Heartless Hero (Crowne Point 1)

She grabbed my arm, stopping me, eyes wide. “Do you still have it?”

“Have what?”

She rolled her eyes. “The diary.”

Of course I still had it. If Abigail had her box of secrets, her jewelry and dreams she thought I didn’t remember, then I had my diary.

Everybody has a dream; mine is finding my mother. But more important than having a dream, is hiding your dream, putting it in a box or in my case, a black backpack under the couch I slept on, so you don’t fall to pieces when it inevitably doesn’t come true.

It was my most valued possession, and Abigail was the only person I’d ever let know it existed.

“Why do you care?” I asked.

She dropped my arm, turning away. This was the moment I should have gotten up and left, remembered why I’d come back in the first place.

“Maybe I just want to know if there’s any of the old Theo left…” She started out strong, then trailed off.

An odd ache clutched my chest at her words and the soft way she spoke them.

A dangerous part of me wondered if there was any of the old Abigail left too. The same part that couldn’t get the way she felt coming on my fingers out of my head, and couldn’t stop wondering what she would feel like around my dick.

But I couldn’t wonder that.

I couldn’t let her get close.

Not again.

Because you can’t be left if you never let them stay.

Our eyes were locked, and she mashed her lips together, as if deliberating something. The air felt too still, too hot.

“Theo, I’m sor—” she started, but before she could push it further, I grabbed her by the arm, spinning her and pinning her to the mattress. She was beneath me before she could blink.

“What are you doing?” Her voice was breathy, a whisper against my lips.

I liked that. Way too much.

“Showing you how I did that thing to Geoff and Alaric.”

“You’ve learned a lot.”

Those bitable lips were only a breath away from me.

I had it in my head to tell her about the years I spent doing nothing but training. About my awards and how I knew all kinds of fighting styles, from Krav Maga to jiu jitsu to line to Muay Thai. I wasn’t the boy she’d sent away.

But I was focused on her lips. The way her tongue darted out to wet them and her chest pressed against mine. My knee separated her thighs. Her sleep shorts had ridden up, and I was insanely distracted with what her bare skin would feel like if I wasn’t wearing jeans.

So all I got out was, “Yeah.”

“You’re like this badass bodyguard dude,” she breathed. A smile flickered against my lips at her wording. “I remember when you used to get in fights for no reason.”

My brow furrowed. “No reason, Abigail?”

She shrugged. “I guess not. They’re dicks. They deserve it.”

Every single fight had been for her. There was a reason they called me her dog.

“Just when I think you can’t get any stupider, you say shit like that.”