Page 73 of Assassin's Heart
She was laughing at me. Prowling back to her, I corralled her against the sink and gave her a quick, hard kiss. “You’ll regret that later,” I warned her quietly.
“I doubt it,” she said, laughing out loud this time.
In the living room I sat on the floor with Brooke between my legs. “Okay, here we go.” Very, very gently I brought the brush to the bottom of her long, wet blonde hair and began to work out the tangles. To my surprise, it wasn’t as hard as I’d expected. Leah had explained the wonders of conditioner to me—something my brothers and I’d had no need of—but I hadn’t quite believed her until now. Soon I was taking long, smooth strokes through Brooke’s semidry hair as she propped her head on her arms on the table in front of her. A few minutes later, when Leah came in from the kitchen, I gathered Brooke’s drooping body in my arms and carried her to her bedroom so Leah could tuck her in.
By the time Leah rejoined me in the living room, my heart had begun a hard thud that echoed in my ears.
“Come back here with me?” she asked, holding out her hand. I followed her to the “master suite,” a bedroom not much bigger than Brooke’s but with a full bath attached. My shoes had been kicked off earlier, and now I piled up at the head of Leah’s queen-size bed, pillows at my back, to watch her change.
After stripping her T-shirt off, she unclipped her bra and slid it down her arms. “I really need to look into getting a bigger bed,” she said, eyeing me.
“Why?” I asked absently, my focus on her naked skin. I knew why—because my feet hung off the end if I laid down next to her in the bed—but I didn’t want her buying a new bed. I wanted her in mine.
“Because that one is too small.” Tossing aside her pants, she glanced around. “Not that a king would leave much room to walk in here.”
She reached for a T-shirt I was pretty sure I’d left here a couple of weeks ago. I held out my hand. “Com’ere.”
Leah looked at me from under her lashes, a sly smile tugging at her lips. My gut tightened immediately. Planting her hands on the end of the bed, she began a slow crawl toward me that had my mouth going dry and needy. Round breasts dangled from her body, perfect for my hands, and that ass—
“Get up here,lev sheli,” I demanded hoarsely.
She paused. “Why?”
I put a bit more growl into my words. “Get up here or that punishment I promised you will become reality.”
She sat back on her heels.
I pounced.
The shift of Leah’s laughter to soft moans as I flipped her onto her back and sucked a pink nipple into my mouth made the animal in me long to break free, but I forced him back.Just for a few minutes.I was already desperate to lose myself in her body, just as I had been time and again the past few weeks, but there was something else I needed so much more. And I wasn’t about to let myself get distracted.
I pulled away, gliding my teeth along her nipple as I went. Leah gasped my name.
“I need to tell you something,” I said, that loud thud returning to my ears. I shifted to my side next to her, intertwined our legs, and stared down, unable to believe this moment was finally here.
“Yeah?” Leah stroked her thumb along my wet lips. “Me too.”
What? “What did you need to talk to me about?”
But she shook her head, eyes full of mysteries. “You first.”
“All right.” I guessed. Where had all the moisture in my mouth run off to? “I’m taking a job at Hacr as head of security.”
“Yeah?” She shifted up onto her elbow. “Why?”
Yeah, why?“Because…” I swallowed back the drumming of my heart in my throat. How the hell did men do this? “Because I want you to move in with me, Leah. You and Brooke. I want to be everything you need me to be.” I took her hand, staring at our entwined fingers, needing something, anything to focus on. “Please say yes.”
She was quiet so long that I swore the silence would crush my soul. Just as I gathered a scrap of strength to get up, walk away, Leah laid back on the bed and reached up to trace the line of my jaw. Gripped the back of my neck and pulled me to her. Kissed me sweetly but thoroughly on the lips.
I started to breathe again.
“You don’t have to be anyone else to be who I need,” she said.
I met her deep brown eyes, so like her daughter’s. A warm glow waited for me there. “I could never be good enough to deserve you.”
“Wrong.” She tugged her bottom lip between her teeth, worrying it for a moment. “I’m not going to lie and say this hasn’t taken some getting used to, but Remi, I want you for you, not anything else. Is this job what you want?”
“Yes.” Because it might give me her.
