by Penelope Sky
He held me to his chest as he lay on his side, his eyes staring into me, his expression cold and indecipherable. His fingers moved up my thigh and to my ass before they retreated once more. His cock was limp because we’d just finished making love for the fifth time that day.
After he’d dragged me out of the kitchen, we hadn’t said a word to each other, other than me saying his name in bed and him calling me baby. A month of our being apart had passed, but now it seemed like it had never happened. We’d always been together—even when we were apart.
“I want to ask you something—”
“No.” He silenced me with the single word, his eyes telling me not to test him.
“You don’t know what I was going to ask—”
“Yes, I do. And no, I haven’t slept with anyone.”
Okay…maybe he did know what I was going to ask.
“That woman I met at the bar was my first real attempt. And I would have gone through with it if you hadn’t changed your mind.” He was always honest with me, even when he knew it would hurt me. “You better have meant what you said last night. Because now you can’t leave. I won’t let you.”
My hand glided up his hard chest and to his muscular shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good.” He moved his mouth to the valley between my breasts and kissed me there, his tongue gliding against my warm skin as he moved to my neck. “Because I’ll chain you up if I have to. I’ll kidnap you and take you somewhere you’ll never be found again.”
“I find that hard to believe. You won’t even get out of this bed.”
The corner of his mouth rose in a smile, in that playful way that gave him a hint of boyish charm. “Good point.” He rolled on top of me and kissed my neck more, his mouth gliding up to my ear where he kissed the shell. “Now I need food.”
“It’s sitting on the kitchen counter.”
He chuckled into my ear canal. “Even if it were fresh, I still wouldn’t eat that shit.”
I smacked his arm playfully. “Come on, I’m not that bad.”
“When you’re making a sandwich, maybe.” He left the bed and pulled on his boxers. When he reached his full height, he looked like a Greek god sculpted out of stone. He was the virtual epitome of what masculinity was. He was all man, from his hard scalp to his large feet.
“You’re an asshole.”
He gave me that charming smile again before he left the bedroom.
I lay there for a few minutes, feeling a wave of happiness I hadn’t felt in a long time. Our relationship was different now since all previous pretenses had been dropped. I didn’t see him as the man who captured me in the middle of the night and almost killed me. I hardly saw him as Bones anymore. I just saw him as the man I’d fallen stupidly in love with.
I pulled on his t-shirt and a fresh pair of underwear before I walked into the kitchen.
He’d thrown away everything I’d made that morning and started over. He whipped up scrambled eggs, a few slices of bacon, and got the pan ready for the pancake batter.
I leaned against the counter and watched him, holding a mug of coffee in my hands. I stared at his sculpted back and watched him move and work, his hard definition sexy. Only a man with a deep commitment to weight lifting could look like that. When I lived with him down the road, he went to the gym every morning. Only when he stayed here with me did he skip his routine.
He kept his back to me, but he seemed aware of my stare. “Like what you see?”
My gaze shifted to his ass in his boxers. “Always.”
He poured the batter into the pan and got to work. “Instead of staring, how about you give me a hand?”
“I thought you said I was incapable of making anything?” I challenged.
“Not under my supervision.”
I came to his side, and we worked together to make breakfast. Everything came out perfectly. Bones dished up the food onto the plates and then carried them to the coffee table in the living room. We both sat on the ground, listening to the rain pound outside the window.
Bones concentrated on his food as he ate, scarfing everything down like he was starving.
I took my time, having an appetite but not enough to stop staring at the man sitting across from me.
“Pack your things when we’re done. We’re staying at my place.”
“What’s wrong with my apartment?”
He grabbed his mug with a single large hand. “For starters, it doesn’t have a dining table.”
“You got me there…what else?”
“You have neighbors.”
“They’re quiet.”
“I still don’t want anyone to listen to me fuck you.”
“No one does.”
“And I don’t like the neighborhood. Not safe enough.”
“Joe rode the elevator directly into your apartment…”
“Different situation. Also, my place is packed with weapons. You’ve got nothing here.”
“Why do I need weapons when I have you?”
He steadied his mug, staring at me with an expression that suddenly turned more serious. “I prefer solitude, a sanctuary equipped to handle a siege. At Lake Garda, we’re off the map. The house is enormous, we have someone to wait on us, I can continue my work, and you can continue your paintings.”
When he told me to pack my things, I assumed we were going to his place in Milan, not staying at his place two hours away. “I can’t go back to Lake Garda.”
“I don’t remember asking you.” He drank from his mug and set it down.
From the moment I came back to him, he became more possessive of me than before. Now he felt like he owned me, like he could control me more than he could when I was his prisoner. “I can’t be two hours away. My family stops by all the time, and I have no way to explain why I’m in Lake Garda.”
He took a few more bites of his food, being quiet as he considered what I said.
“If we want this to work, my family can’t be suspicious at all…” I didn’t want to get into another conversation about this relationship. It always ended the same way, making me feel depressed and hopeless. It was best just to avoid it, especially since there was nothing we could do about it. “I need to be close. If you really don’t want to stay here, your place down the road is our only option.”
