Her laughter died quickly.The light in her eyes, however, didn’t.After two unsuccessful attempts to speak, she whispered, “Per te farei di tutto.”
“I won’t hold you to that.”
“What’s it mean?”
“Tutto,everything.Per te,for you.”I translated only part of it.
She filled in the rest with a small nod.Her hand came to rest on my chest.“I don’t want you here.”
“I know.I’m just another bad boy.You don’t want that in your life.”She’d made that point perfectly clear.
Her fingers tightened, pulling my shirt away from my skin.“You’re here because you’re protecting me.You’ve been ordered to.I get that.What I mean is…”
There were tears clinging to her eyelashes.She swallowed.
“…I don’t want you here like that.”
You and me both, babe.
7
Ellie
Warmth.I loved mornings when I didn’t wake up shivering.I inhaled my little pocket of comfort and caught notes of cedar, warm skin, and the oddly sweet spicy fragrance that lingered on Ringo’s skin.
Mmm… I ran my nose against his chest, reveling in the sensation of his hard muscles, wiry chest hair, and that aroma I couldn’t quite pin down.
Wait.Ringo?What the fuck?
I tensed for a moment, then remembered last night, the food, that awful note, me trying to be as unsexy as possible before approaching him.
Oh my God, he’d seen the honey badger.
It had been a gag gift from Kat in retribution for gifting her with a whole series of books about honey badger shifters.Once I found out where she’d gotten it, I bought one for her and we named them.Mine was Stevie, hers was Max, and we reserved the final sister’s name for when and if Allie would ever join the fandom.So far, she’d resisted.
Despite the ugly pajama incident, he was in my bed, shirtless and sexy as sin.Maybe I could?
Bam!Bam!Bam!
Ringo jolted awake.Within seconds he had a gun in his hand and a knife in the other.
I don’t even think his eyes were open.
“Where the fuck did you have those?”
Another rapid set of pounding rattled my front door.
“What the fuck?Who is pounding on my door?”I blearily swung my feet out from under the covers and got them to the floor.Ringo, in contrast, had hidden the gun, but still had the knife in hand.
I walked past him to open the door.
“Ellie don’t?—”
Belatedly, I realized that opening doors without asking was pretty stupid, but also not as much of a crime as he seemed to think it was.I mean, they were in the building, so it had to be a neighbor, or someone I knew.
“Casey.Why didn’t you call first?”
He was already dressed, spit-polished, and looked like he ran 4k before breakfast.
