What Grows Dies Here

I sighed. “What are you going to do? Kill him?”

“At the very least,” Karson answered through gritted teeth.

Karson wasn’t being metaphorical. Not even a little. If I gave him the name, he would hunt him down and straight up kill him.

That should have turned me off more than it did.

And it didn’t turn me off. Not even a little.

I had to work hard to get a hold of myself so that I didn’t climb Karson like a tree. “You don’t need to kill him,” I said on an exhale, licking my lips.

Karson noticed because his eyes flared, but it did not jerk him out of his murderous rage. “I disagree.”

I sighed again. “You want to defend my honor? Save me? Avenge me, right?”

A muscle in Karson’s jaw twitched. “Just give me his fuckin’ name, sweetheart,” he ordered softly.

Desire shot through me, and fire danced along my skin.

“I’ve already avenged myself,” I told him.

Karson’s forehead scrunched.

“I had his identity stolen,” I shrugged casually. “Opened a bunch of credit cards in his name, maxed them out, defaulted on some personal loans and committed minor fraud. Not to mention alerting authorities in New Mexico and Nevada, where he had outstanding warrants.”

I inspected my nails triumphantly. My phone buzzed on the bed. “That’s our car,” I said, looking at him. “We’ve got a flight to catch. And since it’s commercial, it will leave without us.”

I thought back to the minor argument I’d had with Jay about how we were going to fly. I’d told him I could take care of the arrangements. But of course, a man like him could not let anyone else take control. Not when I’d already had too much sway over his decision making. He’d assured me it was ‘handled.’

And it was. He booked us first class on the next flight. Then I called some contacts to buy out every other seat in first class.

If we were entering a dick measuring contest, he was never going to win. I had ovaries, they were so much better.

“I’m not going to go back and forth on this,” I told Karson. “I understand that you love me.” My heart did that weird little skip thing saying it out loud. I cleared my throat. “That you consider it your duty to kill this man for hurting me. But I promise you right here and now, I’m okay. I was lucky. I was in a situation where I could walk away. Where I could punish him in the way he deserved to be punished, and it did not affect my future relationships.”

Karson’s gaze was unyielding. The monster still danced in his eyes.

“I’m okay,” I repeated. “And if we’re going to do this, you need to understand that I’ve lived an eventful life. Shit has happened. Probably a lot of shit you won’t like. But we’re not living there, in the past. We’re right here. You don’t need to fight the bogeyman for me.”

“I’m always gonna fight the bogeyman for you,” he rasped. Then he kissed the fuck out of me.

Unfortunately, we really were late, so we couldn’t have sex. But the kiss was really fucking good.

Karson was sleeping.

I’d never seen him sleeping before. I knew that was some weird thing that happened to lovestruck idiots in the movies—they watched each other sleep like serial killers. I did not do that.

Mostly because since Karson and I started spending almost every night together, I actually slept.

Six hours.

Sometimes even eight, depending on what his night looked like.

Once we were done with each other, I passed out in his arms and did not wake until he woke me. With coffee. Pancakes. Or his dick.

I was a fan of all three methods of waking.

So there had never been a time when Karson fell asleep before me. I couldn’t be sure he actually slept. I’d seriously considered making the tiniest little incision somewhere on his arm just to make sure he bled. On the off chance he wasn’t some top notch, alpha male sex robot.