Page 23 of Worth

He slows down again after a few moments and more squeals from me, keeping an easy pace as he walks around the side of the house. When I stop laughing like a lunatic, he turns his head to look at me. “I like your laugh, Kitten. It sounds like it had been quiet for far too long.”

With those words, the mood changes between us. His words replay in my mind about how I’m going to scream his name and I feel curiosity rise to the surface in me. I’ve never had sex where it was mychoice. Where I didn’t have to be held down and forced to open my legs. What would it be like if I wanted to share my body and seek out pleasure for myself?

“Aiden,” I murmur, and his gait slows even further as those hazel eyes seem to become brighter, searching mine. “I—”

“Aiden!”

The man I’m wrapped around whirls, putting himself between me and the other man on the porch. Zander is fuming, his body vibrating with anger, as his eyes dart between Aiden’s face and mine.

Squeezing my legs gently where he’s gripping them, Aiden lets me go and I drop to the ground on my tiptoes. “You’re back early,” Aiden says casually.

“Why is she out?” Zander spits.

Aiden starts to respond, but instead of cowering behind him the way I’ve cowered behind everyone my entire life, I step out. “Because I’m not an animal you can cage,” I answer, keeping my voice steady. “Because I’m a person just like you.”

Zander stares at me for a moment, then dismisses me by looking at Aiden. “I didn’t give you my permission to let her out.”

“I didn’t need your permission,” I interject.

“Kitten,” Aiden murmurs. “Don’t poke the bear.” He clears his throat. “She needed out, Zander. Locking people where they can’t have sunlight is a worse sentence than death.”

I glance between the two of them as they fall silent, regarding each other warily. Then, to my extreme surprise, Zander sighs and nods.

“Fine. But if she runs—”

“She won’t,” Aiden says firmly. “She told me she wouldn’t.”

I hear Zander snark under his breath, but then he throws his hands up and walks away, shooting me one last glare before departing.

Anything Zander could have done to ruin my trip outside is washed away by the way Aiden beams at me as he pats his shoulder. “Up.”

I grin as I brace my hands on his shoulders and jump, snuggling into his back and locking myself around him the same way I had been before Zander caught us. We don’t say anything as Aiden walks. I know without even thinking about it that the moment we had shared, before being interrupted, is gone.

It’s only when Aiden returns me to my room hours later, dropping a kiss on my forehead before apologizing profusely as he locks me in, that I realize the last time I had human touch I welcomed was before Mom died.

I can’t help the small smile that plays on my lips well into the night for the crazy asshole who freed the laugh from my soul.

Chapter 8

I jump onto Kitten’s bed, the rising sun casting a dusky haze over the world. “Time to wake up!” Her response, like it always is when I’ve been in range when she’s woken up, is a fist. I dodge it before she can connect with my face. “Good morning to you too, sunshine,” I chuckle.

“What do you want?” she mumbles, burrowing deeper into her blankets. “It’s not even light outside yet.”

I don’t know how she knows that, considering she hasn’t lifted her head. “I thought you wanted to learn how to kill some motherfuckers?”

Kitten pops her head up, looking at me through bleary eyes. Her hair is a mess, tangled and caught around her. She looks like a damn angel—the fallen kind who is sexy and sinful. Not a pious one.

Fuck, do I want to mess her up even more.

I refrain because I’m civilized. And because I’m pretty sure my Kitten will bring out the claws if I attempt to do anything sexy with her at the crack of dawn. Not that I mind a good clawing, but I don’t think it’ll be the good kind that happens while I’m buried cock deep inside her.

“But why so early?” she whines.

“Murder waits for no man. Or woman,” I tell her. “Up!”

I rip the blankets off her, earning myself a scathing glare, and have to remind myself that I’m civilized when I see that she’s only wearing panties and a tank top with no bra. One tit is dangerously close to falling out the armhole.

“Get dressed, my little murder Kitten,” I order, tearing my eyes away from her precariously situated boob. “Then breakfast. Then lessons.”

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