Page 8 of Hitman

Bones laughed and tossed back the whiskey she’d poured. I turned on my heel, heading for the door once again. “I’ll probably head back to the city tonight,” I told them. “Tell Trixie to stop cleaning my room. She’s not my fucking maid.” Alex’s wife, Trixie, had a habit of wanting to take care of literallyeveryone, but it wasn’t her job to do so. If I was gone for weeks and my room got covered in a layer of dust, I was capable of cleaning it myself. She didn’t need to be overdoing herself just because she thought she needed to show us all love through acts of service.

Grave snorted. “Yeah, good luck with that one.”

He wasn’t wrong. I knew he’d relay the message for me, but I also knew my room would be spotless whenever I decided to crash at the clubhouse again. Trixie never listened, and Alex would let her do whatever made her happy.

The house Solace lived in was small and quaint. She lived on the outskirts of the city in a single story, white brick home with blue shutters. Her driveway was paved, and she was surrounded by trees on all sides. It was secluded but still close enough to the city that she could get what she needed without being inconvenienced by the trip. A damn good location if I’d ever seen one.

I imagined she probably bought the place for her mom. I imagined living in the city with sirens wailing at all hours of the day and night, horns blaring, and people constantly coming and going up and down the streets wouldn’t be good for her. Hell, the only reason I tolerated it was because my apartment had sound-proofed walls. I didn’t hear anything happening outside. A bomb could go off, and so long as my building didn’t feel the effects of it, I would remain unaware until I ventured from my apartment.

I eased my bike to a stop beside a black sedan and turned it off. The front door of the house opened just as I slid off my bike. Pulling my helmet off my head, I drank in the beautiful woman standing on the cement porch, pulling the door shut behind her. Black leggings clung to her long, shapely legs, and a white tank top outlined the dip in her waist and her breasts, which were just large enough to fit in my hands and tease me.

The woman was fucking perfection. Too bad I was pretty sure she hated me. I had no doubt theonlyreason she was allowing me into her home was because her mom had asked it of her. It was clear she had a soft spot for her.

“Come on in,” she told me. “I just got back with the pizza.”

Pizza was good. Pizza wasalwaysgood.

“How’d you get your car back?” I asked. I’d left it wherever the hell she’d parked it at the night before. It hadn’t been my concern, and by the time Copper got done chewing my ass out, I honestly had been too tired to mention anything about it to Grim.

“It was here when I woke up this morning.” She pushed open the door and walked in ahead of me. “I figured it was Grim’s doing.” No doubt. Now that she was attached to the club, he would have been covering his bases last night to make sure she was protected, too. She pointed to where shoes were piled by the door. “Shoes off.”

“Yes, ma’am.” She shot me an annoyed look, but I just grinned back at her. Rolling her eyes, she turned and strode off, giving me the opportunity to admire her ass. Fuck, what I wouldn’t give to grip those globes in my hands as I fucked into her tight, wet heat.

“Stop staring at my ass,” she snapped over her shoulder without turning to look at me.

I huffed. “It’s not my fault you’ve got an ass worthy of being stared at,” I retorted.

Her surprised laugh had me grinning. After my boots were off, I padded across the house in my socks, stopping in the kitchen. A woman who was essentially just an older version of Solace was sitting at the kitchen table, but she stood when I entered, a warm smile tilting her lips. “You must be Julian,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” I answered, letting my mask fall into place, an easy smile tilting my lips. I didn’t want to do anything that might frighten her, and I knew my hard, blunt personality could do that sometimes, especially since I barely felt human seventy-five percent of the time. “Julian McKenzie.”

“You killed my ex-husband,” she said. Solace winced, shooting me an apologetic look, but I ignored her. I didn’t mindit when people were blunt. When they spoke exactly what was on their minds, there was little room for misunderstanding.

Nodding, I confirmed, “I did.”

She stepped forward and hugged me. I froze at the contact, not sure how to act for a moment, but then, I slowly folded my arms around her, letting her have this moment. I didn’t know what that sick son of a bitch had put her through, but whatever it was had been bad enough that she felt a need to personally thank me for taking him out.

“Thank you,” she whispered, her words muffled by my leather cut. “He was an evil, vindictive man. So, thank you.”

I slowly released her and stepped back. “No need to thank me, Miss…”

“Call me Ivy,” she said.

I smiled. “There’s no need to thank me, Ivy,” I assured her. “I was just taking the trash out.”

When she laughed, Solace smiled, and I swear to fuck, I got sucker-punched right in my solar plexus because suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.

There was no denying Solace was a sexy as fuck woman, but when shesmiledand her guard was down, she was fuckingbeautiful. And me? I was a goddamn goner.

A woman who could take my shit, dish it back out, could kill with the best of them,andwas soft for her family?

She was fuckingperfect. And I wanted her.

CHAPTER 8

Julian

Solace walked with me out of the house, quietly shutting the front door behind her. Her mom had gone to bed shortly after dinner, claiming her medication made her sleepy. I’d bid her goodnight, let her hug me and thank me once again, and then helped Solace clean up the kitchen. Surprisingly, she hadn’t been snarky the entire evening, and when she happened to catch me staring at her—because fuck me, it was damn near impossible not to—she would just look away without saying a word.

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