Page 16 of Never Die for a Sinner
Alex stiffens, and he chuckles dryly, shaking his head.
“You’re right,” he concedes when Levi climbs in his car and drives off. “I haven’t got a clue what he wants.
Since I was a kid, reading has been my escape. Mainly romance, now, but as a kid, I loved anything fantasy. Bonus points if there were vampires, because I was one ofthosekids. You know . . . the ones that fantasized about starring in their own personalTwilighthell.
Anything to take my mind off what life really was. The constant stream of men my mother brought home every few weeks. It was always the same. She’d profess her undying love for Bill, or Jim, or John, and even Hector, the antique she met at a bar, but after a few weeks, that undying love would fizzle out late at night in the form of three a.m. screaming matches.
Because I couldn’t sleep over the cursing and fighting and broken glass, I took to reading to keep myself occupied until her boyfriends either left or dissolved into acts no ten-year-old kid should ever have to hear.
That habit bled over into my adult life, and now, I’m sitting in the window nook in my bedroom, reading to take my mind off things.
It’s late, and I should be getting ready for bed, but I can’t sleep. It’s not that I’m not tired. I’ve barely slept more than a few hours a night all week, evenwithLevi being quiet, for once. I would like to think maybe he took what I said to heart, but I have a feeling it’s more about the fact that he’s barely been home than anything remotely respectable.
He seemed . . . different today. Darker. Stressed, even.
I can’t help but wonder what goes on behind the scenes at both Cross Estate and the Oak Ridge Lodge that I’m not privy to. I hear a lot, but mostly tidbits, and though Mila and I are close, I know she doesn’t tell me everything. I’m not even suresheknows.
I’m afraid that if I know the full story, I’ll no longer feel the slight sense of security I’ve come to find in my mundane life of cleaning the Cross Estate.
I’ve got enough problems to worry about without adding the Cross’s and their killer family members to the list.
Not to mention the brooding psychopath that sleeps across the hall . . .
It’s not that I’m afraid of Levi. I just . . . don’t know how much I should trust him. Since I came here, he’s been nothing but cold or rude, right up until the other morning when I stumbled into his room to find him completely naked and nearly had a heart attack.
That morning . . . he washot. A bully ready to humiliate me because he enjoyed the way I blushed at his crude words.
I wasn’t lying when I told him nothing could get me into his bed.
Forgive me, but I actually have tolikesomeone before I’ll sleep with them, and Levi hasn’t given me any reason to. He thrives on intimidation. He sleeps around, and he’s got the mouth of a seasoned sailor.
Never mind that what he said the other day has been replaying in my head since.
A rush of heat slips through me, remembering his dirty words. Men like Levi don’t make idle threats. I fully believe if I found myself in his bed, I wouldn’t come out of it in one piece.
Blowing out a breath, I sit up straighter and reread the same paragraph for the fourth time. Unfortunately, I can’t stop thinking about the little lines in Levi’s hips that make women go feral.
Is it bad that everything he described made my knees feel weak? Or that the growl in his voice made my thighs slick with need.
Or that I’m maybe picturing him in place of the man in this book?
As if he’s standing over my shoulder, I pull the book closer to myself, reading a few lines where the man is spanking the woman. Then a few more because now that I’ve started, I don’t want to stop.
Even in my fantasy, he’s as handsome as sin.
The universe must be mocking me, because a thud sounds outside and I pause, peeking out the window, my heartbeat rocketing in my chest.
Levi stalks from the house, barely visible in the black he’s wearing, but I see him. Broad shoulders. Black tousled hair that I would love to run my fingers through. Impossibly long legs and a butt that taught me male butts can be hot, especially in dark denim.
Oblivious to me watching from above like a creep, he stalks to where his fancy black car has been sitting out front and takes a drag of the cigarette in his mouth, blowing out a cloud of smoke, before tossing it to the side. I can’t help but roll my eyes at his littering.
Figures. It’s always the hot ones.
I huff and flip back to my book, ignoring him, but I can’t focus on anything else when the engine roars to life.
He’s leaving again. He always leaves late and comes back home around three or four in the morning. I can’t help but wonder where he’s sneaking off to. Especially when every night he comes home, I hear him open my door and peer in quietly before he shuts it again.
Looking back out the window, the headlights cut on, and he doesn’t move for a long moment, as if he’s watching me through the dark tint of his windshield.