“Alright. We’ll stay there, then.”
That agreement was much easier to reach than I expected.
“But I’ll have to go back to Lake Garda from time to time.”
“And I’ll have to come back here and make it seem like it’s being inhabited.”
Bones didn’t argue with that and continued eating. He finished everything on his plate, scraping it until it was completely clean. He stared at me as he chewed and picked up his coffee mug.
I missed being the recipient of that possessive stare. It was more dominating than a hand to my neck. It claimed me more than having his dick between my legs. I’d never been afraid of his look before, but now that everything was different, that look took on a whole new meaning. He had a tighter hold on me than before, and this time, he wouldn’t let go.
Not that I wanted him to let me go.
We’d spent the last three months getting to know each other, but that acquaintance happened physically and emotionally. We didn’t have long talks over coffee or discuss each other’s greatest hopes and fears. Most of the time, both of our guards were up. But now that our feelings had been laid out on the table, there was no hiding anymore.
“Do you plan to assassinate people for a living forever?”
He sipped his coffee, his sculpted shoulders shifting with his movements. “What else would I do?”
“Anything that doesn’t require you to kill anyone.”
“Not interested.” He rested his elbows on the table, sipping his coffee as he stared at me. “I’m a hitman, baby. That’s never going to change, so I suggest you let it go. That would be like me asking you to stop painting.”
“Painting is my
passion. Killing people is yours?” I asked incredulously.
“I get a kick out of it.”
I knew he killed people when I fell in love with him, so hearing him say he wouldn’t change shouldn’t make a difference. “You seem rich enough to retire if you wanted to.”
“I’m too young to retire, baby.”
I didn’t even know how old he was. “How old are you?”
He kept drinking his coffee. “Older than Conway by a year or so.”
“If you have the money set aside, age shouldn’t matter.”
“It’s not about the money. I enjoy my work, and I enjoy working with my boys. It’s our business, and I’m not turning my back on it for a woman. Accept me as I am because I’m not going to change.”
I hated hearing his cold response, but I also respected him for it. He held his ground, regardless of how much he wanted to make me happy. “I just don’t understand how you can kill innocent people for money…”
“Who said they were innocent?” he countered.
“Are you saying they aren’t?”
He shook his head. “Not even close. People don’t hire men like me to kill innocent people. Innocent people keep their heads down and mind their own business. They live quiet lives away from bad men like me. When I was in London last week, I killed two brothers who were fronting a trafficking site. I was paid extra to torture them before I finally put them down for good. They’re probably in a landfill by now…”
That made me feel better—immensely. Men who captured and sold women shouldn’t be alive anyway. “And what about me?”
“What about you?” he asked.
“What if someone wants to hurt you by going through me?” Knuckles captured me to hurt Conway, and he was successful.
Bones’s eyes softened slightly. “We do a good job of keeping ourselves anonymous. We’re the messengers. We pull the trigger, but someone else ordered the hit. It’s nothing personal. And I would never let anything happen to you, baby. You know I’m bulletproof.” He patted his shoulder, the exact place where I shot him.
“So how does it work?” I asked. “Someone contacts you and asks for a hitman?”
“Exactly,” he said. “They contact Max. He distributes the work between the three of us. Each of us has different strengths, so he pairs us with the best assignments. Half of the money is transferred before the kill, and the other half is after the kill.”
“And you’ve been doing this for a long time?”
He nodded. “Almost ten years. It’s given me the kind of wealth that I should have had a long time ago. I kill the kind of men I despise, and the world is a better place. Works out for everyone.”
“So you’ve never killed an innocent person?” I asked hopefully.
“The closest I’ve ever come is when I almost killed you.”
My warm skin suddenly felt cold, remembering that knife against my throat.
“And now I’d rather die than let anything ever happen to you. You’re my woman, and as long as I’m alive and breathing, no one will even look at you wrong. I’ll always keep you safe, even when you think I’m not watching.”
I felt his protection surround me the second he scooped me into his arms last night. I knew he’d given all of himself to me, that he would die before he let something happen to me. There was no stronger man in the world who could look after me…besides my father. But I didn’t want my father to take care of me forever. I wanted to find a man who could replace him, who could give my father peace of mind.
Bones fulfilled that wish…for the most part.
“Since we’re having this interrogation, anything else you’d like to know?”
“I’m not interrogating you.”
“Seems that way.”
“I just realized there are some things I don’t know about you. I’ve never bothered to ask.”
“You know I wouldn’t have answered you anyway,” he said quietly. “You can ask me anything you want—if I can ask questions in return.”
“That seems fair…”
He set down his mug then moved beside me against the couch. He dropped his arm behind my neck and then pulled me closer to him. He positioned one of my legs over his lap, and while the rain fell outside, he kept me warm against the cold. “When did you know you loved me?” He stared me down as he studied my reaction.
