Page 130 of A Taste Of Darkness

“I know. I was scared too.”

A soft smile tugged on the corners of her lips but not for long. “Do you know if he made it?” Though she couldn’t tell me his name, I knew who she was referring to.

“Kai’s security guy?” I asked anyway just to be sure.

“Yes.” Sterlie’s hand laid down on my chest, the warmth of her palm instantly easing nerves I didn’t even know were tense. “He was so nice to me, it’d be a shame if he died.”

“I think he’s still in the OR. Kai will let you know.”

“Are you going to go talk to Adriana before the trial?” she asked, tracing her fingers down my body.

“No. I have nothing to say to her.” If I went to see her, the chances were high that I was going to change my mind about letting her rot behind bars and send her to hell instead.

“What did you say to her that she was being cooperative?”

“I just said that if she tried to pull the trigger or even move an inch, I’d send Arlo after that stupid guy she’s hopelessly in love with. Then I’d have him come here just to force her to watch her own family painfully kill him, dragging it out for days and days, right in front of her eyes. She could do absolutely nothing about it. And then I’d do it again to every other person she gets close to.”

“Just because she would’ve hurt me?” She didn’t even question any of what I said, which was both concerning and absolutely fascinating.

“No,” I replied, now laying both of my hands on her waist to pull her closer against my body. “That was because she scared you and because she almost killed you. If she’d genuinely hurt you, I would’ve found something worse to do to her.”

She smiled. “Honestly, I don’t doubt it.”

“You shouldn’t.”

I was just about to pull her back into my arms and hold her in my embrace for the rest of the night when that fluffball of Soup decided to make her presence known by barking like a maniac. Clearly, she didn’t appreciate me touching my very own girlfriend.

Sterlie laughed as she jumped off my lap and knelt down to her dog. “Let’s get you out of this awful thing, huh, baby?” she said before working on getting Soup out of her wheelchair.

As Sterlie stood, I immediately reached a hand out to play with the string of her pink dress. “I, too, would like to get this awful thing off you.”

That dress was so tight, if she inhaled a little too much, it would’ve exploded. I bet math failed her for this design.

Sterlie swatted my hand away, glaring at me. “Call my dress awful one more time, I dare you.”

“It’s awful.”

She gasped, loudly. “How dare?—”

“You look hot, cuore mio.” I reached for the string again, pulling on it just to loosen the bow in the front of her dress. It did nothing because the bow was just an accessory. It did get me an even deeper frown in return, though, which just made her even hotter. “Why are you wearing a dress anyway?”

It was five in the morning and neither of us had slept yet. She wasn’t going anywhere even if she wanted to because, after the night she had, Sterlie needed rest. Preferably for the next week, in our bed, wrapped up in my arms, but I was open to negotiating the location as long as it was inside my penthouse.

Sterlie pressed her lips together to refrain from smiling, then cleared her throat and sat Soup down on the sofa. The dog immediately laid down to sleep. “Because I love this dress.”

“We’re about to go to sleep.”

She nodded. “Exactly.”

“You’re not sleeping in that thing.”

“I’m not,” she agreed. “But this dress is so tight, I always need help to get out of it.”

My eyes closed, my face lifting toward the ceiling as a low, guttural groan escaped me.

Sterlie took that moment to lean down and surprise me with a kiss, though not keeping her lips pressed on mine nearly long enough to satiate the burning desire to rip that flimsy, too-tight dress off her body right this instant.

She pulled away, ready to run away when my hand wrapped around her wrist before I pulled her back down onto my lap.

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