Page 36 of Witness Protection

Cayden would wait out the next two days, and then he’d hand her over to her own people. He deserved to enjoy her company for a little longer. Her father had killed everyone he cared about, leaving him with nothing. He wanted his reward.

“You’re too brave for your own good. You realize almost every road leads to you in an early grave, don’t you? Unless, of course, Hawk comes and saves the day.”

“If you wanted me dead, you wouldn’t have turned down that three million. That’s a small fortune.”

He held out his arms. “I know I look like I crawled out of the gutter, but, sweetheart, I have more money than I can ever spend.”

“Okay, so is this about your cat?”

He laughed out loud. She had no idea how fucked up he was in the head.

He kept up his walls, keeping impersonal. It felt safer that way. She was the first female to make him hunger for more than sex. All the others were an irritation. Maybe it was because women usually pursued him, and he knew he could never have Vasily’s daughter. “Sophia, why don’t you worry about looking pretty, and let me worry about my next move.”

Cayden walked past her and caught a glimpse of the papers on his bed. He picked them up, but she rushed up behind him trying to snatch them away. “Give me those,” she said.

He held the papers out of her reach as she hopped up in a poor attempt to grab them, her hands all over his body. He was a good foot taller than she was. “Relax.”

Cayden looked at the papers. She’d done a pencil drawing of him when he was working at his computer. It was incredible. She had a rare talent, and he was intrigued. “They’re not yours,” she huffed.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, getting a better look at her work. “Hey, you drew me without my consent.” The shadowing, the detail, the skill … she was much more than the crime boss’s daughter he’d expected. “You should be proud. It’s really good. I didn’t know you were an artist.”

“I’m not. It’s just a hobby. Well, I usually paint.”

“You should be an artist.”

She smiled at him, and it felt like a punch in his chest. “You really like it?” Sophia sat down beside him, her leg brushing his.

“It’s like a photo. You have talent. I could never pull that shit off.”

“Everyone’s good at something. What are your hobbies?”

Cayden stared off into space, trying to come up with an answer. He came up blank. It was an eye-opening moment for him. “I don’t have any.”

“You must have something you like to do. Besides kidnapping girls, of course.”

He scowled.

“What do you do for fun?” she asked.

He ran a hand through his hair. “Is fighting a hobby? When Frank was alive he coached me in boxing. Before that I just did it for money.”

“Sure, if you enjoyed it.”

Inner reflection wasn’t something he’d ever spent time on. Life was survival.

Eat. Sleep. Kill.

He passed her the drawings, his hand unintentionally coming down to rest on her thigh. Her body jolted, and she looked up at him with those big brown eyes.

“And Sophia likes to paint,” he whispered.

She nodded, the papers falling from her fingers like autumn leaves as she reached for the collar of his shirt. Her lips parted, but she had nothing more to say. She tugged him down, and for the first time in his life he was helpless to resist.

Sophia Morenov was too young, too innocent, too complicated.

He kissed her, if he could even call it a kiss. A light brush of the lips. A soul-deep connection. He barely moved, breathing her in, feeling uniquely vulnerable. God, he wanted to taste her, devour her, know every part of her body.

Cayden slowly pulled back. Her hand still clutched the collar of his shirt.

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