him and my mom. He left after that.”
I need a moment to process that. “You shot him? You could’ve killed him.” My protective instinct goes into full-on killer mode. The guy deserved to die. Who the fuck gives a little girl a gun? Who lets a ten-year-old Anya with fiery red hair and freckles shoot at cans? What if she shot herself? “Do you realize what would’ve happened to you? You could’ve ended up in some shady institution for delinquents.”
“It was only a pellet gun. He wasn’t going to press charges after trying to stab my mom with a steak knife.”
The fuck?
Anya is so soft and gentle I sometimes forget what a traumatic childhood she had. She never talks about her past or what she suffered. The little I know, I learned from Livy.
I stare at the small woman standing so bravely in front of me, a woman who shoots better than most of my men. Let’s face it, they’re good, but none of them gets a bullseye on the first try after a long period of not practicing.
I admire the fuck out of her.
It hits me then.
I’ve never admired anyone in my life, not my mother who wouldn’t stand up for herself or for her only child and not my father who valued his pride more than his wife. No teacher was ever a role model to me. I certainly had no admiration for Giorgio or the rest of his friends. If anything, I felt sorry for them. I stopped admiring Rachele a long time ago. I may have mistaken the awe in which I held Luigi’s achievements for admiration, but that quickly fell by the wayside when I got to know the real man.
I put the gun aside and wrap my arms around her. In my fervor to protect her from both my enemies and my friends, I crush her against my chest. Her soft curves give way to accommodate my body as I mold myself around her. The fire that always burns under my skin in her presence leaps to flames.
I’m hard in a second, driven not only by the need coursing through my veins but also by everything that could’ve happened to take her away from me long before I even met her.
My mouth is on hers in an instant. I’m bending her backward, devouring her lips with an urgency unknown to me. I’ve always been controlled. In charge. Seduction has usually been a skill, one I concentrated on delivering well. I executed the task with precision. It took away from my own spontaneous pleasure.
Not so with Anya. With her, I still think about how to cut through her defenses so effectively that she doesn’t see me coming. I still focus on pleasing her to the point that she’d always come back for more. Yet it’s not a chore. It drives my own desire higher. Wrenching pleasure from her body isn’t a conquest. It’s not a duty. It’s something I need, something I can’t live without. Her pleasure is mine. Nothing makes me come harder than when she throws back her head and moans my name.
My hands are on her ass, kneading the firm globes as I yank her against me. I’m about to dip my knees and grind my cock on her pussy when she presses her palms on my chest and pushes me away.
“Anya,” I say with a growl, chasing after her as she breaks our kiss.
“Not here,” she says in a breathless voice, glancing at the men who stopped shooting to stare at us.
I don’t give a fuck who sees us. In fact, I welcome the attention. That’s what I want. Where the cops and the rest of the world are concerned, that’s the objective. But I’m not going to hump her so they can yank off to the mental image in the shower tonight. I’d sooner shoot every one of the sons of bitches in both eyes.
I take my gun and slip it back in my waistband before ushering her outside. My guards are stationed in the parking lot. It’s dark already. The sun set an hour ago. A few lampposts cut wedges of dust-speckled light across the lot. The Corvette is parked at the far end against the high wall that closes in the property.