“Mine.” Whispering, I hiss at him as I continue watching the rise and fall of her chest.
I have no idea when my curiosity became an obsession, but she is all I can think of. My fascination with her runs deeper than an addiction. She is a high that runs so deep that it’s making me crazy. My mind has no autonomy. It is all hers. I’m all hers and it is inconvenient as fuck.
Loving her was never my intention, because I never saw her coming. I only saw my goal—my revenge. But now I’m not sure what I want anymore, apart from her and keeping her safe.
I know what’s coming, because I know what happens when you cross the wrong people. If I’d been smart, I would have listened to my mother and tried to forget about the past.
But I can’t. I’ve lived with all my father’s sins and trespasses all my life. I’ve been waiting for fate to interfere or karma to catch up with him, but it hasn’t.
It’s too late anyway, the road I chose to go down has no return. It brought me to Cassie, and now I have her I’m not letting her go.
I won’t let her down like I did Kit.
There’ll be no more backing down for the better good. It’s time to burn down the house.
I’m sorry I let you go. I think silently, lightly brushing the backs of my fingers across her soft jaw while I memorise every gorgeous contour of her sleeping face. The way her dark blonde lashes fan thickly over her cheekbones and how her small nose twitches every so often. The naturally upturned set of her buxom lips and her dainty chin.
Tracing my fingers down to her neck and the bruised bite I left on her perfect skin, I can barely contain my need to hold her and make sure that she’s real, here and mine.
Bruises have never looked this delicate and lovely. They’ve always been a marker of anger and hate. An apparent erasable scar that festers in your subconscious.
But the one on her neck is exquisite. It makes my chest heat to the point that it feels ready to burst. Looking at it is making my dick so hard that my joggers feel too tight.
r /> When I brush her hair completely off her shoulder she stirs and Toby growls low enough that I know it’s a friendly warning, but still a warning.
“Well aren’t you just a cliché?” I snipe at him in a hushed tone so as not to disturb Cassie. “Just a mutt who doesn’t know its owner, huh?”
Toby side-glances back to her and then looks up at me deadpan, even for his dopey eyes, and lets out a rumbly whine before shuffling up the bed a little more, getting even closer to the woman I want, but know I shouldn’t. Turning his back to me, he sighs dismissively.
“Leo?” Wayne calls at the same time as he knocks on the bedroom door.
I pull the duvet up over Cassie’s shoulders and then head for the door, but before I open it, I take one more look at her. I take a moment to memorise the sight of her in my bed and the way it makes it feel warm.
“You have visitors.” I’m greeted by Wayne’s exhausted eyes.
Great.
“Christopher?”
He nods.
The fact that he doesn’t respond verbally tells me that this is going to potentially get ugly. And although normally I wouldn’t mind it getting rough, the woman in the room I’m walking away from makes me want to smooth things over. Because more than a fight, I want her.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Christopher, get your head out of your arsehole and just look at things like a normal person!” Arabella is griping at him as we enter the living area.
“Really? If he wasn’t your friend, would you really be saying that?” The dryness of his reply is enough to let me know that he’s hankering for a fight.
Arabella Gladstone’s five-foot-nothing frame looks dwarfed as she stands in the middle of my home with her hands on her hips, spitting her words like they’re fire. “Yes, because they’re both grown-ups and you need to lighten up.”
Christopher’s gaze follows hers and before I can even take a breath, he’s on me. The only advantage he has on me is an extra inch in height. When it comes to our build, we’re both about the same.
Aggravation adds fuel to the fire when I duck to the side and he misses his first hit.
“I’ll get one in eventually and it’ll be harder than all the ones I might miss.” He snarls and I have to wonder if he actually thinks that he can hurt me anymore than I have been before.
“You might miss them all.” I meet his eyes as his fist tightens around the collar of my T-shirt.
When I duck the other, his flying fist wraps around my throat instead and crushing pain radiates from the centre of my face when he head-butts my nose.