Page 115 of Only for Him
They haven’t.
They’ve never touched her like I have. Never made her bleed for them. Never seen her break and beg and come undone.
And they never will.
No one will come after me. I’ll make sure of it.
I set my fork down, slow and deliberate.
“You want to bringthemin?” I ask, voice serrated. “That’s your plan?”
She doesn’t flinch, but I see the way her pulse jumps in her neck. I see everything, and she fucking knows it.
“They’re capable,” she says. “They’re trustworthy. And we’ll need both if this gets bigger.”
She says “we” like we’re on the same side. I swallow heat with a growl. I imagine this woman standing beside me, wreaking havoc hand in hand.
It’s the stuff dreams are made of.
I lean back in my chair, letting my eyes rake over her. She’s all angles in this light: sharp cheekbones, sharper eyes. Lovely and infuriating.
She doesn’t even know how fucking gorgeous she is when she’s pushing me to the edge.
It reminds me of that first night, how the streetlights brought out her shadows rather than concealing them. That slender finger running across her neck.
She hadn’t been infuriating then, just lovely. I like her all the more for it. She’s fragile in ways she sees, dangerous in ways she doesn’t.
“They’re too close to the law,” I say, keeping my voice even. “They’ll want procedure. Statements. Chain of evidence. All the shit that gets people killed.”
It’s a solid excuse. One that makes sense. One she shouldn’t argue with.
And it’s a goddamn lie.
I don’t want either of them breathing the same air as her. I don’t want the agent’s soft eyes looking at her like she’s a puzzle he still has time to solve. I don’t want Arata hovering like he’s just waiting for her to stumble so he can catch her.
Because Giselle doesn’t stumble.
She breaks.
And she’smineto break.
She opens her mouth to respond, and I already feel the burn in my gut. If she defends them—if she says either of their names again—I don’t know if I’ll be able to sit still.
I might just lunge across the table, grab her by the neck and bite her until she’s nothing but beautiful scar tissue.
Giselle leans back, raising an eyebrow, seemingly unfazed by my aggression.
“They’ll do the right thing, Roman. Even if it’s not by the books. Neither of them will step on your toes if it means the difference between someone’s life or death.”
I clench my jaw. What if she’s right? What if I’m hindering my own progress out of pride and possessiveness? Even Rosa was amenable to the idea, and Rosa is rarely ever amenable to ideas she hasn’t come up with herself.
Lives are on the line. If I let girls suffer just because I don’t want to share my obsession...
No. We can’t trust the feds, or the NYPD. I know we can’t, and we won’t.
The fact that she’s making me question it at all is bad news.
“So you say, little viper,” I growl. “What are you going to do? Make them pinky-promise not to leave a paper trail?”
