Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 114260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
But now it’s time…
I can help her find her parents’ killers, and I will help her seek the vengeance she craves. I know I have what she wants.
What she doesn’t know yet is how badly I want her. All of her. Completely, irrevocably… forever.
One day after target practice, I ask her to come up to my office. When she walks in the door, my heart does a somersault. I lean against the edge of my desk and beckon to her.
“Come here, baby.”
I love that look she gets when I call her to me. Part daring, part hopeful, and all kinds of aroused.
When she reaches me, I run my hand up and down her back slowly, until she breathes a little freer and she lays her head on my shoulder. She fits right here, within my arms. She belongs here.
The office is so quiet, my words hang heavily between us.
“Candi says we’ve had nothing but quiet here in Salem. The biggest issue is keeping the teens from toilet papering the House of the Seven Gables on Halloween.”
“I could stop them.”
She snorts. “I bet you could, but you’ve got bigger fish to fry, don’t you?”
I do. I run my hands along her shoulders, then down her slim waist to rest on her hips.
“You want to find your parents’ killers, Violet?”
I watch her shoulders rise as she inhales, then fall as she lets her breath out. “I do, Cain. More than anything in the world.”
Anything in the world.
I trace my fingers along her spine. “You helped me find my sister.”
“Yes.”
“And that, sweetheart, was your first task for me.”
She nods, as I slowly turn us so she’s now leaning against the desk and extend the trajectory of my touch. Past her back. Up her shoulders. Over her collarbone, then lower to where her ass meets the desk.
“But I want more than your work, Violet.”
I place a gentle kiss on her neck, then open my mouth and suck in her damp, sweet flesh. I watch her knuckles whiten on the edge of the desk.
“What do you want from me?”
I place my hands on either side of her. My frame dwarfs hers. “I want you.”
A slow blink as she absorbs my words.
“Me?”
“You. All of you. Carte blanche to do whatever I want to you, whenever I want to. Anytime, anywhere.”
Her eyelids flutter closed, like a little bird’s, her words a mere whisper. “I have the distinct feeling I’d… both hate and love every minute of what you’d do to me.”
“Love and hate are so irrevocably entwined, aren’t they?”
She places her hand in mine, and her eyes flutter open. “Yes.”
I’m not sure if she means yes, she agrees with the sentiment, or yes, she agrees with what I want.
“Yes?”
When she smiles, her eyes light up, moon-kissed amethyst that enchants me to my soul. “Yes, Cain. I accept your terms. I’m yours.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Violet
“Keep your eyes straight ahead. Do not move away, even for a second.”
Cain’s deep rumble of a voice vibrates in my ear. Of course this is one of the very many ways he’d test me. Just hand me a gun that requires immense concentration to handle, give me an instruction to keep my eyes on the target ahead, then hover his magnificent, muscled body so close to mine I’m nearly trembling in anticipation.
“Bet no one else has target practice like this,” I mutter, more than a little annoyed. I don’t want to have target practice. I want to tear his clothes off and jump his bones, right now, right here, on the cold concrete floor of the target range. I’m annoyed I can’t do that, and annoyed he’s made me feel like a wanton slut.
“That’s right, Violet,” Cain says in my ear, as he ghosts his tongue over my earlobe. I stifle a whimper. “There’s no one else here who uses target practice for the sole purpose of muffling their screams when they come.”
“It’s not the sole purpose,” I mutter under my breath. I mean, I’m a damn good shot now.
I brace myself, grit my teeth, and pull the trigger. Fire explodes from the gun, the bullet tears into the paper target shaped like a human, and I watch with gleeful satisfaction as I tear a hole right between the eyes, the infamous “T-box” shot. Lethal, every time.
“Well done, little protégé,” Cain says with approval. Warmth flares through my chest at his praise. It’s rare that he doles out praise to anyone, and sometimes I feel he’s toughest on me. The others know I mean something to him, and he doesn’t want anyone to think I get preferential treatment.
I do, though.
I so do.
“Tell me the three types of gunshots,” he says, nestling his hands on my hips. He’s been training me now for nearly two months, and only a small portion of the training takes place with actual tactical work.