More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
I should check up on her. The need to make sure she’s safe rises within me like a tidal wave. It’s an unexplainable, ridiculous pull messing with my head, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t shake it.
If I let myself be taken out, I wouldn’t be able to make sure the girl is okay. I need to make sure she’s safe, and that need is stronger than the wish to finally end my existence.
But I want to give her something. More than a kiss on her hand. I’ve actually never kissed anyone or anything before. I don’t have much to offer, so that night, I gave her what I had. A kiss for the hand that treated my wound with such care. But, I can also give her safety.
And I will not allow a potential threat to live anywhere near my tiger cub.
How could I watch over my girl if I’m dead? The night she tied her scarf around my thigh and then offered me her hand, my life became hers.
She liked the parsley. It’s planted in a matching set of three gray pots, sitting just by the balcony door where she likes to study, not by the window where the rest of her weeds are. My parsley’s living in the best spot.
“I don’t like anyone touching my hair,” he says. I suck in a breath. Considering all the pinching, prodding, and squeezing I’ve done while patching him up, I didn’t expect that he would care if I touched his hair. “I won’t do it again.” His eyes lower to my lips, and linger there for a heartbeat. Then, he quickly looks away. “I don’t mind when you do it, cub.”
“Thank you.” His voice is rough, and he feathers his lips over my fingertips. “I thought you didn’t thank people.” “Never had the reason to. Until recently.”
“You, my tiger cub, are a ray of light in the absolute darkness my life has become and has been for a very long time.”
“For the light to shine, darkness must retreat. It’s what’s meant to be.”
I rarely wish for things in life, because I know how seldom I get them.
She starts pulling her other hand from mine. Not happening. I squeeze it, keeping my fingers tightly wrapped around hers. “Um. I need that hand,” she mumbles, looking down at our hands. “No, you don’t.” Her perfect eyebrows rise in question. “Because?” “Because you have two,” I growl. This hand is mine. She offered it to me freely, and I’m not releasing it unless it’s absolutely necessary.
“I don’t dream. Ever. Even when I was a kid, I would go to sleep and just wake up in the morning, with only blackness and emptiness filling the gap in between. Up until recently, I believed that dreams are just a lie.” A shiver runs down my spine. “But not anymore?” “Not anymore,” he rasps. “Can you guess what I dream about, tiger cub?” I bite the inside of my cheek and shake my head. The ringing of a nearby phone penetrates the haze I’m in. My devil takes my wrist, raising my hand. “I dream about you, tiger cub.” Whispered words, just before he places a fleeting kiss on my fingertips. “But my
...more
“Light and darkness don’t mix, tiger cub. They cancel each other out.” He dips his head and kisses the tip of my finger. “And I would never dare to shroud your flame.”
I want all of her. Not want—need. Like air. Like the blood flowing through my veins. Each beat of my heart, it’s hers. For nearly a year, every cell of my being has been hers.
At times, I feel like I’m already dead, but then I come to see her, and it’s as if life flows back into my soul.
“I need flowers that don’t have any pollen. My girl is allergic.”
“Please, fuck me.” “Fuck you? No, I don’t like that term.” He grabs me behind my knees, pulling me closer. “I’m going to take you, Nera.” “What’s the difference?” I pant while the tip of his cock teases my entrance. “What I take, I keep forever,”
Monsters like me are not allowed to dream, and I never have. Not until I met her. For the first time in my life, I see the possibility of having something of my own.
Is this how it feels to have someone to call my own? Someone who actually cares if I live or die, beyond the fact that my death would mean the loss of an asset? For the first time in my life, I feel like an actual person and not just a scrap shaped to resemble one.
I would do anything if I could become more worthy of her. A good man I will never be, but I could be better. For her.
I don’t fucking care about anything anymore. I’ve lost my tiger cub. Everything else is meaningless—my life included.
I was. Still am. Dead. I’ve been dead most of my life. The only time I’ve actually felt alive is for that short period I spent with her. All the days before and after, are a fucking wasteland.
“Blood lost for you is blood well spent,” he says against my trembling palm.
“I’m Kai Mazur. Mrs. Leone’s new chief of security.”
Not only do I still love you. I fucking live for you, tiger cub.”
“Every breath,” he continues. “Every heartbeat. Every drop of my blood is yours. It has all been yours from the moment we met all those years ago. If you want it, I’ll carve my fucking heart out and lay it at your feet. It’s yours, and always will be.”
“I didn’t know, cub.” A tear slides down his cheek. “I swear, I didn’t know. When I saw you there, rushing toward him, and realized what I had done . . . I wanted to die, Nera. I’d rather kill myself a thousand times than cause you the slightest anguish. But I didn’t know. The fucking barely literate bastard that I am, I didn’t even bother to read the bio of the target. Please, believe me. I didn’t know. I didn’t fucking know.”
“Everything is gray and empty. You are my lifeline, tiger cub, because there is no life for me if you’re not in it.”
“Over ninety-nine million,” I growl as I keep slamming into her. “That’s how many seconds I’ve spent without you. And every single one felt like death, Nera.” I crush my mouth to hers. “Never again.”
“How could one forget the sole light in the miserable darkness of his life?”
“You, my tiger cub, were the only thing I remembered.”
“My everything.”
I’ve never seen a more beautiful sight. My daughter. It felt like I was observing a miracle.
“Children are meant to be spoiled.” I stop in the middle of the living room and let Nera slide down my front to the floor. “I’ve missed three years of her life. I understand that presents can never compensate for that, but I need you to let me do this. I . . . I want her to love me. Please.”
“I live for you, my tiger cub.”
“It’s the dream I’ve been dreaming but never dared to hope would come true. People like me are not allowed such ambitions, tiger cub.”
“Why do you call her nicky name?” “Because . . . I love her.” Lucia wrinkles her nose as if thinking about it. “I wanna nicky name, too,” she demands, then dashes across the carpet to climb on the bed. My heart races like a runaway train as I watch her crawl over and snuggle between us.
“Last time Mommy made me oatmeal we had lotsa boomers and big rain, which made Mommy sad. But she told me a secret then. She said my daddy gotted lost a long time ago in the storm. But that he gonna find us one day. Are you my daddy, Rapunzel-boy?”
“You weren’t specific in your request.” The happy blond beams like a kid at Christmas as he pulls both men toward us. “So I got you one Orthodox and one Catholic. Az’s is Protestant. Now you have one of each. Take your pick.” “Jesus fuck.” Kai sighs next to me and squeezes the bridge of his nose. “That’s not a priest, Belov.” “What?” “This one”—Kai gestures at the first guy pulled out of the SUV—“in the black gown . . . He’s a fucking JUDGE!”
“Is this the bride?” Belov points his finger at me. “She looks like a nice person. What the hell made her want to marry a motherfucker like you?”
“You didn’t even ask the poor thing if she wants to marry you?” his blond buddy challenges. “Shut up, Belov,”
“You are my reason for living, cub. And, in this life, I don’t need a signature or a ceremony to confirm that you’re mine. You are. And I’m yours, every cell of my body. Till my dying breath. And even when I perish, in whatever afterlife awaits.”
That asshole downstairs married his wife again, using our priests and the judge. There’s no way I’m letting fucking Belov have more weddings than us, tiger cub.”
😂😂😂
