Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 129756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 649(@200wpm)___ 519(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 649(@200wpm)___ 519(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
“No, you shouldn’t have.”
“It won’t happen again.” Dominic didn’t miss the spark of doubt in her gaze. “I’m all in this, Mila. I made a commitment to you, and I don’t have to tell you that I don’t take shit like that lightly. I wouldn’t have put that brand on your neck if I wasn’t sure that you could trust me to honor it. I can’t promise you that I won’t fuck up, but I can promise you that I’ll give this everything I have. Okay?”
Mila twisted her mouth. “All right. I promise to do the same.”
He gave her a lazy smile. “That’s my girl.” He kissed her again, sipping from her lips, liking the way her heartbeat quickened. The same heartbeat that had briefly come to a halt the previous evening, he remembered. And that thought was enough to take his breath away.
Never again. The next time danger came her way, it would find him in its path. “I’ve got to be honest, I’m not feeling good about you staying here after what happened in the basement.”
She smoothed her hands down his hard chest. “Vinnie and the boys will secure the building.”
“It should have already been secure. If I hadn’t trusted that you were safe here, I wouldn’t have kept my distance. In fact, I would have worked on getting you to stay on my territory for a while.”
“Can you honestly tell me that a snake shifter couldn’t have found a way onto your territory in much the same way that it did this building? Because you’d be totally lying if you said yes. In any case, I won’t be hiding away on your territory or anywhere else. That’s not who I am, and it’s not who my cat is.”
“I respect that you’re a highly dominant female, baby—”
“Prove it. Don’t try to change me. Don’t ask me to go against my nature. I know you want to protect me. But wrapping me up in cotton wool truly wouldn’t help the situation. The hit isn’t personal to me. It’s just a means of flushing out Alex. If I seem too difficult to get to, a price might suddenly appear on my mother’s head, or my father’s. Then the pride would be scrambling, trying to protect us all at once. Their attention and resources would be divided. Only two things will help—finding Alex and learning the identity of who put out the hit. I’m hoping Nick’s hacker-ally can help with the latter.”
Dominic fucking hated that he couldn’t deny she made sense. Still . . . “I don’t want your parents in the line of fire either, but I can’t agree that it’s better for the threat to remain focused solely on you.”
“I’m not asking you to agree with it. In your shoes, I wouldn’t like it either. But the pride has a better chance of protecting me if I’m the only one they need to worry about.” She put her finger to his mouth when he would have protested. “Let it go. Choose your battles wisely. This isn’t one you’ll win, and I think you know that already.”
He sighed. “I rehearsed this conversation in my head several times. You always gave the same responses you did just then.”
She shrugged. “I can only be who I am, Dominic.”
Drawing her close, he dabbed a kiss on her mouth. “Then you leave me only one option.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you have a brand-new shadow.” He smiled. “Say hi.”
“I don’t need to be shadowed.”
“No, you don’t. But it’ll make me feel better to have you in my sights. Would you really expect me to do anything else? I’m a highly dominant male wolf, baby. I protect, defend, and stand beside what’s mine.”
She heard what he didn’t say: he respected her level of dominance, and he needed her to accept his in return. And she couldn’t exactly dismiss it, could she?
With her elemental understanding of how dominant shifters worked, her cat didn’t bristle at his need to be close to her. In fact, the feline approved of it. “You’ll get bored.”
He frowned. “Being around you is never boring.”
“It will be after you’ve spent hours just sitting around the barbershop, doing nothing.”
“Watching over you isn’t ‘nothing.’ Especially when it gives me peace of mind.” He scraped a hand over his jaw. “I need another shave anyway. And wouldn’t it be nice for you to have me there to distract your pride mates when they come to check on and possibly fuss over you?”
Actually, it would. “What about when they start asking about our marks? Which they will, because they’re all nosy as hell.”
“I’ll just tell them the short version—I charmed, melted, and romanced you.”
She snickered. “Romanced. Right.”
“Hey, I can be romantic.”
“Sure,” she said drily, stretching out the word.
“Okay.” He straightened his shoulders. “Roses are red, and so are other flowers. Take off your panties, I just need a few hours.”