He pulls the chain, dragging my neck around until our lips crash together in a passionate kiss, his tongue sliding across mine as my nails leave indents in his arms. No one could blame me for holding on so tightly when he so easily slipped from my grasp before. I’ve grown claws in the last decade, though – talons I plan to use to hook into him and the others to make sure they never stray far. It’s what a queen does.
Our breath mingles between our bodies as he pulls away, his eyes searching mine as the chain begins to dig into my neck from his grip. “Marry me, Evangeline.”
Just as it did ten years ago, my breath stops in my lungs as my heart skips a beat, his question echoing through my ears. I’m overwhelmed by his words, the same way I was the first time he asked, except this time it’s for a completely different reason.
I shake my head, a small smile growing on my face as I try to downplay his proposal. “You can’t possibly ask me to marry you after every time we have sex.”
He shrugs, his broad chest flexing with the movement. “I will until you say yes. I’ll ask you every single day until I hear that little word come from your
lips if that’s what it takes.”
He sees the war in my eyes and presses a gentle kiss to my lips, wrapping his arms around me and bringing me closer to him. “One day, Eve, you will be my wife. If the others want to give you a ring, then so be it, but my name is the last one you’ll ever take.”
Someone is in my house.
It’s nearly four in the morning and Atlas is passed out beside me, his arm hanging limply over my body and his lips muttering words I can’t understand, but I’m wide awake.
It isn’t unusual for me to wake up in the middle of the night. I had horrible dreams while I was pregnant and for some reason, those dreams never quit after I had my son. Instead, they got worse. It wasn’t just dreams anymore. The nightmares of our housecatching fire turned into me smelling the smoke and seeing the flames lick underneath my door. The fears of someone breaking into my house to harm my baby transformed into hearing the door break open and footsteps coming up the stairs.
Most of the time, I’m able to realize that it’s all in my head. Not tonight, though.
Because tonight, someone really wasin my house.
I never heard my door break open or a window shatter, but the footsteps downstairs are as real as I am. Men’s, by the sound of it, and a big man if the echoing thud is anything to go by.
Maybe it is another nightmare, Evie. Just go check and then go back to sleep.
There it is – my little voice of reason.
Then, there’s something besides footsteps. Breaking glass.
I take a quick look at Atlas’s sleeping form and then shake my head. He’s sleeping, and I’ve never needed a man to check my house before this. Grabbing my pistol from the hidden strap beneath my nightstand, I creep around the bedroom and open my door, peaking through the crack.
After making sure the top floor hall was clear, I use my toe to open my bedroom door just enough for me to slip through. Paying attention to where I place my feet on the stairs, making sure to miss the few places where they creak, I make my way to the bottom floor.
A soft curse comes from my kitchen, and I see the stove light come on, a tall shadow moving around on the wall as I tiptoe my way forward. Double checking my gun to make sure the safety is off, I work my way through the dining room and into the edge of the kitchen.
There, getting the fucking trash bag out of the can,is Kortez.
“Kor, what the fuck?” My scream makes him drop the bag, bits of trash and glass from the vase Atlas broke earlier scattering over the ground.
He looks up, his eyes wide as he takes in the sight of me with a gun leveled at him. “Evangeline. You’re…naked.”
My eyes drop down to realize that in my anxiety heightened state, I never put clothes on. I click the safety back on the gun and wrap my arms around myself, my body heating at his stare. “Yeah, um – “
“Eve!” I turn to see Atlas rushing down the stairs, his dark hair sticking up at wild angles as he clutches his own gun in his hand. “I heard you scream and – Jesus, here.” He shoots Kor a look before taking his shirt off and slipping it over my head, grabbing my gun from me as he does. “What the hell is going on?”
I turn to see Kortez watching us with a curious expression on his face – one I want to kiss off him.
“I thought I heard something, so I came downstairs to see Kor…taking out the trash?” I hear the confusion in my own voice, but the randomness of the whole situation makes me start to giggle. “Again, what the fuck?”
He looks sheepishly down at the floor and the glass around his feet. “I let myself in. I saw the glass on the floor and didn’t want you hurting yourself.” He looks down at his hand and for the first time, I see the blood dripping down his fingers.
I nod slowly, watching his eyes track the blood dripping from his hand down to the floor. He licks his lips with the same hunger I saw in him that day in the forest.
“Come on, Kor, let’s go to bed.”
Chapter 33
