“Yeah, it feels really good, and as much as I don’t want to stop, I don’t want our first time being in this rundown school. Besides, that asshole could come back, and I want to make sure I’m ready if he does.”
She made a small noise in the back of her throat, and he wrapped his arms around her, trying to pull her closer to his body. “You think he’ll come back?”
“Not if he’s smart, but then again, he is clearly a crazy motherfucker, so who the hell knows.” He pulled her closer, leaned back on the wall, and had his weapons right on his lap, at the ready. “If that bastard decides to come back, I’m ready, and this time I won’t let him escape. I want you, Rebecca, and not just because I am a man and you’re a woman and I haven’t been with a female in far too fucking long.”
Licking her suddenly dry lips, she said, “I want you too, Collin. I feel safe with you, protected.” But she knew there was more that needed to be said. She could see it in the way he held himself, in the way he watched her, and the air around them that was electrically charged.
“There are things about me that you should know, even if it doesn’t mean anything anymore.”
Goose bumps popped out along her body at the deep, dark way he spoke. Settling closer to him, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in close. Rebecca tilted her head back and stared at the sky that was visible through the roof of the school and the treetops.
The sky was dusky-pinks and oranges throughout the blue and white. For several long moments, they didn’t speak, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. The sound of the wind whistling through the trees had a lulling quality.
“Before all this went down with the infection, I ran the biggest drug empire in New York, pimped out willing women, and sold illegal firearms.”
His words startled her, but she stayed quiet and waited for him to continue.
“I killed people, took their lives as if they meant nothing, because they didn’t, Rebecca.” He stared at her with a hard, unforgiving expression. “I liked taking their lives, especially if they crossed me or my business.” He swallowed roughly, and she saw the way his throat worked, as if he didn’t want to tell her and was forcing himself to continue. He was ruggedly handsome, with a few days’ worth of scruff lining his face.
“I-I don’t know what to say.” She shouldn’t have even spoken, because this whole revelation was a shock, but at the same time, it really wasn’t. Rebecca had known he was a bad man before all this, could sense it in the way he held himself. She just hadn’t realized or even contemplated that he could have been this big-time drug lord and pimp.
“But even though you probably want to run from me—” He shifted so he could fully face her. “—I can’t let you go. I won’t. You’re mine. I knew that from the moment I saw you, and it isn’t in my make-up to let things go when I want them as badly as I want you.”
Her heart thundered in her chest, pounded so hard she swore it would burst right through her ribs.
“I didn’t tell you these things to make you afraid of me, although that would be the smart reaction. I told you, because I want you to know who and what I was, but in this world, I will protect you with my fucking life.”
When she felt his lips at her temple, everything faded away. She shut her mouth, not wanting to make this any harder, not wanting to worry about what happened in the past. She should be afraid of him, of what Collin used to be in his former life. But what did it matter now? This world was destroyed, and everything that happened since then was what was important.
“Could you accept me for who I am?” he asked, but there was this strange tone in his voice. “Because I can’t change. I won’t. This is how I was in my old life, and in this new one, I am even worse. I have to be in order to survive, in order to keep you safe.”
Rebecca licked her lips, not knowing how to respond, because she did want him, badly. But at the same time, she should also be afraid. He was just as dangerous as the savages out there, the ones who killed and maimed for sport. But Collin had saved her, had done so much for her and made sure she was safe in the short amount of time they had been together.
Rebecca glanced down, knew she wasn’t about to go into detail about what almost happened to her all those months ago, but wanted to be honest with Collin. “I was almost raped months ago, but they stopped, had to stop, when a horde of infected came through. I barely escaped with my life.”