Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 46132 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 231(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46132 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 231(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
“Y-yes, Damian,” she whispers. “You sound sort of scary right now.”
“Scary? Me?”
I cock a smirk, but I feel it come out forced. I’m too distanced by the need to be alert.
“So, what’s the plan?” she asks. “Do you want me to take a gun?”
“Have you ever used a firearm before?”
“No, but how hard can it be?” she snaps.
I laugh grimly. “Harder than you’d think.”
“Well, how much harder?”
“Harder like you could end up panicking because of the recoil and accidentally killing Sparky, that sort of harder,” I snap. “No, all I want from you is to keep yourself, my baby, and my dog safe, understand? That’s your role.”
“I can do that,” she says, nodding fiercely. “I won’t let anything happen to them—to us.”
“Okay, just stay close to me. Grab Sparky and try to keep him quiet.”
She kneels down and whispers to him, and my chest tries to expand again, at the sweetness in her soft murmurings of encouragement. Sparky calms and gives into his trust of her, lying in her arms in a tight ball so that he can be carried. She stands and realizes I’m watching her, offering me a cute sort of half-smile.
“Getting a good look?” she murmurs.
“Always,” I growl.
“Now what?” Dakota asks.
“You stay close to me. We head for the fire escape. I kill anybody who gets in our way.”
“More killing?”
I grab her hips and shove her against me, letting her feel how rock hard I still am through my pants. I glare into her eyes as she leans away, keeping Sparky out of the embrace. I grab that round sweet ass of hers and use it as a fleshy handle to push her closer against me, grinding the tightness in my throbbing dick right against her.
“Or I let the beast out in other ways. So what is it, Dakota, more killing or more fucking?”
“You’re an animal,” she moans, unable to hide the lust in her voice, or in the way her eyes twitch wider and wider for me, the horny wet goddess.
“If I touched you right now, you’d be hot and drenched, wouldn’t you?”
“Damian …”
“I know, I know,” I growl, letting her go and turning away, angry now at the motherfuckers trying to become between me and more of her tight hot cunt, where my dick belongs. “Alright, stay close. Or have you got a problem with the idea that I might have to put down some bastard who’s trying to hurt my family?”
“No,” she says, looking at me squarely, my brave Popstar. “If anybody tries to hurt our family, send them straight to hell.”
We stare at each other like we’re two jungle cats, ready to brave the dangers of this savage land and face it all together.
We stare like an animal recognizing another animal. I stare like she’s my damn soulmate because she is if such a thing exists.
She’s mine. She’s everything.
And then the door crashes open.
He’s holding a knife.
And he’s running right at her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Dakota
I scream and leap at Sparky.
The little piebald’s teeth growl at the man’s legs, his sausage-dog legs tensing as though he’s going to take the attacker down.
I grab him and dance clumsily back into the hallway, my body aching with all the running and tensing. But adrenalin pumps through me, making everything else quiet.
The man rounds the corner and then there are more footsteps and more men. They sprint into the room so that it’s like a wave of them, most of them wearing brown or black leather jackets, with tattoos at their necks and wrists and knuckles. Knives glint everywhere, and the man who stalks toward me grips a shiny silver knuckle-duster in one hand and a gun in the other.
“Come here,” the man says with a heavy Russian accent.
His eyes are hard and unflinching beneath his bald head.
His teeth grit and he collapses violently onto one knee. I flinch and leap back, and then see that Damian is screaming at me, that he just fired a bullet into the man’s leg.
I see it but hardly hear it. Panic is making the sound seem muted, and faraway, as if I’m drifting apart from my body.
I focus hard. I need to think about the dog wriggling in my arms.
“Lock the door,” Damian roars. “Go. Now.”
The Russian grimaces and raises his gun, and then roars out when his fingers are blown away from his hand, the gun clattering on the floor.
I spin and run, hardly thinking, not feeling a thing.
I run on panic mode like an animal, my only concern to get Sparky somewhere safe. I’m dimly aware of footsteps behind me and more screaming and roaring and fighting noises, but if I turn back Sparky will leap from my arms.
He’ll get crushed under a foot or shot with a misplaced bullet or thrown out of the window or anything.
“Come on, boy,” I breathe, my voice sounding oddly calm.