Murder_ A Sinful Secrets Romance - Ella James Page 0,75

my fucking hands are shaking. Fuck me.

One minute I was ranging around the living room, stoking the fire, chasing my racing thoughts, trying to decide whether to clean my McMillan TAC .338 or go outside and have one of the Marlboros I found under an ice pack in the freezer. The next second, I hear heavy footfall through the partially open kitchen window and I look out and see her.

Gwenna in my jacket. Gwenna with a goddamned bottle of wine.

The house hasn’t closed. It’s not time to make my move. I have nothing for her, nothing but a bunch of shit she doesn’t need or deserve. So you might think I’d exercise intelligence. Back up my own decision to take a big step back by not answering the door.

Instead, I heard her footsteps on the porch and started sweating. My head pounded. My throat stung and tightened, and although I circled the couch two times before I went to her, I found I didn’t have the willpower for three.

So there is Gwenna. Gwen with wine. Here she is in my kitchen, swallowed by my jacket, glassy-eyed from drinking whatever I could smell on her before she came inside. Her cheeks are tinged with pink, the way they always seem to be, and when she thinks I’m not looking, she’s chewing on her lower lip.

Troubled. Plain enough to see.

So why did she come here drunk with wine in hand? Said she should go, then frowned and told me that I look like shit, then came inside and told me I should have some wine.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think we’d reversed roles and Gwenna had a mind to take me out.

Well—I might if this fucking cork wasn’t stuffed so fucking tightly in the bottle. I look up at her, and as I work the cork out, using my left arm to hold the bottle since my hand won’t work, I think of big things stuffed in little spaces, my cock, Gwen’s cunt; I wonder what she feels like underneath my jacket, if her skin is warm, if her pants have an elastic waist or button and zipper. I think of hauling her over to the couch and finding out. My tongue sweeping through her sweet, slick, puffy lips, and then—

I’m hard.

Fuck.

I try to think of what I’ll have to do to her. I think of Gwen in pain, of that betrayal in her eyes, and…I’m still fucking hard.

Finally, the cork pops free. I pour a glass for each of us and Gwenna takes hers, looking more spooked than I’ve ever seen her. As if she can hear my thoughts and knows just what a fuck I am, and knows that she should go.

I drain my glass and watch her, daring her to go.

Go now—while you can.

The way I’m looking at her has her flustered. As if I care. I don’t. I like it. I let my gaze linger on her pretty face until her soft, smooth skin is cherry red. Until she takes my jacket off, revealing a light green sweater and dark gray pants that, from where I stand, seem to have a button and a zipper.

“I—” she starts.

I pour more wine into my glass, causing her to bite down on her lower lip again. “I’m going to go now.” She looks over my shoulder, at the clock, I realize, following her gaze. “It’s almost eleven o’clock. I shouldn’t have come too late.”

Inside my head, it burns and roars. My wants and needs and shoulds; desire and discipline.

Protect her.

Have her.

Soothe her.

Banish her.

I even think of getting on my bike and driving off, just riding far, far, far away until she isn’t near enough to touch and smell. Until I’m not so tempted I feel like I can’t breathe.

I try to swallow, loosen up my throat. Around my glass’s stem, my fingers clench.

My gaze rips up and down her. What’s so special about her? Of all the women, why this one?

I try to focus on her mouth: the defect. I look at the left side of her mouth and think of what it represents and how it looks—all things that should repel me. I think about her ankle, about the scars I felt on her silk-soft belly as I ate her pussy. I try to tell myself it’s not even me she wants. She’d take any company, perhaps.

Or maybe it’s my body. I see the way she looks at me. She wants my abs, my chest, these shoulders that are