Cassie’s exhale bathes my neck and I almost give my life, then and there, for a kiss. Almost dive on top of her and take it. I might get a bullet in my back, but at least I’d die knowing what a mouth that perfect and sweet-looking tastes like.
There’s an angel walking the earth and I found her.
“Miles,” she whispers. Then louder, “Miles. Put the gun down.”
“Like hell,” he growls.
“He isn’t hurting me.”
“He was going to kiss you, Cassie.”
“I know.” Tempter lights up her blue eyes, somehow making her even more breathtaking. She twists around to face the man she called Miles. “I wanted him to kiss me. What do you think of that?”
My cock grows that much stiffer just hearing her say it.
Fuck, I need her. Need Cassie on her back, catching my thrusts.
I’m so hot for this girl, I’m barely aware of the man who is clearly looking for any excuse to pull that trigger and end my twenty-six-year-old life. And it has been a rocky one. They just let me out of the pen two days ago where I’d been locked up for three years on an assault charge. Before that, I served an armed robbery sentence. Juvenile hall, where I spent a lot of my youth, was a cake walk compared to where I’ve been recently. Add up all those years being kept off the streets to make them safer? I’ve been locked up almost more than I’ve been free.
But I’ve never, ever felt as free as when Cassie looks into my eyes.
This man wants to stop me from having her.
Anger makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The metal of the handgun strapped to my ankle heats, burning my skin.
Meanwhile, the man with the shotgun—Miles—looks almost stricken over Cassie’s confession that she wanted to kiss me.
“You’re a child,” Miles says harshly, though his tone lacks conviction. “You don’t know what the hell you want.”
Cassie flinches. “I know there are only two men who’ve made me…made me feel like a woman is supposed to feel. And they’re both right here.”
Jealousy rips through my middle. Cassie and Miles? There’s something between them? I don’t know why I’m surprised. I’m willing to bet every man who’s ever laid eyes on Cassie wants to lock her down. If Miles hadn’t come along with the shotgun, I’d be doing my damnedest to convince her to let me fuck her with no rubber. To put my child in that tasty, little belly.
Still…I thought we had a once in a lifetime connection.
I don’t want her having it with someone else, too.
“Why haven’t you backed away from her yet?” Miles spits at me.
“Put down the gun and come make me.”
With a guttural sound, he fires a deafening shot into the sky.
“Miles, stop!” Cassie jumps to her feet and I mourn the loss of her heat, her magnolia scent immediately. I’m already in love with her, but when she shows no fear in the face of the shotgun, poking Miles in the chest with an adorable frown on her face, she becomes my obsession. “You don’t want me. But no one else can have me, either? Is that it?”
He doesn’t take his murderous eyes off me, following my progress as I stand, hands up and level with my chest, because I’m not stupid. “You must not have been listening last night, girl,” he rasps. “I never said I didn’t want you. I said I can’t have you. It’s wrong.”
There’s no mistaking the hurt on her face. “Well then you should let me go.”
“Is that what you want?”
“No,” she whispers, her eyes growing luminous.
“What do you want, Cassie?” I ask.
Cassie splits a look between us, her own answer seeming to come as a surprise. “B-both of you.” She puts a hand on Miles’s shotgun, pushing it slowly downward until the muzzle faces the ground. Then she crooks her finger at me—beckoning me closer—and I don’t know how to resist. She’s a fucking siren and my body moves without a command from my brain.
As soon as I’m within reaching distance, she curls her hand in the front of my T-shirt, urging me closer. Ignoring the growl of warning from Miles, she does the same to his shirt, pulling him near, leaving this little blonde goddess between us, holding us by our collars.
“Miles…” she says quietly, her voice reminding me of a warm, summer breeze. “You guard me, keep me safe. You…run my life. We pretend you don’t, but you control everything I do, down to the amount of time I spend with friends. You bring me for haircuts, teach me to ride. Things my father should do, but he doesn’t…because I don’t think you’d let him. I’m already yours.”
She turns to me and I try not to let it show how badly I’d like to steal her away. Belt her into my stolen truck where I left it idling on the road, take her somewhere no man would ever see her, and make her mine. Only mine.