Page 102 of Bad Bishop

“I will, eventually.” A morbid smirk touched the corners of his mouth. “My self-control is far superior, though.”

What did he mean by that?

I lifted my hands to ask, but he shook his head and tilted his wrist to show me his watch. “Your hour’s up, Cinderella.”

I peered at the time on my phone. He was right. Seventy-five minutes had passed.

“Now that I fulfilled my end of the bargain, would you be so kind as to let me take you out for grub?” Though I couldn’t hear his tone, I knew he delivered everything he said acerbically. With enough venom to kill a snake.

Our ankles tangled under the table. It was the briefest touch, and yet it held so much meaning for me. I stared at the man across the table and realized that I was falling in love with him. As with every fall, once you lost your balance, crashing was a matter of when, not if.

“Yes.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

TIERNAN

I always thought a bullet would finish me off.

But in the end, it was my wife that turned out to be my demise. She didn’t even do anything special. Nibbled on a slice of pizza while sitting in my lap, dangling her feet in the air, reminding me of our diabolical height difference.

The pizza place was packed with late-night clubbers. All my blood was concentrated in my cock. And all my cock wanted was to be buried inside my wife’s pussy.

Not her ass. Not her mouth.Pussy.

I wanted my old life back. Where sex was something I approached on my terms. Recreationally. Sparsely. And as a form of punishment to others as well as myself.

All this Jane Austen yearning, frayed desperation bullshit made my skin crawl.

“I need to pee.” My wife hopped off my lap on the stool I was occupying. I stood up and followed as she wove through the crowd. No way was I letting her out of my sight.

It was jarring to care about a stranger.

I spent the majority of my adult life either killing people or screwing escorts. No part of me found humans a sacred species. Something worth preserving, let alone protecting.

But somewhere along the way I stopped seeing Lila as a human.

She was justLila.

And the thought of some dipshite’s filthy hands touching those dozen shades of golden hair—sunlight, sand, flax, and daffodil—made me…

What, arsehole? You gonna try being a good husband now? Write her poems? Fuck her next to candles and roses?

Of course not.

I wouldn’t let roses anywhere near her. She hated them. What was this, amateur hour?

Lila stumbled over her own feet walking the straight line from our seat to the jacks. The sleep deprivation was taking its toll.

“Are you going to stand on guard?” Lila gave me an incredulous look.

“I’m coming in with you.”

Lila rose on her toes, putting her hand on my cheek. “Thank you for taking care of me.” She reached up and kissed my eye patch, and I hoped what I was feeling was a fatal heart attack and not fucking flutters. “From now on, I promise to take care of you, as well.”

She walked inside, locking the door behind her.

I fished my phone out and texted Tierney.