Page 71 of Forbidden Confessions: Vol. 2
After I close the door again and lock it behind me, I look around. It’s a dark storeroom. I shouldn’t turn on a light in case the hired gun comes back, but I manage to fumble for my phone and flip on the flashlight. On the floor, I spot a length of nylon rope. It takes a shitload of my remaining strength, but I loop it around the door lever and secure the other half to a nearby metal storage rack.
If he comes back, he won’t get in easily.
Now I have to find Havana, make sure she’s safe, then grab some medical supplies and concoct a way out of here without my assailant being any wiser.
As I stagger to the door, I catch my foot on the leg of another storage rack and trip. The shelves crash down. I stumble against the door.
Blood pours like hot wax down my skin. The floor looks inviting as my consciousness begins to slide away.
Get to Havana, keep her safe.
Gathering the last of my strength, I wrench the door of the storeroom open.
I hear a gasp. With bleary eyes, I look up. In the doorway stands the most gorgeous girl I’ve ever had the good fortune to lay my hands on. The girl who’s haunted my fantasies and kept me hard for weeks. The girl who’s legally become a woman today.
Her sweet vanilla and jasmine scent that’s haunted my dreams for months hits me even through the metallic smell of my own blood. Even half-dead, my body responds to her presence—heart rate spiking for reasons that have nothing to do with blood loss.
“Havana…” I eke out her name in a rough, desperate whisper.
Then everything goes black.
2
Seven weeks earlier
* * *
I pause outside the kitchen door and drag in a deep breath, bracing myself. Mental preparation before I face Havana, my son’s girlfriend, has become a morning ritual over the past few weeks. It’s both necessary and increasingly difficult.
She’s been living with us for a mere two weeks, and she’s already changed everything. The house smells like fresh air and cinnamon, combined with her vanilla-jasmine scent, instead of takeout containers and stale beer. She cooks, and hot meals are waiting in the oven when I finally get home. The place is cleaner than it’s been since…hell, maybe ever.
I know Havana is doing what she can to “earn her keep.” But her impact on me is far greater. Just her presence brings sunshine to my usually bleak existence. Since I spend my days dealing with criminals, lowlifes, and thugs—people who’d sell their own mothers for the right price—spending time with Havana and her sweet disposition is a bright ray I find myself craving more and more. For days, I’ve wondered if it’s an elaborate act. But no. Nothing about her is fake.
Since she stepped foot in my house, I’ve watched her, probably closer than I should have, given the fact she’s seventeen. She genuinely cares about the people around her. Hell, a few days after she moved in, I came home after prowling the Vegas streets and nearly taking a knife between the ribs in a street brawl. Havana didn’t flinch at the blood soaking my shirt. She launched herself at my wound, despite my protests that I could patch myself up. When infection threatened to set in and fever took hold the next day, she stayed with me for forty-eight hours straight, keeping the wound clean and fighting to break my temperature.
When it finally did, I woke up to find her in my bed, curled against me, surrounded by bloody rags and bandages. In my sleep, I unconsciously dragged her body to mine, wrapped an arm around her small waist, and buried my face in her soft neck. The heady scent of her skin and the feel of her curves pressed against me had me harder than steel before I was even fully conscious.
Bad enough that I felt an instant jolt of pure lust the moment Ethan first introduced her to me. But now? It’s so much worse. My fantasies about her have progressed from inappropriate to absolutely filthy. My desire for her keeps multiplying. All because now I know what kind of person she is underneath the beauty of her dark hair and pouting mouth.
That knowledge attracts me to her even more. It’s bad for my focus. My future.
This madness—wanting her until I ache, until I’m on the brink of snapping and dragging her to my bed—has to stop.
With that thought in mind, I let out the breath I’ve been holding and walk into the kitchen as the morning sun slants in.
When I see Havana, I stop dead in my tracks.
She stands at the counter wearing nothing but an oversized T-shirt. My T-shirt, I realize with a kick to the gut. When did she adopt that? Why?
I don’t know, and I can’t stop hungrily devouring her with my stare—her bare toes with black polish, her muscled calves, my threadbare shirt brushing her sleek thighs, the edges of her long dark hair falling like silk to her hips. The bare hint of her hard nipples under my graphic tee nearly fells me before I climb her profile to find her eyes, still heavy with sleep, as she grabs a mug from the cabinet and sets about making coffee.
Havana has no idea that she’s slowly killing me.
Christ. Those lips. Full and soft, naturally rosy without any of that glossy shit most girls wear. I can’t stop staring at them, imagining what they’d feel like under mine. What they’d look like wrapped around my?—
Stop. She’s seventeen. She’s Ethan’s girlfriend. She’s living under your protection.
None of that matters to my cock.
