Page 5 of Hero

She’s up there. Probably scared out of her wits.

I mean, when I kissed her she froze up. And now my guilt slices through the haze of lust and desire to cut some sense into me.

I tell myself I’m a sex-starved maniac, I’m kicking down the door of forty-years-old and I’ve never touched a woman because of my dumbass attitude about finding my true woman. The one. Now I found her, I lost control.

I saw a stunning curvy woman dressed how I want my wife to dress, and all the pent-up feelings wanted to pour out into something so beautiful, so pure and innocent.

And what about her age? She looks barely legal, which I know can’t be true as she’s a bride. But still, I’ve got to be twice her age. She would never want to be with a man like me and would think that I’m insane if I started spouting off about the raw, visceral connection I feel with her. That she’s the missing piece.

Climbing the staircase, I stand outside my bedroom and take a fortifying breath before knocking.

“Come in,” she says.

My heart slams into my ribcage as I open the door to see her sitting on my bed. I struggle to remember why I’ve come up here and I have to remind myself, again, that this goddess with ivory cascading around her isn’t my bride.

“I have your water.”

As I hand her the glass, her fingers brush mine and a current shoots up my arm to my head and down to my heels and back up to my cock.

She can’t stay.

I wrestle my gaze from her throat as she gulps the water because I don’t need to think about how good it would be to make her shudder. To use my lips, my teeth. Graze her skin with my beard. Use my tongue, my fingers.

“Thanks,” she says.

“No worries. I should have offered you a beverage when I kidnapped you, but that would have ruined the whole vibe,” I joke. I don’t make jokes. I’m a brooding, grunting, scowling bounty hunter who—my brain sputters to a halt as she chuckles. Her sweet voice lights a crackling fuse, and there’s an eruption of vibrant colors in my chest.

“And thank you for what you did back there,” she whispers, crimson coloring her cheeks.

And what exactly did I do? Kidnap a girl? Put the fear of god into her shitheel fiancé? Broke the law? I’ll be lucky if I still have my bounty hunter’s license before the day is done.

But I have more immediate concerns to handle.

“I guess it’s a little late for me to ask who you are and why you were pursuing that guy with the knife?”

“I’m a bounty hunter.”

She pauses and wrinkles her brow in thought. “You hunt down criminals for a living?”

I nod. “That’s about the gist of it.”

“So, where do we go from here, Mr Bounty Hunter.”

“Want a ride somewhere?” I ask. “Your folks are probably worried sick.”

“Did they look worried?” she asks.

Wheels in my brain take me back to the scene. No one stopped me, the fuckers seemed more worried about what happened to the fiancé than the bride-to-be.

My blood heats at the blatant disregard.

“No,” I say, forcing out the word through gritted teeth. “What’s up with that?”

“I was adopted into the Harrington family,” she says. “At the age of six I lost my mother and they adopted me. The Harringtons were the only ones I could call family.”

I grind my molars. “And they treated you like shit?”

She nods. “I knew what they were doing wasn’t right and I secretly wished a time would come when I could escape. It was the late-night wish of a naive little girl, that a superhero would show up at my window and free me from the bad people.”

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