All Superheroes Need PR (Supers in the City, #1)

by Elizabeth Stephens

“You never have to talk to anybody in this building—or anywhere else—ever again, Vanessa, but I expect my wife to talk to me and, when she does, to call me Roland, not Mr. Casteel.”

“Then get a room ready for me. I’m moving in with my girlfriend tomorrow.”

There are only two truths I’m sure of in this moment: I’m stupid obsessed with Vanessa fucking Theriot, and I’m absolutely going to kill something.

I’ve spent my entire life—that of it that I can remember, anyway—bored and unable to escape the feeling that I’m waiting for something . . . I think I might have found it. And I’m not letting her go until I’m sure. They call me hero now, but I’m a bad fucking dude. I want to kidnap her. If she hadn’t agreed to let me move in with her, I might have had to.

Vanessa doesn’t hear or see me coming, so she doesn’t step off the step stool as I reach it and bracket her arms with my own, lining her back with the front of my body. I slam one fist onto the edge of the podium and let it erupt in flame as I point at the last journalist who spoke. “Don’t ask my girl stupid fucking questions.”

She says, “Thank you, Roland.” I feel the fabric of my being shift. And that’s it. It’s decided. She’s mine.

She’s shy. I see any of you hounding her on the streets, I’ll melt the cameras to your hands and light your underwear on fire.

“Fuck you, Nessa, and fuck that. You may be my fake girlfriend, but you’re still mine. And I look after what’s mine.”

“I mean it. You start crying, and I’m gonna have to fuck you.” My brain shorts. Should I . . . cry then?

“I may be a hero, but I’m only a hero for her. For you, I can be a villain just fine.”