Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 92160 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92160 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
My cock throbs, and my jaw clenches. Safe is a fucking illusion.
She doesn’t get to feel safe. Not when she fucked over my family and would do it again.
Not when she belongs to me.
I tighten my grip around my cock, dragging my fist slow and deliberate, my breath coming harder. I imagine her beneath me, frantic, her breathing desperate as she begs for me. My free hand fists the end of the scarf, pressing it to my face to inhale her scent like an addict. It's soft between my fingers, softer than I expected. I imagine it still holds her warmth, and I bury my face in it, fisting it tighter. I jerk my cock, groaning against the fabric like a fucking animal.
She should be mine. She should be curled up in my bed, under my sheets… under me. Not playing house with the goddamn fucking Irish.
I watch as she stretches again, takes another bite, and settles under the blanket. She shifts beneath it, burrowing deeper, and I shift, too, my grip tightening. She licks the last of the ice cream off her spoon, and my fist strokes harder. She licks, and I stroke.
Lick.
Stroke.
Lick.
Stroke.
It’s obscene the way we move together, and she has no idea I’m even here. She sighs and bites her lip.
If she knew what she was doing to me, would she slow her tongue? Or would she lick faster, tease me?
I come so damn hard, biting her scarf between my teeth like it’s a fucking bit. I imagine marking her.
She has no fucking idea who I am.
But she will.
She will.
Her guard is slipping.
It’s time.
She’s mine.
Chapter 4
ANISSA
I thought maybe I’d been imagining things, but the dream is always the same.
I fall asleep, and the room is quiet. Empty. But there’s breathing—low, measured, too close.
I jolt awake, my pulse hammering too fast. But there’s always silence. No movement. No shadow. Nothing out of place except the weight pressing down on my chest.
So I finally cave and call in a favor with the Irish to do a sweep of my apartment.
They must think I’m crazy because no one’s here. Just me.
Then why do I hear someone breathing?
I tell myself it’s just stress, just my mind fucking with me. But I haven’t forgotten the little things out of place.
Yes, that was a couple of weeks ago.
Yes, there was no sign of forced entry.
Yes, I have no verifiable proof.
But my instinct knows better.
I’ve made enemies in my line of work, but I thought I was covered under the Irish’s protection.
Now I’m not so sure.
I wake from another night of bad dreams, throw the covers off, and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. My muscles ache, and the effects of too little sleep for too long are wearing on me.
I need to figure out why I’m having these nightmares and why I’m freaking out. I need to get out of this apartment. I can’t shake the feeling that someone’s been here.
I stand and stretch.
And then I see it.
My stomach drops to the floor.
The far wall—the one I was facing. The one just feet away from where I slept.
Marked.
Slashed across the drywall in thick, dripping red is a single word:
MINE.
A scream locks in my throat.
I stumble back, my calves hitting the bed frame, sending me crashing down.
Who would do this?
I scramble to my feet, my legs shaking, and rush to the front door.
No. I have to grab something to wear before I call them.
“You motherfucking asshole,” I seethe at my empty apartment. “When I find out, I’ll fucking kill you.”
Cillian answers.
“Someone’s been in my apartment.”
“Right now?” he asks, his voice tight and angry. “Any signs of entry?”
“No.” My voice shakes. “No signs of entry, but someone painted on the wall.”
“I’ll be right there.”
It takes him fifteen minutes to get here. I’m freezing, trembling in my coat, when he finally pulls up. I walk down the stairs.
“I wanted to tell you guys—little things have been out of place.” I fill him in on all the details.
“You look like shite,” he snarls. “Like you haven’t slept. You need sleep, lass.”
How do I tell him I haven’t been sleeping because when I fall asleep, I hear someone breathing?
I can’t. He’ll think I’m crazy, and I need their gig.
He takes the stairs two at a time, and I trot in his wake. It doesn’t bring me the assurance I hoped it would—this large, muscled man coming to help me.
He’s here because he has to be.
Not because he wants to be.
He opens the door and pushes it open.
“Where is it?” he asks.
I point a trembling finger toward my room.
“Where?”
Where? What is he talking about? Isn’t it obvious?
I follow him in, pointing at the wall that’s now—
Blank.
Clean.
Not a trace on the wall.
What the actual fuck?
“It was right there,” I say, and I feel like one of those crazy heroines in a movie where someone’s playing a prank on her.