Page 15 of Captured

Voluptuous.

Innocent.

Hell. There was no such thing as a single innocent human being. Everyone carried a massive secret of dark need clawing at their insides. Everyone also had a fine line where the strength of their learned humanity could easily be crushed.

Still, I couldn’t seem to rid myself of the thought the beautiful girl didn’t deserve the wrath being formed like an ominous cloud over her head. What was the point in taking her right now or at all for that matter? From what information I’d learned about her life as well as that of her ruthless and savagely brutal father, if his daughter was taken, he’d easily get over it. No love lost there.

However, something didn’t add up and I always followed my instincts. Still, touching and tasting her was against my rules.

As well as my better judgment.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I’d come to terms with Liam’s eye for an eye mentality, but I still had a feeling I was missing something. I’d spent two weeks ignoring the man’s constant emails and calls while attempting to learn everything I could about the engaging woman. That had led to me breaking my rules established in blood. But the taste had been… magnifico.

After that, I’d done nothing more than follow her. Okay, in some circles, I’d be called a stalker although I preferred the term ‘protector.’ The time had allowed me to regain control of my needs.

Yet I’d be damned if I didn’t want to sully her all over again, stripping what could be left of her innocence away. I took a deep breath, able to catch a hint of her sweet perfume. Did she know I was lurking in the darkness, my hunger increasing?

Fuck. I needed to pull out of this ridiculous haze.

I’d never been accused of having the patience of a saint. Not even once in my life. Tonight had been trying in every way.

Even the cackling laughter of the other women sitting around the firepit had become grating, which usually pushed me into doing my job.

Which was killing people, and I was paid extremely well for my expertise.

Tonight? That was to eliminate a single victim.

Only the fact I was having a difficult time prevented me from reacting as I normally would. The girl had already gotten under my skin, and I continued to believe women were precious fruit to be adored as well as tasted.

It wasn’t the same reason I hadn’t experienced any joy in slaughtering Michael. This was entirely different, as if my world had shifted on its axis. All because I’d caught Emily on the street that night, now almost two and a half weeks before.

My client was at the point of begging me to take the contract, which involved her father suffering because of his sins. But she truly was so innocent. My beautiful angel.

The moment I’d laid eyes on the girl what now seemed like months before, I’d wanted to learn more about her. Instead of finishing the job as I usually would in record time, I’d allowed myself to discover more about her. Especially after the night when I’d almost revealed myself to her before she’d scampered off, the lucky girl catching a bus. That had pissed me off almost as much as everything else had.

Her father was the bastard who deserved to die, not this sweet, innocent flower.

There was so much more to Emily Martin than I’d initially been led to believe. She had been considered a child prodigy in music, learning to play the piano at the age of three, the violin at five. She was highly intelligent, although I sensed socially inept, as clearly indicated by her lackluster social media sites. Other than having coffee with one of the three friends at the Vanilla Bean, a corner joint near her father’s home, she hadn’t done what other young women of her age usually did. Shopping. Sports. Movies. Clubs.

There’d been none of that. Just playing music.

Which I’d enjoyed tremendously, sitting in the back of the old church while she’d practiced. She hadn’t noticed me or if she had, she certainly hadn’t acted frightened that I’d taken it upon myself to follow her where I should have simply finished the job and called it a day.

No, something was off about the entire scenario.

She was here without her usual bodyguards, which clearly meant she’d lied to her father about where she was going. Or she’d snuck out of the house. Either way, that meant my angel had a very naughty side, one I planned on exploiting. Not erasing from this godforsaken earth.

Was it possible there was a scrap of humanity left inside of me? I resisted laughing. Nope. I’d even allowed myself to become mesmerized by the dark fantasy she’d mentioned. My throbbing cock was proof enough she’d managed to push me into an aroused state. No woman had managed to do that in a long time.

Fuck. Her voice was like silky smoke inside a jazz club, the sultry sound something I could listen to for days. The fantasy she’d shared had been as unexpected as almost everything else about her. While I wanted to say my desires for her were pure, that would be another lie I told myself.

And I hated liars of any kind. That had been instilled in me from the beginning.

Something dark and dangerous had bridged the surface, the longing to taste her, touch and fuck her keeping me locked into a crazy yet magical spell.

I’d felt the very moment of being drawn into the darkness she’d whispered, her longing for the touch of a sadistic man awakening the savage inside of me. It had taken every ounce of the patience I’d had to keep from dragging her off into the forest, providing her with the exact fantasy she’d presented in vivid coloration.

Unfortunately, the fact she was with three other women made that impossible.

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