Hans (Alliance, #4)

by S.J. Tilly

This book is dedicated to Nero, the beautiful bastard who started it all. I love your unhinged ass. - This battle belongs to all of us. Because we’re all human. And that makes it ours.

Does she not realize what a fucking temptation she is? Does she have no sense at all?

A girl like her should wear… Nothing. A girl like her should wear absolutely nothing, and she should spend her nights on her back with her thighs spread, her hands pinned, and her body heaving… underneath mine—where no one else can ever lay eyes on her.

I’ll play the recording back when she’s gone. Watch the shape of those perfect pink lips as they open and close. “Dammit, Butterfly.”

She’s so fucking thick. And soft. And beautiful. And the spark behind her eyes is so trusting and healthy and…

And then she repeated it back. Just as simple. Just once. Hans. And I haven’t fucked anyone since.

The curvy little vixen who just turned thirty, twelve days ago—making her nine years my junior and too young for me—and has been doing her best to kill me with food poisoning through her little deliveries.

Please, pretty please, swing me up over your shoulder and carry me off to your bedroom. We can pretend it’s a Viking encampment. You’re the main warrior dude, and I’m the princess you just stole from your enemy to claim as your own…

My stomach protests at the last bite, but I can’t waste it. It doesn’t matter how bad her creations are, my deep-seated need to consume every bit of Cassandra won’t let me throw them away.

Leaning down, I carefully stick the newest Post-it on top of the last one, adding it to my little stack of yellow paper squares. One for every delivery from the girl next door.

On one side of the room, the gray couch faces a subpar TV mounted above a fireplace she never turns on because someone—me—keeps disabling the gas line because someone—her—has left it on unattended one too many times.

Because if Cassandra woke up tomorrow to a bowl of rotten produce, she would feel sad. She’d probably frown. Potentially pout. And I can’t be the cause of that.

The mirror is still slightly steamy—accounting for her wet hair when she left the house—and the mix of shampoo, body lotion, and hair products makes me want to roll around on her shaggy bathroom rug. But I don’t. That would be weird.

All her. All my Cassandra. Spread out like a fucking centerfold. For someone else. My vision tints an ugly shade of green, and I storm out of my house, book in hand.

She’s dressed casually. But if she thinks skin-fucking-tight leggings are less provocative than shorts, she’s as wrong as she is tempting.

Which is good, because if I witnessed her getting into the back of a stranger’s car, I’d have my sniper rifle out and aimed at the back of the driver’s head before you could say psychotic.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She hops twice, and I want to shove my face in her tits.

Yeah, sure, let’s go have dinner with my obsession’s fucking parents. If Karmine could see me now.

Why’d you start your blog right after moving in across the street from me? “You,” Cassandra says casually, but the answer slams into my chest.

I want to strip every shred of clothing from her body and tell her how much she means to me. I want to feast on her flesh and tell her I’ll eat anything she makes me.

But the phone isn’t locked. And I can see the home screen. And the photo saved as the background is… me. Asleep in his bed. I bite down on my lip. He’s totally obsessed with me.

“I wanted to fucking keep you, Butterfly, from the moment I met you. And on the off chance something like tonight happened, I needed to be prepared. So, yeah, I took a few of your things. But now you have what you need.”

It’s been twenty years since I’ve loved someone. But I recognize the feeling. It’s like hearing a song for the first time after years and years but remembering every lyric the second it starts.

Sleep finally starts to take me, the weight of the day pulling me under, when Hans whispers two more words. “My love.”

Making so many enemies you have to build an actual escape tunnel that goes from your hidden Batman room to an old moldy gazebo shouldn’t be a turn-on. And yet, here we are.

“That’s one.” I roll my lips into my mouth and bite down on them to keep from busting out laughing. She just fucking scolded the ghost man for throwing a fit over some cookies. Goddamn, it’s gonna be fun having them around.

“Because I never realized how much I wanted to make a family until I met you,” she whispers. “Because I love you, Hans. And because I’m pretty sure you love me too.” She changes my life. Because I love you.

Cool, everyone here is a piece of shit. I hope Hans kills all of them.

“Come for me, Butterfly. Flutter that pussy around my cock and pull me with you.”

It was his idea to officiate this wedding. He argued that since he was already ordained, there was no reason to use anyone else. But we all know it’s because he and Hans have become nearly inseparable. Nero claims it’s just because Hans is our neighbor, so it’s convenient to see him, but really, those two are a pair of peas in an unhinged pod.