Page 35 of Tarnished Reign

Is it sick that the memory of him slapping Jinx so violently merely for looking at me is hot to me? That his territorial possessiveness is a turn on?

I need protection. So maybe my body is just reacting in a way that makes sense for me right now. Cade and I need a fighter on our side. Someone in our corner.

I look at him again and take in his profile. An aquiline nose that could belong to a prince, but not quite perfect. It almost looks like he might have slightly broken it. Nothing major, but the slightest flaw that somehow only makes him more attractive. The rest of him is masculine perfection with a jaw that is smooth and sharp. High cheekbones. Gorgeous eyes and a short beard with a jagged little scar in one corner. There’s another scar on his neck.

His knuckles have broken skin in places. A bruise on one. The face of a prince and the hands of a fighter.

Who is he really?

He was military, and now he works for a crime organization.

He’s many contradictions wrapped up in one delectably handsome package.

“I can feel you burning my skin away, you’re looking so hard,” he mutters, his eyes never leaving the road. “Trying to figure me out?”

“Maybe.”

“Don’t bother. I can’t even figure myself out.”

“Me neither, so that’s something we have in common.”

“I think I’ve figured you out. To a degree,” he says.

I should be offended; instead, I’m intrigued.

“Oh? And what do you think you’ve realized about me?”

“I don’t mean the surface stuff, like what color you prefer, and where you want to vacation, but the deep shit. The real shit.”

“Why don’t you tell me, and we can see?”

“You’re scared, but deep down you’re brave. If you had been sold at auction, I do believe you’d have resisted to the very last. You don’t go down without a fight. There’s a defiance in you. I think you have depths of bravery you haven’t mined yet. You’re a good person, and you are kind. But you have a weakness. You’re too soft. You care about other people. Which isn’t bad in itself, but you do it way more than you should. You still have hope. So much of it, and you think the world is essentially good, with a few bad people in it, and that’s what will be your undoing.”

His words are so fucking accurate they take my breath away. Instead of freaking out about how this man who doesn’t know me can actually, really, truly know me, I focus on the last thing he said. “The world is essentially good with a few bad people in it.”

“No, Littleblue,” he says softly. “It’s entirely the other way around.”

That evening as the sun draws down on the horizon and the yacht bobs gently on the unusually calm waters of the bay, I sit in a corner on the deck, curled up under a blanket. I’m reading, and the men are effectively ignoring me, which is heaven. I had to choose a book with fairly large print because I don’t have my glasses, which reduced my choices considerably. Half the time I just pretend, so I can avoid talking to any of the men.

Some of them are noisy, though. Raucous. Dimitri says they are all going soon, and there will just be the guards, a few on the yacht and an entire boat of them moored to the side of us, but soon keeps getting delayed.

Eventually, a craft pulls up, and the men begin to disembark. Jinx is one of the last to leave. I can feel his heavy gaze on me.

It’s not hot with desire the way Dimitri’s is. Ever since sandwich-gate, it’s cold with disdain. He’d like to hurt me; I’m sure of it. I have the gut instinct that Jinx strongly dislikes me now.

Dimitri’s phone rings. Jinx hangs back as Dimitri takes the call and his face clouds with anger, but Jinx smiles.

What is going on?

“Jinx, hang around. You’re staying,” Dimitri barks.

Jinx bites back his smile and manages to school his smirking face into something approaching respect.

“Yes, boss.”

I sip at my drink and pretend to read, but I’m acutely aware that something has shifted. Something is going on. When all the men have left, Dimitri asks Jinx to talk with him. They move to the far corner of the deck and sit in the dark there, as they begin to chat.

Not long after they head to the corner, a second boat joins us close by. It’s nowhere near as big as this yacht, but it’s large enough. I glance over at it and swallow hard at the outlines of men patrolling the deck, weapons in hand. This all feels so real now. The men were sent back, but in their place are armed guards. Both on this boat and on the sister boat now bobbing alongside us.

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