Page 29 of Crow

She has the eager, bubbly joy of a child at seeing the Strip from a distance. She missed the scene flying in, but I justcouldn’t bring myself to wake her. She was probably up all night as well, or had a restless sleep at best.

I got us burgers from an obscenely overpriced restaurant as soon as we got to the airport.

This gorgeous goddess of a woman sat across from a man who is basically a monster, devouring a giant burger and fries like the sight of me and my overall company didn’t put off her appetite at all. When I picked the pickles off my burger, she snatched them straight off my plate and devoured them too. She wasn’t the least bit worried they were tainted by the touch of a psychopath.

I resent that word. We are not psychopaths or sociopaths. So what if there’s two of us living in this body?

You’re the one who left before we could get a diagnosis.

So you wanted to be tortured and experimented on?

“It’s so beautiful!” Tarynn exclaims, breathless, drawing me out and into her sphere. As if I ever left. “It’s just straight up real life magic!” She’s so enraptured by the sight out that little window that we’re the last ones off the plane.

Since we didn’t check any bags, we’re through the airport quickly, out into the shimmering dry heat of the Vegas night.

Who goes to Vegas in the summer? I guess that would be me.

A line of taxis awaits outside. Odds of getting one, despite the fact that I still look little better than a craft project gone wrong, are good.

Actually, no one gave me any trouble about the way I look. So far. I guess when you’re on route to Vegas, anything goes.Now that we’re here, in the official city of utter debauchery, a line of stitches is probably the least of anyone’s worries.

Tarynn takes my hand without a second thought and tugs me eagerly to a line of waiting taxis. Raven thrashes around in my head. He’s so close to the surface that I can feel him under my skin. He can’t wait to be unleashed here. There’s so much delightful trouble that he could get himself into. Get us both into.

I remind him again, not so subtly, that we have to watch out for Tarynn.

We’re here to buy her a bike. Nothing more. I get it. Yawn fest galore. Because you couldn’t have done that in Seattle or even Hart.

She drops my hand almost as soon as I’ve truly realized that she’s holding it. The stitch in my chest and the fact that I now need to subtly find a way to arrange my hard as fuck cock in my jeans before it becomes noticeable and scares the shit out of her, is a problem.

Tarynn throws herself into the backseat of a tiny little white hatchback car with pictures of hotels and the Hoover dam printed on the side.

The driver is young and when his gaze lingers on Tarynn, even though she’s wearing a shapeless sweater and leggings that are somehow baggy. I frown at him. He grins sheepishly back as if to say,who could blame a guy for looking. She’s unearthly gorgeous.

I still want to dig my fingers into his eyeballs, long after he turns around and starts driving.

“Where to?” he finally asks.

Tarynn is already straining to look out the window. She’d like to be in the middle of all the lights, the people, the bustle, the never ending stream of bodies. The shops, the shows, the magnificent hotels.

“Anywhere on the Strip that we can get a hotel without a reservation.”

“It’s Sunday night, so you’d be in luck pretty much anywhere. Better rates too, since everyone makes their exodus before now.”

Tarynn whips her head around. She looks wildly alive, her eyes glistening, the flashing lights reflecting on her face, blue, yellow, green, purple, pink, red. She should be timid and scared, but there’s no way that she’s hiding. If anything, leaving Hart has done the opposite. Her eagerness is painted all over her face, which makes her so astoundingly beautiful that my dick doesn’t just harden and kick against my fly again. I can feel it leaking into my boxers.

“I know we’re here to buy a motorcycle, but do you think that we could… see some things?”

“Things?”

She purses her lips, closes her eyes, and sighs. She’s so fucking close to me that all I’d have to do is lean over to taste her tantalizing, honey sweet lips. The impulse doesn’t just end in my cock. It drills straight into my balls and stabs higher up in my stomach. Thank fuck I have my backpack on my lap.

“I want to have coffee in the morning instead of orange juice. I never want to freaking drink orange juice again. I never want to see a bowl of oatmeal or a hardboiled egg either.”

That seems like a small ask, but so monumental to her.

“I want to spend a few hours being frivolous with my time doing something I want because it makes me happy, because one’s happiness is a perfectly valid reason.”

Mission ‘Put the real fear of God into her father’ commences the minute we get home. I doubt this shit stain actually believes in the devil, but he’s going to. Shit, son, he’s going to.

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