“Because I wanted to,” I stare down at her pretty face,taking in the delicate slope of her nose and the full, plump lips that she wets with a quick sweep of her tongue. Her eyes, a blue to rival even the clearest of oceans, are framed by impossibly long lashes and groomed, arched brows and during the summer months, when she tans herself in the sun, she gets this light dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks.
She has a scar, just at the tail of her right brow where she took a fall when she was younger and cracked her head on the edge of a step and when she doesn’t like something, she crinkles up her nose.
Savannah Levine has always been a beautiful girl but the years she spent away at college, growing into herself, learning her skill and seeing the world has only made her ethereal. She is elegance personified, a goddess walking amongst men. She turns heads and steals hearts without even trying but to top it all off, she’sgood.
If it weren’t already wrong for me to want her, if it wasn’t crossing a line I’m not sure I’d ever come back from, her pure heart and brightness would surely send me straight to hell.
There is no way, on this earth,fuck, in this universe, that a man like me deserves a woman like her.
“See you in the morning,” I grumble as I move to exit the bathroom.
I hear her scramble up behind me, her legs hurrying to catch up, “In the morning? Why?”
I don’t answer.
“Killian!” She huffs, “Tell my brother I do not need a chaperone!”
I don’t correct her and tell her that her brother has nothing to do with this. He has no idea I’m even doing it. He’s distracted and fairly so, he’s just had a baby with his new wife and trying to navigate this new life of his while still being heavily involved in an underground criminal organization we live and breathe for.
We are about halfway down the stairs when the front door suddenly opens.
When you have lived a life like mine and walkthrough each day with bloody footprints and a notebook filled with the names of people you have killed, there’s no way to switch off the constant state of defense.
I grab Savannah immediately, shoving her behind me as I reach for my gun.
“Savannah!?” A female calls out, “Sav, you home!?”
“Get off me,” Savannah snatches from me, “It’s Sloane! She lives here!”
It takes me a few seconds to reel it back in but I’m still full of tension when Savannah steps away from me, passing me with a huff to get to the bottom of the stairs.
“Hey!” Savannah greets her friend.
“Uh,” Sloane frowns toward me, her wariness of me a refreshing take, “Why is there a strange man in my house?”
“Shit!” Sav gasps, wide eyes flicking to me, “I’m so sorry.”
I listen intently, watching her friend blink rapidly, her jaw ticking but it isn’t anger, it’s anxiety, and her eyes, they’re haunted.
“I didn’t know you were going to be home; Killian was just leaving.”
Sloane swallows, “Who is he?”
“He’s just one of my brother’s friends, I was having some car issues, he came out to have a look for me,right Killian?” Savannah turns pleading eyes to me and a flurry of questions flitter through my mind. Sloane has no idea who I am or that I am Savannah’s brothers’ friend, there was no need to lie, so why did she?
And what has Sloane been through to warrant this instant fight or flight response?
“Right,” I agree, “I’m leaving now.”
Savvy guides her friend into the living room and then scurries back to me, her hand gripping my arm as she forces me to the door. I say force lightly, I let her push me that way.
“Don’t follow me.” Savannah hisses under her breath, her frustration causing a little line to form between her brows. Her ire is adorable.
“It’s cute you think that it’s optional,” I whisper and shrug off her hold, heading down the steps and to my car.
“Killian,” She snaps.
I glance back once and grin before I climb into my car and reverse out onto the street, taking the roads back to my place.
