Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Are you alone?
The response was immediate.
No. Gotta sweep building. Give me twenty.
Twenty minutes felt like an eternity as I sat there, listening, wondering if I would hear a fight, would hear gunshots. There was nothing but the sounds on the street outside, though, as I sat there listening to my own breathing, my own heartbeat. Until there was a knock at the door that made me almost jump out of my skin.
As it was, I jolted, making the whole desk move in the process, fear surging through me once again.
“Elizabeth, open up. It’s me. It’s safe,” he assured me.
Slowly, I crawled out from my makeshift shelter, and got to my feet, my legs wobbly and unsteady as I walked to the door to disengage the lock.
I didn’t even need to reach for the handle, though. Because the door was pushing open, and then I found myself in Elian’s arms.
My own went around him, holding on tight, not caring how desperate it made me seem as I sat there, breathing in his spicy scent, and feeling his arm anchor around my lower back as the other went to the back of my neck, massaging gently at the tense muscles he found there.
“It’s alright. I got you,” he murmured, making a little shiver move through me.
He had me, alright.
More than he could ever know.
And I had no idea how I was supposed to feel about that.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Elian
I wasn’t surprised when I woke up to an empty apartment. Though I won’t lie and say I wasn’t disappointed, that a big part of me had been excited at the prospect of having coffee with her, of making breakfast for her.
Hell, I’d woken up early with the sole purpose of making something more impressive than a simple omelet.
But she was already long gone, the steam evaporated from the hall bathroom.
She must have been tiptoeing around if she didn’t wake me, but she’d managed to feed Kevin before she headed out, even if the coffee pot wasn’t even on.
I knew she must have been freaking out about the night before if she had sacrificed what seemed like an important morning ritual to her just to avoid running into me.
It’s not that I didn’t understand. I did.
And, really, I owed her an apology.
I had no right to open her bedroom door without knocking. That was insanely invasive. But it was kind of late, and her room had been quiet for a long time, so I figured she was asleep. I didn’t want to wake her up just to let the anxious, pacing Kevin in.
But, yeah, she hadn’t been sleeping.
I wish I could say that my immediate reaction wasn’t one of desire. That I didn’t fantasize about walking in, closing the door, and taking over for her, teasing her with my fingers and tongue until she was screaming my name as she came.
I couldn’t say that, though.
Hell, it was a lot more than just that going on in my head as I watched her for just a moment, arching and writhing and whimpering.
And I guess part of me had anticipated… interest on her part when she saw me there. Unless I’d completely misread the looks she’d shot me several times over dinner and dessert.
But it wasn’t interest. It was horror.
Which made me feel like a complete fucking creep.
So, yeah, I owed her an apology.
I considered sending it via text, but I thought that bringing it up that way might only make things worse at this point. I was just going to have to wait to say it when I caught her in person again.
I was just about to head out for the day to do yet another seemingly useless stakeout when my phone started to ring.
Rico’s name was on the screen.
“What’s up?”
“Come over to the meat shop,” he said, then ended the call before I could ask for any further details.
I’ll admit that I was much more excited to see what Rico had going on than I was about more endless hours spent alone in my car, following Bratva members as they went out to lunch or got their dry cleaning.
Rico’s shop opened later in the day since there weren’t exactly a ton of people looking to buy steak at six in the morning, so I went around the back, finding Renzo’s kid Coal standing by the back door, keeping guard.
He looked rough. But, then again, I didn’t remember the last time I saw him without cuts and bruises. The kid was earning his keep, that was for sure.
“Everything alright in there?” I asked as he reached to open the door for me.
“Always something going on,” he said with a casual shrug. That was Coal. Calm. Unflappable. He was going to be a good capo some day.
I made my way in the door, expecting to turn and move into the office, when I found myself faced with a man in the middle of the floor, strung up by the chain around his wrists, the tips of his shoes just barely touching the ground to give his shoulders a break from the strain of hanging.