Page 176 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

“I love how much you hate abusers.” I rock my hips back and forth on his perfect cock. “Goals, honestly.”

He thrusts upward, hitting me someplace so good that I momentarily leave my body.

“It… it just makes sense.” Sweat beads on his forehead as he starts unfastening the buttons of my shirt. “To remove them. For the l-long-term health of the com… community.”

“Sure.” I lift up and impale myself again, making us both moan. “It’s not like you care about the actual people involved. That’s not why you funded a whole damn women’s shelter.”

His fingers still on the final button. “How did you…?”

“Did you forget what my sister can do?” I smirk at him. “Rub my clit. I’m still reading.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

After that, it gets harder to stay focused on the list, but I see cases I processed. Dead men I’d wondered about. One has me freezing mid-thrust.

“You killed that guy we thought got bit by his Puff Adder?”

“Yeah,” he grunts out. “And it was a pain in the ass making sure Stay Puft went to a snake sanctuary instead of being… ya know…” He drags a thumb across his throat and drops his mouth to my nipple, his voice falling an octave. “Baby, do you know what it does to me, seeing you in my shirt? In my fucking cardigan?”

“What does it do to you?” I’m breathless, my pleasure starting to coil tight as Hugo works me over with his big dick and his blunt thumb and his hot tongue.

“It makes me want to keep fucking you forever.” He holds me in place and shifts his hips, and my spine bows so far back that I grip the coffee table behind me for balance.

“You’d better,” I tell him.

“Then you’d better finish the letter so you can keep fucking me.”

Right. The letter. I straighten and look for where I left off.

The last page. And what’s on there makes me stop moving entirely.

“Hugo.”

“What?” He freezes too. “What, baby?”

“The plant cuttings that you leave for me from your backyard.”

Understanding dawns, and his mouth softens. “You really don’t know your plants, do you?”

I shake my head, my eyes not leaving his face as I lift the now-crumpled pages. “Is this real?”

He nods. Shifts. Makes me shiver.

“Ruta graveolens.” His smile spreads into a full-blown grin. “Otherwise known as the rue plant.”

Fingers shaking, I reach into the breast pocket of my shirt and pull out the little cutting from Timms’s house, hit with its full significance for the first time.

“Are you telling me you’ve been leaving a rue plant at the scenes you think I might end up working?”

“No.” He plucks the sprig from my fingers and tucks it behind my ear. “I’m telling you I’ve been leaving a rue plant at every scene, just in case. Since the day I planted them.” He tilts his hips and slides deeper into me. I didn’t think it was possible, but he does. “The week you moved in.”

“That early?” My head falls forward, and I press my face into his neck as I let myself fully understand the extent of his devotion. “You planted the yellow flowers for me after knowing me for a week?”

His hand cups the back of my head. His cock throbs inside me. His lips find my ear. “Yes, baby. You just didn’t see them for a long time.”

I shatter. He does too. We cling to each other as that golden glow rushes through us.

“I see you now,” I whisper. “All of you.”