CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Quiet Mustang
IT’S BEEN ONLY three days and I already want to break my promise.
I already want to keep her and never let go.
I already want to sleep beside her for the rest of my life, her hair in my face, her face tucked in my chest. Like it is now, at the first light of dawn.
Her small hand resting by my heart and her thigh tangled up with mine.
I already want her sweat cooling on my body and mine cooling on hers.
I want her breaths fanning my skin and mine fanning hers.
I want to lie in my bed with her, cozy and drowsy, while the storm rages outside.
I want.
But I won’t.
First, because I tired her out. Jesus, the way I went at her, kept waking her up all through the night.
Hard and hungry. Always so fucking hungry for her.
For her taste, her moans, her tight, soft pussy.
It wasn’t enough for me that I finally got to be with her after months and months of waiting and wanting.
No, after years of waiting and wanting to be with a girl I really wanted to be with.
It wasn’t enough that she gripped me so tight I saw fucking stars.
Or that I made her bleed and cleaned off her blood with my tongue—not with a useless cloth or a towel.
Although can’t say I was selfless about it when I jerked off to drinking her virgin blood.
I jerked off to the fact that it was me who did that to her.
That it was me she was struggling to take and yet was so fucking brave, she did it anyway.
The only consolation was that I didn’t fuck her again after the first time, only used my tongue on her, ate her out until her cunt fluttered around my mouth and gushed cum down my throat.
And while I spilled my seed in my hand. By the last time, I could hear her moans were more pain than pleasure. Only then did I let her sleep.
And second, because she thinks I’m beautiful.
She looks at me like I hang the moon. Even after everything I’ve done, after everything I’ve told her, shown her, she still thinks I’m good.
She still sees something in me, something I can’t see.
Something that’s probably not really there but she believes it is.
So how could I shatter her faith? How could I steal her away from the world and thrust her into darkness where I live?
Where I belong. Where I have to wear a mask so I don’t scare people but still end up doing that anyway.
Where they don’t look me in the eyes. Where my constant headaches won’t let me sleep; words bang around my skull because I still have trouble saying them if I’m not careful.
Where the only way to get rid of my anger is to resort to violence.
Where, if she lived with me, people would stare at her strangely too.
They’d treat her differently. Her days would be filled with one battle after another, with the world, maybe with herself, too, when she realized I’m not the man she thought I was.
So no, I can’t keep her. I’m a monster, but I’m not that big of a monster that I’d rope the Princess in my barn and throw the key away.
No matter how much I want to. I’ll send her back into the world, but only after I’ve made it safe for her.
After I’ve gotten rid of the threat, every threat, against her.
We haven’t made much progress on that front, even though I gave Arsen and the others everything I had, everything I knew, every clue I could think of.
Including pictures of the men at the warehouse so Arsen could look into that as well.
According to him, those men were small-timers.
They didn’t belong to a gang or an organization; there was nothing to suggest they were anything other than hired muscle.
And whoever hired them covered their tracks pretty good.
Nothing from Brecken either. He says he’s still looking into things, having people investigated, enemies of the Turners, anyone who might want to bring them harm, just like Arsen.
And while I understand these things take time, it’s something I don’t have.
It’s something Lynnie might not have either.
Whoever that man is, in his own words, he’s fucking impatient.
And people with little patience tend to do reckless things.
As risky as it was to call his bluff before, making him wait might be the biggest risk yet.
So I need them to come through for me. I need to know who the fuck he is so I can destroy him, annihilate him for thinking he could steal my sister, for thinking he could hurt my Princess.
And then, I will finally destroy Hank Turner.
But not for killing my parents. I will destroy him and leave no body to bury for killing his daughter’s hopes and dreams at the age of ten.
But until that time, I’ll hold her tight in my arms and sleep beside her every chance I get. Because she isn’t the Turner Princess; she’s my Princess.