Sloan looks even more shocked than she did about the tracker. “You do? Even after everything I’ve done to make your life a mess?”
“For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health,” I remind her. “Aye, I do.”
She crawls into my lap, ignoring the blood on me and a couple of burn marks on my shirt from the explosion. “I love you,” she says firmly, kissing me again. “I do. You saved my family. You saved me.”
I tuck her head under my chin and we just sit there for a moment, enjoying the quiet in our little corner.
“While we’re in this moment of complete honesty,” she says, “I have to tell you that you look even hotter with all these new cuts and wounds. I recognize this makes me a sick human being, but there you go.”
Chuckling, I tilt her head up for a kiss. “Well, darlin’ so am I. Being twisted freaks is a sound foundation for a successful marriage. At least in our clan.”
She starts giggling weekly, and I close my eyes and smile.
Chapter Forty-One
In which there is punishment. And it's not entirely unwelcome.
Ethan…
I’m a patient man.
I spent an acutely boring five week stretch chasing down a human trafficker in Mozambique.
Or, having to torture one stubborn bastard for three days before he gave up the name of the man who’d killed my cousin.
Then, there was the long wait to kill the eccentric Scandinavian millionaire who lived in an underground bunker and only came up for air every few weeks. An underground bunker in Greenland where the median temperature was twenty below zero.
I've developed enough patience in my thirty years to make the thirteen-hour flight back to Edinburgh was endurable. Getting Nate and Carmella settled in my guest rooms was a priority, of course. But when they were finally asleep, Sloan walked out into the living room, stopping when she found Patrick making himself comfortable on the couch.
“Are you two watching a soccer game or something?”
She looks so sweet and innocent, freshly showered in a pink sweater and jeans.
“No, Patrick is here in case Nate or Carmella wake up and need something,” I say, my palms itching,itchingto make contact with her bare arse.
“Why would he need to be here if-”
“We have somewhere to be,” I interrupt her.
“Now?”
“Aye, wife,” I smile, “right now.” She's learned by now to not question me in front of my men, since the response is often embarrassing.
“Well, okay. Patrick, will you please call us if they wake up?”
“Yes ma’am,” he says.
“Patrick?”
“Yes ma’am?”
“Do you think you could stop calling me ma’am and maybe just call me Sloan?”
“I believe your husband would shoot me in the face, ma’am,” he says, still completely straight-faced.
“He wouldn’t-” she looks between me and Patrick, “You’d never shoot poor Patrick if he just-”
“Probably not, wife. But I can guarantee nothing.” Pulling her into the lift, I kiss her soundly.
