Page 37 of Scarred Souls

I glanced over my shoulder. “Why? You gonna miss me?”

Her lip curled. “Like a bad case of thrush. Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.”

“There’s no need to pine for me, Gatita. I’m not leaving. I’m getting my bag.” I gave her a shit-eating grin. “You’ve got yourself another stray to feed.”

Hope flinched. “What?”

“You heard me. I hope you’ve got a spare bed, because it’d be a shame if you had to sleep on the sofa.”

Footsteps stomped behind me on my way out. “You’re not staying here.”

I spun to face her. “There’s important information tucked away inside that pretty head of yours, and I want it. All of it. So if you won’t come to Montana, I’m sticking to you like glue to make sure you stay alive long enough to spill your secrets.”

She slammed her hands on her hips and frowned. “I don’t want a bodyguard.”

I stepped in closer, forcing her to tilt her chin up to meet my gaze. “Too bad. You’ve got one. And I take my job very seriously, which means from now on, wherever you go, I go, too.” My eyes shifted to her full pink lips, and—not for the first time—I wondered what they’d look like wrapped around my cock.

The filthy image I conjured made me curious how many other fuckers in town were thinking the same thing.

“You got a boyfriend?” I asked.

“That’s none of your business.”

“It is now, because if some asshole comes climbing through your window in the middle of the night looking to get between your legs, the only thing he’ll find is a bullet between his eyes. So if I were you, I’d tell any Casanovas to stay away. I’d hate to mistake them for an intruder,” I added sarcastically.

“This is bullshit!” she said with enough venom to take down a horse. “How long will you have to stay?”

“That all depends on how fast we find your father. Don’t worry. I’ll have Sage send a more suitable babysitter to replace me ASAP. Unless you really want me to stick around, in which case, you’ll have to offer something as incentive.” I sucked on my bottom lip, then scanned her body from tits to thighs.

I was totally being a jackass, but the appalled expression on Hope’s face made it one hundred percent worthwhile. As soon as my substitute arrived, I’d book it out of here faster than a fighter jet.

“Let me make this perfectly clear.” She sneered, and it was cute as fuck. “I don’t like you.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” I booped her on the nose because I couldn’t help myself.

Her nostrils flared, and her eyes went wide as golf balls. “You did not just do that.”

I turned and headed for the door. “If you want to take a swing at me, I don’t mind. In fact, I’ll consider it foreplay.”

“You’re a psycho!” she called out.

“Thank you.”

Her frustrated growl made me grin all the way to my truck.

13

HOPE

Imarched back to the kitchen. “Did you hear that?” I hissed. “He said he’d kill my boyfriend.”

Dee tossed the filter full of coffee grounds into the trash. “Stop your whining. You don’t have a boyfriend.”

“He doesn’t know that.”

“You made your choice not to go to Montana; now you have to live with it.”

I flung my hands in the air. “I chose not to fly to another country with some madman I just met. I didn’t choose to let him live with us. He can’t stay here.”

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