I run a hand along her face approvingly, but I keep from verbalizing it. “Yeah? What will you do for it?”
Her response is hungry and eager, her blue eyes dancing with arousal as I grind my cock against her. “Anything you want. I’ll do anything.”
I lean down to kiss her forehead and her pretty eyes drift closed. I almost feel bad for what I’m about to ask, given how peaceful she looks right now. “Do you know what it’ll cost, Laurel?”
It takes a moment for my words to land, her mind and body already too far gone. Her eyes open when it hits her and she sighs again, but this time with something closer to exasperation. “Dammit. This is a trick, isn’t it?”
My rigid cock testifies it’s not purely a trick, but I know I can’t fuck her. No matter how much my stupid cock wants to get inside her hot pussy, I can’t afford to make a move like that. Rafe isn’t going to kill her for straying, but he will kill me for fucking his woman. Or I kill him before he sees it coming, and that opens up a whole new world of problems.
Despite her words, despite figuring out I’m toying with her again, the hand I still have pinned above her head squeezes mine. It’s almost a reflex, like she can’t help it, and I get it, ‘cause I can’t help squeezing her back.
“If I fuck you, somebody has to die,” I tell her simply.
She shakes her head in denial, her long dark hair moving against Rafe’s couch. “That’s not true. I told you, we could go to Chicago. We could be happy there.”
“And I told you, Chicago won’t work.”
“Chicago is a great plan. I worked it all out,” she informs me. “You can work for Mateo, Mia and I can raise babies together, I can go to school, and the best part? You can fuck me as much as you want. No Rafe, no problems.”
“Rafe will not let that happen,” I state.
Laurel shrugs like she’s not convinced, her gaze dropping to my chest. “We don’t know unless we ask.”
Now that I’m not actively mauling her, she takes a moment to look me over. Her gaze is full of tenderness, like she’s spent an eternity missing me. I know it’s only been a few days, but I get it. I’ve missed her the same way. I didn’t know I’d let her get so close when I had her at my house, not even the night I chased her off. It didn’t hit me until afterward, when the solitude I needed to live before her suddenly felt like loneliness. When I dreaded going home to my bed at night because I knew she wouldn’t be there waiting for me.
It’s so hard to look at her now, wanting all the same things I want, and tell her she can’t have them. The injustice of it all pisses me off, but I remind myself it’s my fault. I’m the one who set her free in the first place. I may not have had rights to her, but I took them, and I gave Rafe a fair shot first. He could try to steal her from me, but I had played fair.
Wouldn’t have mattered once the DNA test came back positive, though.
Wouldn’t have mattered if he played the long game, waited for my newness to wear off, then swept in, swept Laurel off her feet, and stole her back from me.
One thing I’ve learned in life—most people don’t know what it is to love forever. As soon as it isn’t explosive anymore, they get bored and go looking for new excitement. I’d like to believe Laurel’s different, and her giving me devotion I haven’t earned helps me believe that, but she’s so young. How does she know how she’ll feel in a few years?
“Tell me something,” I say, bringing her big blue eyes back to my face.
“Okay,” she says, easily. Too easily. Too trusting, considering what I’ve done to her.
“If you’re willing to cheat on him with me, why shouldn’t I think you’d do the same thing if we were together?”
Laurel rears back as if insulted. “I am not cheating on him. I’ve never cheated on anybody. I don’t belong to Rafe. How many times do I have to say that?”
“Maybe you didn’t,” I allow. “But as soon as you let him fuck you again, you changed that.”
Her face relaxes instantly, like my annoying her was a false alarm. Then she brings her free hand up to caress my jaw. “I didn’t sleep with him, Sin. I’m not going to. I don’t want to. I’m yours, not his. Can’t you tell?” With a little smile, she adds, “And what kind of crazy woman would cheat on you? You kill men for a living, and you’re hotter than anyone else alive.”
My lips tug upward. “You might be a little biased right now, seeing as you’re nearly naked and pinned beneath my body.”
“No, I did a study of the world’s men. You’re the hottest. I was the only subject polled, so it was pretty exclusive, but in this instance, mine is the only relevant opinion.”
I shake my head at my little nerd and lean in to kiss her on the forehead again. When I pull back, she purses her lips at me, prettily displeased.
“Still no kisses? Really?”
I feel shittier about it now than I did before, but I brush her hair back tenderly and tell her, “You’re not mine to kiss.”
“I’ll tell Rafe this isn’t working tonight. As soon as he gets
home. Hell, I’ll text it to him. That’s about all he deserves since he can’t even be bothered to come help me with Skylar. I’ll text him as soon as Gio and Lydia pick her up. I’ll grab my stuff and we can be gone before he even gets home to try to talk me out of it—if he even tries to talk me out of it, which he might not at this point. This thing between us is not working. He wants someone who isn’t me, and I want someone who isn’t him. It’s no one’s fault, but he and I don’t have a future together.”