Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 36489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 182(@200wpm)___ 146(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 182(@200wpm)___ 146(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
“All right, baby. I get you.” God, that voice of his should be illegal. “For now, just rest. When you wake, we’re gonna have a talk. I’ve got to meet with my brothers, but I’ll be back soon. Take a nap.”
“I can do that,” I said. “See you later, then?”
“Wild horses couldn’t drag me away, sweetheart.”
* * *
El Segador (Reaper)
I held Swan until she drifted off. When she started with the cute little contented snore, I chuckled lightly, then unwrapped myself from her. As I gazed down at her I marveled at all the ways this was a huge fuck-up on my part. I wasn’t sure how old she was, but the story she told me put her at eighteen or nineteen. Which meant she was way the fuck younger than me. More than twenty years younger. Instead of sexing her, I should be protecting her. I mean, I was gonna do both, but I should really keep my hands to myself. Which wasn’t happening. I just needed her experience level. If she was a virgin -- which I suspected might be the case -- then I’d ease her through that before taking her to the more carnal delights I knew. If she wanted it, I was going to show her everything there was to know about sex in whatever time she had.
“Christ,” I swore, scrubbing a hand over my face. Nothing seemed to faze her. She seemed to have gotten past the shock of it, the unfairness, and the horrible hand she’d been dealt and was concentrating on living as hard as she could.
I left my suite, heading down the hallway to hers. I needed her notebook when I went to El Diablo. I needed to know what I’d just committed us to. Not that it would matter. I was gonna complete every Goddamned thing she’d written down and help her make more.
The more I thought about it, the more it settled within me. By the time I found her bucket list, I was preparing to take her on a fucking cruise around the fucking world to every single fucking country we could safely get to.
Her wants weren’t all that complicated. In fact, we definitely needed to add a few more long-range things. Places away from here she wanted to go. She had mostly simple stuff.
Romantic dinner for two
Ride every roller coaster at Disney World
See the sun set from the beach
She’d marked that one off.
Climb Mount Everest (Haha!)
She might not be able to climb Mount Everest, but I bet I could get her to base camp. Let her see the mountain up close.
Take a cruise
Go to Hawaii
Take a hot air balloon ride
Have fantastic sex
That one I could help with easily.
Laugh until I pee
Well, I might not actually make her pee, but…
Get a sunburn
She’d marked through that one, as well.
Sing karaoke
Get drunk
Get high
The girl was killing me.
Fall in love
Fuck. Yeah. I could help her with that one, too. At least, I thought I could. I’d meant it when I’d told her she was mine until she died. I was keeping her for as long as I could. If Doc knew a way to get her better, to heal her, I’d take it and be grateful I got that much more time with Swan. I’d thrown myself into this girl for no apparent reason other than she intrigued me. And tugged at my protective instincts more than anyone, other than the kids at Black Reign had in years.
Since I’d met him, El Diablo -- Liam -- had been my focus. He had a job as the top assassin of the Brotherhood. It was a job no one lasted long in. Any failures to take out a target, any innocent who was harmed in the fallout, were the responsibility of the lead assassin. El Diablo. He’d earned his name because he was ruthless in an almost unimaginable way. But also because I was there to double- and triple-check everything. Liam’s woman, Jezebel, had named me the one who never was. I was a ghost. The one no one ever saw or even knew existed. I did that because Liam had saved my life. So I saw it as my mission to keep him safe. Then his woman. Even I had to admit, my job as his bodyguard was well over. The club as a whole protected the pair of them better than any one man alone could. Even me.
Maybe that was the problem. With Swan, I was back to having someone who needed me. If that was the case, I was ready to admit I needed her as much as she needed me. But it wasn’t all about having a white-knight complex. I wanted Swan to have the best life possible. If that meant condensing a lifetime into a few years -- or months -- I was ready and willing.