Page 36 of Bitter Desire
“Um, how about everything?”
“Define everything.”
“Stop being so specific,” I muttered, turning towards him in my seat. “I want to know who you were before you became this big shot CEO. I want to know why you knew what you were doing with that man that grabbed me. I know you’ve,” I lowered my voice, glancing towards the front of the car where Taylor drove, pretending he didn’t hear a word of this conversation, “I know you’ve done heavy stuff.”
“You mean hurt people.”
“And more?” I hedged.
He nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. Against the crisp material of Law’s collar the blood of my attacker was a brownish black under the dim car door lighting. “Definitely more, princess.”
I hit the button for the divider that ran between the back seat and the front of the car. When it was in place, I whispered, “You’ve killed people, haven’t you?”
“None of them were good people,” Law answered, and I felt my stomach twist into a knot.
He had. He was saying he had without actually saying it, but fuck. He had killed people. Fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck,he had killed people. I sucked in a breath and scooted away, my back hitting the door with a soft thud. Law frowned at me, one hand coming up to rub across his jaw and he sighed.
“You’re scared of me. I don’t want that.”
“I’m not scared of you,” I said quickly and then bit my lip, because there was a little something like fear in my belly coming to life. The tendrils and leaves of it reached up and out, wrapping around me as it inched higher and higher until it threatened to choke me. “Okay, I am a little scared,” I said and raised a hand when Law’s brow furrowed, “but not of you.”
He leaned forward, a hand coming to rest on the seat beside me. “Then what? Tell me and I’ll-”
“What? Take care of it?”
He smirked. “Yes.”
My mouth fell open because I hadn’t thought he’d say that. Yes. He’d take care of it if I let him. I don’t know why that surprised me, but it did. I knew it. I knew that Law would give me the world if I asked, he’d tried to do so much for me already.
But hearing him say ‘yes’ with a smirk on his face that was all confidence made my breath catch.
“Law,” I whispered, moving towards him. He said nothing but held his arms out to me and I slid into his touch with a sigh. This was my man. My Dom. He would take care of this. I was not alone in whatever web I had stumbled into and the brutality I’d witnessed Law dish out tonight had been for a reason. It had been to keep me safe. If our positions had been reversed, who knew what I would have done to keep him safe? I closed my eyes when the blood at his collar came into sight and turned my head away. He was not that man. Not when he was with me.
When he was with me? He was mine. And I was his. I squeezed him tighter to me and breathed in his familiar scent. The people who had attacked me tonight were going to learn that you didn’t touch what was Law’s.
* * *
I turnedmy head and looked at Law. I’d fallen asleep somewhere along the way and now we were pulling into the underground parking garage of his building. Contrary to what most people’s reaction to New York City was, both Taylor and Law relaxed visibly the second we hit the familiar streets. They were more relaxed now than they had been when we’d been in the middle of nowhere and I shook my head at the men.
They were city men through and through all right.
“What time is it?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.
“Just past three am,” Law replied, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He hit a message, eyes scanning the screen while he read. “You’ve been asleep for a while. I didn’t want to wake you.” He looked up at me and I could see there was worry there. We’d spent the first hour on the road talking. Me asking questions about his past and Law answering them as best he could, or rather, sanitizing them as best he could while still giving me the truth.
“I’m going to tell you the truth, Honey. I won’t lie to you but…” He looked away, eyes on the black night outside the car.
“But what?”
He looked back at me. “I don’t want you afraid of me. Can’t take back a word I say tonight so I’m gonna be careful with what I say.”
“But you’ll tell me the truth?” I asked.
He nodded, just a slight dip of chin. “Always.”
“Then I can deal.”
I got why he was careful with what he was telling me. What he’d shared with me had been...a lot. A fucking whole ass life lived in the underbelly of the crime world. Law had run interference for the biggest crime rings and families in the city. Some of the names I recognized from gossip, but others were a mystery to me. I listened all the same, asked what I thought I needed to know, and we moved on from there to the next question.
