Then, once she was done with him, I could kill him. Slowly. Painfully. Making him regret all his life choices.
Those thoughts swirled through my head as I approached Danny’s bedroom, and I stopped briefly in the hall, frowning. I’d been planning on killing Malachi Arden for a while now. Certainly a lot longer than he’d known Danny… but I’d admit his involvement with her was a motivating factor now.
Yet the heat in my vengeance plot was lacking now. When I thought about slitting that bastard’s throat, it was no longer to satisfy a years-old score between us. It was because he’d touched my woman. I warned her what I’d do if anyone tried to take what was mine… the only thing holding me back was her.
Damn it. I was just too fucking addicted to that look. The soft, loving one she gave me whenever I cooperated when I clearly didn’t want to. The one that said she knew she was asking me to go against my nature, and that she recognized what my compliance meant… how much she meant to me.
Her door was locked, which made me smile, and I picked it without any effort at all.
Inside her room, the curtains were all drawn, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the low light. The sun had already begun to rise outside, which meant small slivers of light gave her an ethereal quality as she slept.
The bed was huge, and she was so small she barely took up any space at all, so I carefully slid under the covers beside her. She stirred briefly and I froze, but she quickly fell back to sleep without noticing I was there. Good. It meant I could just lie there and stare at her.
There was something quietly obsessive with the way I liked to watch her sleep. Something a little perverted about the way she didn’t know I was there. It reminded me of our first night together, when I’d been so captivated by her sleeping form I’d started my Danny-nudes collection. Damn, I wished I’d grabbed my phone before leaving my room… As deeply as she was sleeping, I bet I could have tugged the blankets off for a few new snaps.
Nothing could have made me move from her bed now that I was there, though. Nothing. So I just settled in and committed her to memory instead. Every inch of her skin, her silken hair, the way her chest rose and fell with each breath. My favorite part was how her lips moved ever so slightly on each exhale.
At some stage, she rolled over and her body bumped into mine. She didn’t wake up, though, instead just wrapping her arms around me and snuggling into my chest, inhaling deeply.
I froze for a moment, wondering who she thought she was sleeping with. Me? Or him?
She sighed as my hand stroked over her hair, and her whole body relaxed. “Bunny,” she mumbled, giving a happy hum before her breathing returned to the deep, steady pace of slumber.
My chest swelled, warmth flooding through me at the proof she was thinking of me. Me! Thank fuck for that; I hardly needed more reasons to kill that muscle-bound prick. Grinning like an idiot, I wrapped my arms around her and buried my face in her silken hair.
I fell asleep like that, with her skin against mine and her breath fanning my chest. It was the deepest I’d slept since… well, since she fucked me into exhaustion and I didn’t even notice that she’d bled me to write a message on the mirror. Something about sleeping with her let my brain fully rest unlike ever before.
When I woke, though, she wasn’t as close as when I’d closed my eyes. She still faced me, her angelic features soft and her dark lashes splayed over her pale cheeks, but the distance had been created by the big brown hand around her waist. That fucking hand had wiggled her out of my embrace and into its own.
Simmering with blind fury, I reached my hand underneath Danny’s pillow, my fingers closing around the hilt of the knife she kept there.
Her eyelids snapped open the moment I tried to slide the knife out, her gaze locking with mine.
Don’t, she mouthed at me, her glare hard with warning.
I scowled back, shooting a death glare at the slumbering giant wrapped around her back. Motherfucker must have crept in like a damn mouse not to wake us up. I would have been impressed if I wasn’t plotting his bloody demise.
“Let me kill him,” I breathed, soft enough that he wouldn’t hear me. “Please. I’ll do it so quick.”
I tried pulling the knife from under her pillow again, but she wrapped her fingers around my wrist, stopping me.
“No,” she whispered, unwilling to even negotiate.
My eyes narrowed and my jaw twitched with frustration. “Why not?”
She exhaled a sigh, then turned her face slightly to glance at the dead weight draped over her. The way her expression softened, though, was like a cigarette burn to my heart.
“Because,” she finally whispered, shifting her eyes back to me with that soft, loving look still on her face. “I like him.”
That only made me want to kill him more. But that look was my kryptonite.
Swallowing my murderous desires down, I forced myself to release the knife under her pillow and withdraw my hand. “Fine,” I muttered, accepting the defeat.
She reached out and touched a hand to my cheek, turning my face back to hers. “I like you, too, Bunny.”
I smirked. She didn’t like me. She loved me. But knowing what I knew about her upbringing, it didn’t worry me that she couldn’t say the words out loud. She hadn’t grown up with a therapist for a mother, like I had, forcing me to confront my own thoughts and feelings at every session. According to my darling mother, our own mind could be our strongest enemy or our most valuable ally. The difference was in whether we ran from our truths or confronted them head-on.
In saying that, my mom also fucked me up so bad I thought I was incapable and undeserving of love and affection. So maybe Danny’s childhood under the whip of the Guild would have been preferable.
My response was to brush my lips over hers, taking one soft, sweet kiss while the meathead snored softly behind her. Ugh, I hated snorers. Maybe I could suffocate him with a pillow if we ended up in this situation again. That could be an accident, right?
“Make me coffee?” Danny asked sweetly, her whispering breath warming my lips.
I kissed her again, not really giving a fuck if we woke up dickhead. “For you, mon cœur, I’d do anything.” And I fucking meant it, even if it killed me to do so. Shooting another death glare at the piece of shit holding her waist, I slipped out of the bed and left the room.
My woman wanted coffee, then I’d make her the most delicious coffee she’d ever put in her mouth. Then I’d put something else in her mouth.
With a renewed sense of excitement for the coming day—or what was left of it—I headed back to “my” room to get dressed. I paused when I passed the room I’d locked Kai into this morning. The doorframe was splintered and broken, like an enraged bull had kicked it down.
Chuckling to myself, I almost wished I’d seen it. I bet he was pissed.
39
The door clicked softly closed after Leon, and Kai’s grip on my waist tightened instantly. I wondered how long he’d been awake, listening in on my whispered conversation with Leon.
“Is he gone?” the big guy at my back rumbled, pulling me closer into his body.
I bit back a dizzy grin. “Yeah, he’s making me coffee. You have a bit of a death wish, huh, Big Man?”