Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 88487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
“You’re not a reporter?” Jin whispered.
“No. Do you know who’s trying to kill you? A foreign power, maybe? A terrorist group within Gaoxing? Is your brother pissed that you’re going to inherit the throne ahead of him?” West peppered him with questions while Jin sat frozen in bed. However, that last question snapped him awake.
“Ming Tao?” he demanded on a gasp. “My brother would never hurt me!”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes,” Jin hissed at him. Grabbing a bit wildly at his blankets, he wrapped them around his body until only his head poked out and climbed from the bed. He stomped across the room to a long bureau. Low muttering drifted through the room about the audacity of anyone thinking his younger brother would try to harm him as he jerked some clothes out of a drawer. He was still grumbling to himself as he struggled to pull on pants while holding on to the blanket.
West pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. The regal crown prince of Gaoxing resembled an angry marshmallow.
But that was forgotten when the prince tipped back, losing his balance. West surged forward, closing the gap between them to catch the smaller man so he couldn’t fall. Jin’s shoulders thudded on West’s chest. His arms came out to circle the crown prince. He ached to close them, to hold him the same way he did in the park, but he couldn’t.
“You need to take this seriously,” West said in a low voice.
“Of course I’m taking this seriously.” Jin shifted and moved against him, getting his pants on before shedding the blanket and stomping over to the walk-in closet. “This isn’t some foreign power or terrorist cell trying to kill me. And it’s not my brother, who would never do such a horrible thing. Ming Tao loves me, and I love him. If he was so desperate to sit on the throne, I’d let him have it, and he knows that. He doesn’t have to kill me over it.”
“Then do you know who wants you dead?”
The light popped on in the closet, small sounds of Jin rustling through garments until he found what he was searching for. He returned to the bedroom, pulling on a dark, floor-length silk robe that matched the silk pajama pants he was wearing. The glow spilling from the closet cascaded over him, making his pale skin luminous as he pulled the robe about his body. His long hair was a black cloud around his face. He even had long bangs that brushed his cheekbones and caressed his jaw.
Standing there, angry and elegant in his pajamas and robe, Jin Long Wei still looked like a prince to him. A beautiful, untouchable prince.
“Yes, I know who put the contract out on my head.”
West’s heart tried to jump into his throat. This was great. This would speed things along. It would be so much easier now to stop this person and to keep Jin safe. “Who? I’ll help you stop them.”
Jin pressed his lips together and for a moment, West’s gut twisted with the thought Jin wasn’t going to say. He prepared a list of arguments, ready to provide all his credentials on why he was the best person to handle this job. But Jin sighed and lowered his eyes.
“I did.”
6
JIN LONG WEI
Westin St. James fell.
At first, it looked as if he were going to sit on the edge of the bed, but he missed and just dropped straight to the ground. Hard.
Jin rushed across the room and kneeled beside him. He reached out to grab him but then stopped at the last second so that his hands were awkwardly hovering centimeters above his body.
“John!” Wince. “Mr. West! I mean, Mr. St. James.” This was too much for his sleep-deprived brain. It had taken him far too long to fall asleep. He couldn’t have been unconscious for more than an hour before he’d been scared awake. “Are you okay?”
“What did you say?” His voice was rough, almost as if something horrific were haunting him.
Jin sat on his heels, sighed, and started to rise again, but the mercenary grabbed his wrist in one powerful hand and held him in place. “I said I was the one who put the contract out on my head.”
“What were you thinking?” he demanded, his fingers biting into his flesh through the silk robe.
“What business is it of yours? You lied to me! You said that your name was John West, and that you were a reporter,” Jin threw at him. Even as the words left his lips, he knew how ridiculous he sounded, but it had been a very long day and he was so exhausted. He wasn’t thinking clearly, and now there was this angry, sexy man in his bedroom.
“Yes, well, I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me if I told you I was an American mercenary who’d come to warn you that someone was trying to kill you. Obviously, this wasn’t news to you. I should have let you get shot in the park!” He clenched his teeth and hissed, his head jerking toward the door as if he expected guards to come racing in. Not likely. His apartment was the only one in this wing. No one was going to hear them.