Page 47 of Stolen Princess

Either way, I’m going to take her mother down if for no other reason than she’s after me. I’m not dumb. There will be no trade. She’ll kill me the moment she gets her shot. Everything has gone to shit, but this could be what saves us both.

Until then, I can’t let her out of my sight. Not again.

“I don’t have a real answer. It’s just something I want to do. I’ll get you there safely, and I’ll make sure you get home if you decide that’s still what you want.”

She swallows thickly. “This isn’t another lie or prank or whatever, is it?”

Shit, I’m such a bastard, aren’t I? She’ll hate me when this is over, and I won’t blame her for that. But it won’t matter, will it? She’ll be where she needs to be, and I’ll be where I need to be.

I run my knuckles along her good cheek, her skin so soft and smooth. “No, darlin’, it’s not.”

She studies me for a very long moment before she finally utters, “Okay. I’ll do it.”

I clear my throat and pull my hand away.

Taking her there doesn’t change anything. I can’t touch her. I won’t touch her. She’s not the sort of girl you mess about. She’d give me her heart, and I wouldn’t know the first thing to do with that, nor is it something she should give to a man like me.

I’ll do right by her, and then I’ll let her go.

15

FERRIN

We pack up all of our things, and I carry both our bags while Genevieve holds ice wrapped in a towel to her face. She stays behind me as we wind our way down the stairs and out the front door without being stopped. I did a quick search online, and there’s a rental car place about a mile from here, which means we’re hoofing it.

Thankfully, it stopped raining, but it’s far from pleasant outside.

The streets are more crowded, and Genevieve uses her long hair like a curtain to cover her face. The police are gone, and I have no clue what happened to the man who assaulted her, but with any luck, he’s a wanted criminal and on his way to jail.

Adjusting the bags, I throw my arm around her shoulder and hold her close.

“What are you doing?” she questions.

“People tend to look at couples less often than they do single people. For one, public displays of affection make people uncomfortable. For another, they don’t typically check out someone they can’t fuck.”

“How do you know these things?”

“Observations over the decades. I spent a lot of time watching people, learning their mannerisms, studying how they react to things. It’s why I’m so good at what I do.”

She puffs out a sharp breath. “More of your social engineering?”

“Something like that. Is your mother going to call you?”

She tenses at the topic change but relaxes a bit once we get past the main drag of town. “How did you know I had a phone?”

“I saw it in your bag with your things. It’s a relic. Answer me.”

“No. She may text, but she never calls me.”

That causes a pang in my chest. A familiar ache. “How are you not a total psycho?” Like I am.

“Huh?”

“You were alone in that house six days a week with no one to talk to but yourself.”

She glances down at the sidewalk, watching her feet as we walk. “There was a feral cat who came and went. I talked to him. I talked to myself a lot too. And besides”—she lifts her chin—“who says I’m not a psycho? I’m here with a strange, dangerous criminal. I made myself orgasm in front of him. I shared a bed with him. Now I’m willingly allowing him to take me to the ‘sea.’” She puts air quotes around that. “You could toss me in it, or it could be a euphemism for the place you intend to dump my body. If it weren’t for the necklace, you likely would have already done that or had nothing to do with this from the start.”

“The latter,” I admit. It’s true, though. Why else would I have agreed to this? Hell, I didn’t even agree. It was coercion. “I don’t usually kill people unless they deserve it or have done something to me.”