Plus, it did fill me with a certain amount of satisfaction, that she wanted me to pick her up from Lola’s house and not either of the others.
There was a time, months ago, when Kieran and Mike were her shadows, her bodyguards, but that was when the villain in the story was unknown. When we unmasked her, when Kieran finally told us all the truth, everything had changed. Such was life. It never stopped to let you catch your breath.
By the time I went to Lola’s house to pick my girl up, the hour was late and the streets were as good as empty. If you ventured downtown at this hour, you’d find neon lights and bodies on the sidewalks, people partying it up regardless of what day or time it was. Tattoo shops open at all hours of the day and night. Bars on every street corner. It was a breeding ground for criminal activity—I would know. I was born in these streets, much like my brother.
This city was mine, but if Laina wanted to move away, I would say goodbye to it. I’d do anything for her. There were no limits to my adoration for my princess.
I pulled into Lola’s driveway, and I didn’t even have the chance to get out of the car. Laina must’ve been watching for me, because at that same moment, she hurried out of the large house, practically bouncing all the way to my car in the darkness. She got in, leaned over the center console, and kissed my cheek.
Of course, a kiss on the cheek was all fine and well, but it was nothing compared to the taste of her lips on mine—and I responded in kind by turning my head and catching her mouth with my own, giving her a hot, hard kiss that stole the breath out of her lungs.
When she pulled her lips off mine, she was smiling in the dim light of my car, and I grinned at her and said, “Someone’s in a good mood. Did you have a fun night with Lola?”
“I did,” she said, matching my smile with one of her own as I backed the car out of the driveway and got us on the road. She’d spend the night at my place, and then I’d drive her back to her school in the morning.
I was curious about what she got up to while she was gone, but I also didn’t want to push her, knowing she’d tell me whatever she wanted to when she was ready.
As I drove us to my place, Laina fiddled with the radio, trying to find some acceptable song. This hour of the night, it was difficult. Then again, most radio stations were all commercials and talk shows, less music, regardless of the time of day.
“Aren’t you going to ask me how it was?” she suggested, batting those pretty eyes of hers at me. In the dim light, with only the passing streetlights to illuminate her face, her pink contacts did not seem as otherworldly as they typically did. I’d grown used to them; it was a rare occasion when she donned her natural blue gaze now that she’d given up playing the traumatized daughter for the press.
“Do you want me to?”
“I thought you’d be dying to know.”
“I am curious, princess, but I know you did or didn’t do whatever you needed to. As long as you’re happy, I am, regardless of what happened tonight.” I was not a man who put restraints on someone else. Then again, it wasn’t as if I had much experience being in a relationship to begin with. It might shock some people to know, but I’d been a loner for most of my life—and most women and girls out there did not understand me.
Or my teeth and my penchant for using them freaked them out. Truly, I was fortunate Lola had sent Laina to me. I couldn’t imagine what my life would’ve been like now if I didn’t have such a gorgeous creature of my own.
I was a man in love, an odd thing for a man like me to admit.
She practically hummed in the passenger’s seat. “I didn’t join in. I just watched Lola do her thing.”
“Did you want to join in?”
“Yes,” the answer came from her swiftly. “And no. It’s… weird. It’s like I’m happy, but at the same time, I’m not. I don’t know why. Lola thought it might be because deep down I’m still worried about my dad or Mike and Kieran, but… I don’t know.”
“It could be, but take it from me.” I reached over the center console to grab her hand and squeeze it. “Mike and Kieran love you. They might not get along, but they’re still here, willing to put their disdain for the other aside in order to be with you. I don’t think anything you do could turn either of them away.”
Did I believe that? Wholeheartedly, yes. Mike’s devotion to Laina had been damn near instant, even if he’d never admit it, and Kieran, well, his obsession with her had begun years ago. I understood where he came from more than most, along with his reasoning: if he wouldn’t have taken her, someone else would’ve been hired for the job, and they wouldn’t have minded killing her.
Mike didn’t see it like that, of course.
“I don’t think it’s them,” she whispered.
“Then what is it? What’s bothering you? I’ll do anything I can to help.”
“At the concert, it was like I couldn’t really relax. I kept having to look over my shoulder. It felt like I was being watched, even though everyone’s eyes were on the stage.” Laina bit her bottom lip. “It’s not the first time I’ve felt like that, either. It happens all the time. Between classes, even when I’m out with Mike or Kieran.” Then she laughed and added, “God, I sound paranoid, don’t I?”
“With everything you’ve been through, you have every reason to be paranoid. How many times have you been kidnapped?”
That got her to chuckle, and even now, even after hearing it time and time again, the sound of her laughter was like a drug. I could listen to it all night. “Point taken. I know I’ve been throughsome shit, but… is it ever going to get better? Is that feeling ever going to go away, or am I going to be stuck with it until I die?”
“No one can say what the future holds when it comes to that,” I told her as I squeezed her hand harder. “But either way, you’ll always have me. We can overcome that paranoia together.” I never imagined myself a sweet man, but this girl brought it out of me. All sugar and spice and everything nice—with a little hint of something bad, nestled deep down inside.
She sighed, and then she said the words that I would never tire of hearing: “I love you, Fang.” Never before had a grouping of four words made me swell with such pride and contentment. She held power over me no one else in the world could.
“Not nearly as much as I love you,” I whispered back, wishing I could swerve the car off the road, put it in park, and dive in deep. But, as much as I wanted to get deep inside her, that could wait until we were safely back at my place, and I had her laying spread eagle on my bed, completely free of her clothing.
