Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
And his smile was so warm, I knew I could bask in the light of it forever.
I didn’t hear it as quickly as he did.
In fact, even when I did, I didn’t recognize it.
I was too lost in that moment. In the way my heart felt as if it were swelling in my chest. In the complete and utter understanding of what that meant.
What I had never experienced before.
What my mother had told me she thought I was only destined to feel for one person.
Love.
And that Nino, well, he was that one person.
It was no wonder there were so many poems and songs and books about this feeling. It felt of me, yet from outside of me somehow at the same time. Something wholly uncontrollable, undeniable.
Not that I wanted to do either.
I never wanted to feel anything but the way I was feeling right then as I looked over at the most gorgeous and caring and completely unexpected man I had ever known.
And it was because I was watching him so closely that I saw his reaction to the strange pop-pop-pop.
Absolute freaking panic.
My heart seized and my belly tensed as it finally registered what I was hearing.
Gunshots.
Even as the glass started to break in the room.
Nino was across the room in seconds, grabbing my leg, and yanking hard, making my stomach drop as my body fell roughly to the floor.
I only felt the ache for a moment, though, as his own body came down on top of mine, covering me.
Blocking me, I realized, from the bullets.
My heart was hammering in my chest as the bullets kept flying, sailing through the house.
Glass shattered.
Bullets lodged in walls.
And there was nothing, nothing I could do to protect Nino.
Because he was too busy shielding me.
It seemed to go on for hours, for days.
But then it came.
The silence.
Broken only by our labored breathing.
“Are you hurt?” Nino asked, but his voice sounded like it was coming from very far away. “Savannah?” he asked, tone louder, more panicked. “Are you hit?”
“Are you?” I heard myself ask.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Nino
It was the perfect fucking night.
The best of my life.
Everything I had planned and more.
I was starting to see things, think things.
Like having that woman in my bed every single night, curling into me, moving over and under me. Like having her dancing around my kitchen as I cooked. Or across the table from me as we ate. Maybe a couple kids to join us. Or more than a couple, if that was what God had in mind for us.
And I liked those images.
I was ready to say something to her, about this not being casual, about wanting to explore what it was.
The only thing holding me back was the fact that, to do so, I was going to need to tell her who I was. Who my family was. What I did for a living.
I wasn’t sure if I was ready for the rejection that might come with that admission. As much as I knew that keeping it from her was not a smart move, was not fair to her.
I had all those thoughts in my mind as I was walking out of my bathroom, seeing her beautiful, naked body sprawled across my bed, watching me with something in her eyes that I didn’t recognize, but that damn near took my breath away.
It was right then that the dream was shattered.
Along with the windows in the lower floor.
Guns.
A drive-by.
I’d never known panic like that before.
Not for me.
For her.
I flew across the room as the upper windows started to shatter.
I felt like a dick, grabbing her leg, yanking her off the bed, letting her slam down on the floor.
But all I could think of was protecting her from taking any more bullets from me.
My body slammed down over hers, every inch of me covering her as I heard the thunk as the bullets landed in the wood of the dresser, in the pillar of the bed.
It felt like the bullets flew for ever, as I covered her body, praying she didn’t have so much as a mark on her.
Eventually, they stopped.
I stayed on top of her after, wanting to make sure no more were coming.
Then, when it was finally over, and I asked her if she was okay, what did this strange, amazing, wonderful fucking woman do?
Ask me if I was okay.
“I’m not hit. Are you?” I asked, pushing up to look down at her.
“I’m… no,” she said, shaking her head.
“Are you sure?” I asked, moving off of her, looking over her, running my hands over her skin.
But there was nothing.
She was okay.
“Okay,” I said, half-turning, and reaching into the second drawer of my nightstand, finding my gun. “Listen to me,” I demanded.
“Okay,” she agreed, eyes a little wide as she looked at the gun.
“I need you to get on your hands and knees and crawl into the bathroom,” I told her, reaching with my free hand to grab the sheet off the bed, and throwing it over her body.