Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
MAVEN
As soon as I see Boston, I can tell by the look on his face that he’s unimpressed with something I’ve done. He shuts the door behind him and looks around to make sure no one else is in my apartment before he makes his way over to me.
“How was your Pepsi last night?” he asks, and the question lets me know why he’s here. And what he’s found out.
“It wasn’t cold enough,” I reply, shrugging. Moving to my refrigerator, I pull out stuff to make a sandwich.
“You should have asked for a milkshake.” He pauses. “Oh, wait, you did.” I look at him over my shoulder and smile.
“This side of you is kind of turning me on.” I waggle my brows at him. Grabbing a knife, I start cutting the tomatoes as he steps up behind me. He presses against me as his hand moves my hair from my shoulder.
“I told you to stop killing Forsaken members.”
“I did,” I answer.
Finishing with the tomato, I reach for the onion and immediately regret it because it’s going to make me cry.
“Wrong,” he says, his mouth at my ear. His breath ghosts across my skin, and I can’t tell if he wants to devour me or not.
“I listened,” I insist.
“Wrong again,” he says, and this time he takes my earlobe between his teeth and bites down. Shivering at his touch, I stop slicing the onion and put the knife down. I turn around, but before I can do anything more, he’s pressing his body against mine.
“What do you mean by wrong?” I ask.
“Edgar was a member of the society,” he informs me through clenched teeth.
“I didn’t know that!”
He brushes a piece of hair behind my ear. “You wouldn’t have. The Forsaken is exclusive, and membership is a closely guarded secret from outsiders.” He pulls at my hair. “Now, tell me who ordered the hit.”
“That’s confidential.”
“Tell me, Dynamite. I need someone besides you to blame for this. Do you not understand? And it’s not like I can turn you in.”
“Why can’t you? Are you afraid of how it will make you look?”
“That, and they’ll kill you.”
“They could try.” I raise a brow.
“No, Dynamite, they will. The Forsaken is made up of some of the most powerful people in the world, and you, my little dynamite, have managed to kill three of them.”
“The first two had it coming, and the third…” I bite my lip. “I got paid to do.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“You said wives are protected.”
“Well, they are, unless it’s one of them who killed a member,” he says. “New rule, thanks to Edgar. If you’d have killed him a little earlier, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry my timing was off,” I say sarcastically. “Plus, aren’t you their little pet detective? I’m sure you can hide the fact that it was me.”
“I can, if you give me the name of the person who ordered the hit.”
“As I said, no can do. Not only do I not know, even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.
Discretion is important in my line of work.
Do you think I could charge so much if I couldn’t be trusted to maintain the anonymity of my clients?
I have a reputation to uphold that predates this marriage.
Just because you flash me your pretty smile or try to use your good looks to get to me, it doesn’t mean I will hand over confidential information. ”
“You think I’m good-looking?” He raises a brow. “And you like my smile?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. I tolerate you because you blackmailed me into marrying you.” I go to move, but his hips pin me against the counter, locking me in place.
“I can’t protect you if they find out it was you,” he says.
“I don’t need your protection. I’m a big girl,” I reply with a smile.
His lips press into a thin line. “You don’t know what you are dealing with here.”
“I do. It’s a bunch of men who like to think they run the world and are above the law.”
“They do and they are, Dynamite,” he whispers.
“I can handle them.”
“You can’t. Not if they…” He pauses. “Soren isn’t above finding the best people in the world to do his dirty work. He’s smart and has stayed clean for this long. Not just with my help or that of others. It’s because he’s that fucking good.”
“You talk about him as if he were a god.”
“He may as well fucking be,” he says, shaking his head.
“If you can’t protect me, why are we still married?”
“Selfish reasons,” he admits, and I feel his hardness against my stomach.
He lifts me and places me on the counter.
His hands find my bare thighs that have been exposed even more with the bunching of my short skirt, and he pushes them apart.
He leans down and slowly starts kissing his way up my leg, dragging his tongue along my skin as he does, until he reaches the edge of my skirt.
I lift my ass so he can push it up farther, and he swears.
“Do you ever wear panties?” he growls.
“Not if I can help it. I hate them,” I reply, and spread my legs a little wider. “Are you complaining?”
“Never.”
And then his mouth finds my folds. He doesn’t rush, and it takes everything in me not to grab his head and grind my myself into his face. He tastes me, and I can’t help but moan at the way his tongue moves so effortlessly against me.
This is one of the only reasons I enjoy being married to him. It’s like he can read my mind with the way he knows just how to touch me. It’s perfection.
He moves to my clit, punishing it in the best way possible. He licks and laps and bites until I can feel the build-up in my core. My hand fists in his hair, holding him in place at the most perfect position until a shiver racks my body and I come undone beneath his mouth.
Boston straightens up and then adjusts himself. Then he picks me up and places me on my feet. He adjusts my skirt, then glances around my apartment. The movers tried to come again, but I sent them away, and I know he’s getting really sick of me doing that.
“Pack a bag; you’re coming home with me.”
His phone rings, and he grumbles something before he holds up a finger to me and puts the phone to his ear.
“Yes.” He keeps his eyes locked on me while he listens to the other person speak.
“I understand. Yes. I’m doing everything possible to find out who it is.
” His eyes narrow at me. “Yes, got it.” Then he hangs up.
“Bag. Now.” He points in the direction of my bedroom.
“I’m hungry,” I whine, motioning to my still unmade sandwich.
“I’ll make you a sandwich. Go and pack what you need. I’m calling the movers now, so whatever you don’t want someone to touch, pack it and bring it with us.”
“So bossy,” I mumble as I head to my room.
Is it bad that I like it when he’s bossy?
I’m never going to tell him that, though. I don’t want to inflate his ego.
I stop in the bathroom to relieve myself, then change out of the skirt and into a clean one.
I look around my room, trying to decide what the hell I’m actually going to pack, because I honestly didn’t think it would get this far.
I figured if I just kept ignoring his insistence that I move in with him, that eventually, I could make it go away. But I guess that was wishful thinking.
I’ve never lived with anyone in my adult life.
I’ve always preferred to be alone. I guess that’s a part of my trauma from growing up.
The only person I trust is Carrie, and even then, we have our own places.
It’s not that I never imagined I would live with a man one day.
I thought I would be doing such things when I was older, but I guess I’m in my early thirties now, and it’s time to start growing up even if I don’t want to.
I shove a few of my favorite things into a bag, and it’s not long after that that he comes in, holding a plate with a perfect ham sandwich.
He takes one look at my bag, steps closer, takes it from my grip, and hands me the sandwich. “We need to go. I’m tired and need sleep.”
“What kept you up all night?” I ask, then take a bite of the sandwich. Damn, he did do a good job. I follow him out, taking my plate with me, and glance into the kitchen to see that he even cleaned up after himself.
When he pulls the door open, I see the movers—the ones I’ve turned away several times. He steps back and lets them inside. They avoid eye contact with me as they pass, heading to the kitchen to begin packing it up.
“Your late-night antics pulled me from my bed during the early hours of the morning,” he murmurs so only I can hear.
We walk out to his car, and he glances at my bike. “You should sell that. I’ll buy you a new one.”
“I made sure there were no other traces of me,” I say with a mouth full of sandwich.
“I found out it was you, and it’ll only be a matter of time before someone else does,” he says.
“That’s because of the milkshake,” I say, smiling. “Speaking of, can we stop and get one?”
“No. Bed,” he grumbles, throwing my bag into the back seat and then opening the passenger door for me.
But on the way to his house, he stops and gets me a milkshake. And that makes me very happy.