Page 84 of Four Times Saved

I eyed it and looked behind me.

"You're not in danger here." He'd leaned down to whisper, and I jumped from the warmth of his breath against my skin. I didn't think it was a sexual gesture; he was trying to be playful after he'd just shot someone in front of me. And my body was raw from everything my captor had wrought on it. I staggered back, and he stood upright in an instant.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. Do you want to come in? Get a shower, some food and a night's rest, or do you want me to call you a cab?" he asked.

My lips failed to do anything but tremble. When I didn't make an effort to move, he reached down, picked me up and carried me into the house as if we were already married and he was carrying me over the threshold.

For days, I hadn't spoken, unable to process the circumstances that had led me to the mansion where he had not forced himself onto me, made sure I was fed and taken care of, gave me his clothes to wear, came in to check on me from time to time, and took pieces of my heart with him as he'd left. Then one night, he had come in, that same glint in his eyes, and a cut across his arm.

When my eyes dropped to it, he'd chuckled. "Things got a little chaotic," he'd said but I handled it.

"You killed him?" Words left my mouth and his eyes went wide.

"So, you do speak." That was his answer. His lips turned up into a smile that had my heart going wild. He had just killed someone and here I was blushing like a buffoon because he smiled at me.

He'd stepped away from the doorway and moved closer to my bed.

"I like your voice. It's sexy." His voice rumbled and my breath caught. "So are you going to finally tell me your name?"

"A-..." I cleared my throat and straightened my shoulders, coaching myself on bravery. "Ann-Marie."

He repeated it and let it roll off his tongue right onto me. Tyler moved closer still and my cheeks flushed. My heart hammered.

"So, I guess now you can tell me where you're from and we can get you back home. Or..." He reached out and for the first time since we'd met, he touched me. My bony chest to be exact and he trailed a finger down the top button on the button down he'd given me to sleep in.

This man lived in a mansion. I knew that he could afford new pairs of clothes for me, but I guessed he was still frugal enough not to spend money on someone who wasn't going to be in his life for long. At least that was my reasoning for him giving me his older shirts to sleep in, which smelled so much like him, I anticipated his return every night.

"...you could just stay." His heated gaze had met my eyes. It was mixed with the devilish bad boy that I couldn't resist, that had just killed someone, and desire...for me.

I swallowed and when I didn't resist, he plucked me from the bed and held me against him. "Tell me I'm not the only one who's been wrestling with this longing since the moment you stepped foot in my life."

"Wh-what?" I stuttered, my thick nipples against my chest boring into his hard body.

I was accustomed to being grabbed by men and having them take what they wanted from me. Automatically I had gone limp; fighting helped nothing. They still took what they wanted anyway.

He must have seen the fear in my eyes, because his jaw slackened and his hold around me loosened.

"I'm sorry." He put me down. "I shouldn't have done that."

I don't know what I was thinking when he turned to walk away and I grabbed his hand. It was on then. He'd picked me up, torn his shirt from my body and made it impossible to walk away from him ever again.

But, I had. Several mind-blowing fucks later, when the guilt was too much to bear and the reality that I was sleeping with a murderous mob boss kept creeping in.

He'd changed for me and I hadn't seen that glint in his eyes for a while.

There's always love.

But there's something about that way he gets after a kill that makes the fucking so powerful, I can't say I don't miss it. The danger is sexy, but wrong. I know it is.

Tyler

Oh, my wife is mad. I know she is because she'd given me the silent treatment on the way home and won't even look at me now, as we sit across the dinner table, eating. Which sucks ass, because I had something to give her. I wanted to fuck her until she was unable to breathe. Till we were both limp and lifeless. Taste her skin, suck on her breasts, her clit, celebrate my kill. Not that she'd know that's what it was all about.

"I'm sorry," I say, for the third time since we left the clinic.

She looks up from the plate of food she's been moving her fork around.

"I needed you with me. It was hell reliving the kidnapping." She finally meets my eyes and I can see the pain, still there now, years after I killed that bastard.

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