Page 45 of Biker's Prisoner: Property of Bucky

Okay,I’m not wrong here. Something is definitely going on.

“Is it your birthday?”

Ruger wrinkles his nose. “No. We need to talk.”

Those four wordsare bad enough to hear under most circumstances, but hearing them from a man who killed his ex-wife sends an immediate chill up my spine. What could we possibly have to talk about? I must look like I swallowed a possum tail because Ruger kisses me on the forehead again. I assume he’s going to give me reassurance that he won’t gut me like one of those salmon, but he just mutters, “I’m checking on Eden.”

“I’ll start cooking.”

The best I can do is remind this man that my death means an end to the bomb ass cooking he has clearly never experienced in his life if he doesn’t even know the difference between thyme and cilantro. Ruger comes back out with Eden on his arm. I hate how seeing him hold her makes me feel a throb that goes straight between my legs. I am cursed by biology.

Cursed by what Ruger did to me.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” he asks me. He could have asked me that sixteen days ago.

“No.”

“But you did.”

“Over two years ago.”

Ruger scowls. “You loved him?”

“He’s not a part of my life anymore.”

Eden gigglesand touches his face. She senses the shift in his emotions, but she trusts Ruger too much to realize that this shift was in a bad direction. I can feel him sucking the life out of the room as his anger takes over. I watch his eyes fade right in front of me. The darkness in him should scare me more. Everything should scare me more.

But nothing seems to make me feel except this fucking maniac’s tongue. I want to accuse him of being stupidandjealous, but both these accusations feel too dangerous because they are most definitely the truth.

“What if he wanted you back?” he says while putting Eden in her highchair in the kitchen.

“That’s ridiculous. Ruger… I have a mission. The second those bikers got me out of Vegas, I told myself it was a sign and then… we met.”

“Your mission,” he says, interrupting my train of thought. “Kill people.”

I shouldn’t feel so nervous discussing this in front of him. This man is far more devil than saint. I told him what I wanted.

“I thought that was just dirty talk,” Ruger says. “You were trying to scare me.”

My eyes flicker towards Ruger’s. Those eyes still make me flinch every time I look at them for the first time in a few minutes. Just when I forget just how blue they are, I look and get lured back in. I finally see the appeal. I never really cared much for blue eyes, but I never saw eyes like Ruger’s before. Feeling eyes, for a devil.

“It wasn’t.”

“Start putting dust on that fish.”

He calls Adobo fish seasoning “dust”, even if I read the ingredients out loud to him last week. I turn around and start cooking, because I don’t know how to feel about him prompting this discussion of our murder plans and I’m pretty sure he wants me to have no preparation, no time to get one up on him.

I get out my materials and just wait for Ruger to talk. Because I know his stubborn ass won’t respond if I press him. He stands next to me as I set the fish out on the cutting board and slice a wedge off the lemon from yesterday to squeeze over it. Hewatches with fascination, but this time he stands a little too close to me.

“You want me to help you kill some men?” he says.

I mince some garlic.

“Yes.”

“I’ll do it,” he says. “But you have to be honest with me, Zayna.”

Honest.What the hell do I have to lie about? There are no more secrets in the internet age and even if I don’t want to talk about my past, I have no reason to lie about it either.

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