Page 16 of Heart of Stone (Dark Billionaires)

Thethreeofthemhad had far too many Cobras.

He’d sent Kate to bed after her fourth beer, but he and Rhys had stayed up, drinking and talking into the early hours of the morning.

A morning Kate might never have seen if he had taken thirty seconds longer to reach her.

Ignoring that murderous thought, Warren scaled the stairs in the darkness. He’d lived here too, at one point. It had been a shock to the system; to go from a prison cell to a multimillion pound penthouse flat, but he’d provided the start-up funds for Aldous to work with. Rhys and Jensen had been released from prison eighteen months before Warren, meaning by the time he was a free man he was richer than he’d ever dreamt of.

The four of them had made a good team.

Even if his method of obtaining their start-up funds had not been entirely in-keeping with the law.

Except now he had more than Paul Charlton to consider.

It hadn’t been a concern before, when he’d assumed Kate had made her own way in the world. Perhaps with a partner and children.

Since the night Braxton had brought her to his house, however, the guilt had begun to seep into his very marrow.

Warren crept into the bedroom on silent feet, not wanting to wake his kitten. He savoured the sound of her soft breathing, unable to shake off the feeling ofpossessionthat intoxicated him whenever she was near. Everything from her scent to her voice drove him mad, turning him from a reasonable, albeit bad-tempered, businessman into a sex-crazed monster whose only relief would come from the heaven between her thighs.

And then she’d do something that reminded him that she wasn’t just a woman. She was his kitten.

Even if she was a woman in her twenties, Warren couldn’t get past the fact that this was the same girl he’d cared for as a boy. He’d loved her then, but that love had been familial in nature. There had been nothing sexual about it. The thought of it made him ill.

Lying on the couch cushions he’d stolen from downstairs, he tossed and turned, trying to get to sleep. Up on the bed, Kate became just as restless as him, muttering incoherently, her voice high and raspy from the attack.

Warren couldn’t help the sly smirk growing on his face. Even in her sleep, she wouldn’t rest her voice, the little hoyden.

“Warren,” she mumbled. “Warren.”

He got up, perching on the side of the bed that had once been his. “Kitten?” he said softly, taking her hand. “I’m here.”

“Mmm.” Her voice was crackly, a sobering reminder that the day could have goneverydifferently.

He reached out into the darkness to find her cheek. “Do you need a drink?”

“I dreamt of you,” she slurred. “Like the first night I arrived, when you nearly kissed me. Except you didn’t stop.”

His cock hardened, recognising the need reinforcing her voice, but he shook his head. Not that she would see it. “I shouldn’t have done that.” Even in his drunken haze, he knew that.

“I dreamt that you stayed. My ex left me after he slept with me, but in my dream you stayed.”

Jealousy plunged into him like a dagger. The mere mention of someone else touching her slayed him.Mine, the angry voice in his chest hissed. “You’re damn right I’d stay,” Warren sunk lower into the bed. “Who was he?”

Kate’s hand found his hair, and he purred with pleasure. “Just some guy I met on a dating app. He was sweet—up until I had sex with him. Then he ghosted me.” She let out a sigh that tickled his chest hair. “Like it meant nothing.”

“Give me a name. I’ll have him in a shallow grave by sunrise.”

She giggled then, clearly thinking he was joking. “Daniel. He kissed like a washing machine.”

“You know I’m going to have to kiss a lot of Daniels before I find the right one.”

She palmed his cheek clumsily, but her voice was a low murmur. “Can I watch?”

“Naughty kitten,” he chided her.

Kate offered an alternative, throwing it to the darkness between them. “Needy kitten.”

Warren growled into her neck, entirely too drunk for this conversation. “Tell me what you need.”

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