“No more.” He raised his chin. My proud klutzy hero. “I’m here now, and I want you to have a career. Your friend, Ari, does he go to college?”
I frowned, then nodded. “He wants to be a lawyer.”
“Is that something you might be interested in?”
I thought about his question carefully because it was the first time someone had asked me. I’d never considered what I’d want to do with an education.
“No,” I finally said. Law was boring. “Maybe something to do with business. I’d love to manage a restaurant one day.”
He smiled and nuzzled his nose against my cheek. “You love food.”
I laughed. “I’m not great at making it, but I do enjoy eating it.”
“That’s all that matters. I think you’d do great at managing a restaurant. So, we can make this happen. Get you into college or something for a management course. Or a business degree.” He sounded so sure of himself, and his confidence made my chest expand in joy. I believed him.
It had been a long time since I could put faith in someone else.
“I’d have to figure out how to get the classes I need to get into college. I’d have to research which courses are out there and what would be best for me.”
“Do it.” He kissed my jaw this time, and I couldn’t get enough of his lips. They were warm and tantalizing. I could take on the world with him around. I suspected this feeling was dangerous. It was easier for him to build me up before ripping me right down again. But Eddie wouldn’t do that...right? The fourth person on my list, Mario, had. I’d trusted him.
The asshole had laughed about it, too.
Eddie wasn’t Mario, though.
“I don’t want you working over Christmas, either. You can get a part-time job after New Year’s if you want, but college, or whatever you choose to do, comes first.” His stern tone sent a pleasant shiver down my spine. “I want to spend the holidays with you.”
I grinned and attacked him with a bunch of kisses on the neck below his stubble, causing him to laugh as I bit down on his skin.
“What are you doing, you vampire?” His laughter filled the kitchen, and I soaked it all in.
I gnawed one particularly yummy spot, right above his pulse point, and his chuckles warped into a moan as I bruised him with my teeth, marking him as mine. When I was done and assessed my work, I sat back on his dick, which poked me. “Also, I hope you don’t mind, but I invited Ari and Jules for dinner tomorrow night. A double date. We owe them a thank-you.”
He blinked up at me, mouth pulled tight. “Are you going to tell them what I did to Aaron?”
“Why?” I frowned. “We don’t need help cleaning anything up. The less they know, the better. Jules is a strange guy who does strange things, but he’s a cop. We can question him on the sly about any train accidents if you want.”
He coughed, choking on air, and his knees jumped, nearly bucking me off onto the floor. “Weirdly, I forgot about him being a cop. Like, I saw his uniform and everything, but my brain doesn’t want that information. That’s extra fucked up.”
I laughed. “Don’t worry about him. Pretty sure he and Ari kill people on the side, though I can’t confirm it.” I shrugged. “Anyway, dinner tomorrow night?”
He looked at me as though I’d gone crazy. I probably had. If I was sane, I would’ve been running to the cops about Eddie and Jules and Ari, but instead, I loved the idea of having killers around me. It wasn’t as if they wanted to hurt me. What did that say about me?
“Yeah,” he murmured.
I clapped my hands excitedly. “Great, I’ll find a place to order food from. Manzi’s sounds good.”
12
EDDIE
The peppy notes of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” spilled over the crowd busily going from store to store in the New Gothenburg mall. Nearby, people stood around the big front windows of Double Shot, a coffee shop I liked, sipping drinks with their heavy winter coats gaping open.
Tyler snuggled closer, and I wrapped my arm more securely around his narrow waist, clutching our bags in my other hand.
“I’m just saying, the way Jules stares is creepy, you know? You don’t think it’s creepy?” I glanced at him with my eyebrows raised.
His nose twitched and he snickered before turning to press his face against my chest. The casual way he touched me had my feet floating above the floor. God, he was amazing.