My eyes shifted down so he couldn’t read me so well. I felt embarrassed saying the truth out loud, embarrassed because I tried to lie to myself for so long…furtively. Everyone could see the truth, even my mother could see it. “When I visited my parents and brought those paintings with me…I accidentally brought your painting along. It got switched with a different one. She opened it by mistake and saw it…”
With unblinking eyes, he stared at me with no discernible reaction.
“She looked at it for a long time. She didn’t know it was you because I never told her. But then she asked me about you…said she wanted to know about the man I was obviously in love with. I denied it and dropped the subject, but I knew then. I knew how I felt about you. Art is something that can’t lie. And when my mother guessed my feelings so easily…I knew it was true.”
His fingers moved to my cheek, and he gently ran his fingers through my hair, feeling the soft strands as he pulled them from my face. “You lied to me.”
I turned my gaze to him, my eyes brimming with moisture.
“You told me you didn’t love me.”
“Because I didn’t want to…”
He moved his face close to mine and kissed the corner of my mouth. “Don’t worry…I never believed you.” His lips moved up then kissed my hairline.
“When did you know?”
“A lot sooner than that.”
“How soon?” I whispered.
He rested his face against mine, his expression difficult to see because it was so close to my cheek. He stayed still, his fingers gently caressing my hair as we sat on the living room floor. I was in his t-shirt, and he was just in his boxers. We sat there like it was nine in the morning, but now it was almost three in the afternoon. “When I didn’t kill you.”
“In Lake Garda?” I whispered.
He nodded.
“You hardly knew me then…we hadn’t even slept together.”
“I’ve killed a lot of people without thinking twice about it. I don’t have a lot of compassion or empathy. But when I couldn’t hurt you, I knew there was a strong reason why. You shot me with the intention to kill, and I’ve never wanted a woman more in my life. I had you cornered in that alleyway, but you never gave up. When you were on your knees with a knife to your throat, you still possessed so much dignity and pride. Women like you don’t exist…and I could never kill a woman I respected so much. Respect is impossible to earn from a man like me, but you accomplished it in five minutes.” He pulled on the sleeve of my shirt to reveal my shoulder, and he placed a soft kiss against the warm skin. “Now I would do anything for you, take my own life to keep you safe if I had to. You’re the number one thing in my life, and all I want is for you to be happy.”
“Griffin…”
He pressed his lips to the shell of my ear, his warm breaths filling my ear canal. He didn’t berate me for saying his real name even though we weren’t in bed together. He allowed me to have the power to call him whatever I wanted. “My love isn’t as good as it seems. It may sound sweet to you, but remember, it comes with its drawbacks. I’ll be more possessive than I was before, more protective and territorial. I’ll take you when I want, do whatever I want to you because you’ve given yourself to me completely. I have your trust, and that means I’m entitled to do things that I couldn’t do before.”
“Like what?” I whispered.
He brought my hands together and bound my wrists with his fingers. “Tie you up and enjoy you whenever I want. I promised I wouldn’t restrain you, but now you’re going to release me from that promise.”
I didn’t like it because it stripped away all my power, but now
that power didn’t seem important anymore. I trusted this man with my life and knew he would never hurt me.
“Release me,” he whispered.
“I release you…”
He breathed into my ear again before he pressed a kiss to my neck.
“Why do you like it so much?”
His fingers moved under my chin, and he directed my gaze on him. “Trust. I like knowing you trust me implicitly, that you feel safe with me even when I have all the power. I like knowing that you don’t see me as a monster anymore, but a beast that will protect you, kill anyone who’s ever wronged you.”
My fingers wrapped around his wrist, feeling his strong pulse. I felt the heat of his gaze, the way he looked at me like I was the only thing that mattered in this world. “I have another question…”
“I’m listening.”
“That night we met…was that on purpose? Or coincidence?” The first time I asked, he never answered.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because.” That was the only answer I gave.
“What difference does it make?”
“I want to know if you were hunting me…or our paths crossed by chance.”
He held my gaze with his blue eyes, the coldness matching his hardness. “Fate, you mean.”
“Yeah…which is it?”
“What do you think?”
I remembered that night vividly because it changed my life forever. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and when I tried to escape, I only appeared more clearly on his radar. When I ran down the sidewalk, he caught me, and with his knife drawn, it seemed like he was going to give me a quick death.
But his eyes flashed when he looked at me.
Like he knew me.
And that’s what made him change his mind, crossing the path of Vanessa Barsetti. He never planned it. It just happened entirely on its own. “It was fate.”
He gave a slight nod. “Yes. Fate.”
Seven
Bones
I woke up to the sight of Vanessa wrapped around me. Her slender leg was tucked between mine, and her arm was draped over my hard stomach. Her dark hair was a mess across the pillow, tangled from the way I fisted it last night. Her plump lips were slightly parted as she breathed during sleep, and I could see her small teeth behind her lips. She hugged me like I was her favorite teddy bear, the comfort that kept her asleep all night long.