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Her body rises. I look up just as she drags herself up my chest. The second she’s off, I explode. Cum sprays wildly up her retreating back, my cock bucking for the warmth it just lost. But she sits on my chest, staring down at me with a stern laugh in her eyes.

“I could have killed you,” I cry out even as my body shudders through the impossible pleasure.

She laughs, hard. Then she plants her finger to my chest and digs down between the ribs.

“I have had this allergy since I was eleven. I’ve given up my mother’s best curry.

I’ve had to skip out on friend’s dinners.

And spent countless nights in hospitals being lectured at by people who’ve never known the bite of adrenaline. ”

Her legs part as she shoves me deeper into the bed. Even after it’s sprayed its last, my cock still jumps at the warm glide of her pussy lips across my chest.

“This fucking thing has taken so much from me. I will not let it take you too.”

“Sadie…”

“Sadvhi,” she declares triumphantly.

I want to return her smile, but without the immediate need to pump her with my seed, my heart churns in worry. I should have stopped her, but I didn’t. The second I’m around her, my brain melts, and my cock runs the show. “Sadvhi…” I whimper, curling my palm to her cheek. “I could have killed you.”

How many times have I said that with a gun or tire iron to emphasize the point? Now I plead and wail for it to not happen.

She smiles as if the whole world is rainbows. “But you didn’t.”

This time. We kept getting lucky, some part of my brain remembering condoms. It only takes one slip up. One moment when I’m so fucking horny I can’t even remember my name and… “I still could.”

Her response is to roll her shoulders. “I know what I’m doing.”

“I don’t think—”

She clasps a hand over my mouth. “No. You don’t. This is my life, and I get to spend it how I want.”

Fuck. The worry in my heart wars with the rampaging heat of a woman demanding I use her every way I want. I know what I need to say, what I need to do.

But I can’t.

No. I won’t.

My palms swoop up her back where I graze my drying globs of cum. It’ll hurt her, turn into a rash. Mar her beautiful skin.

“You should wash that off.”

Sadie shoves me back to the bed. “Shut up,” she says as she climbs my body and sits on my face.

?

MY BODY’S EXHAUSTED, but I can’t rest.

The family stole her away, nearly killed her in our escape. They’re walking into an ambush. One of their own making. Thanks to Mr. Ato’s never ending hubris, sure. It’s his petard to be hoisted by. Not my fault.

They’re also my family.

Maybe I wasn’t born into it, but they’re blood from more fights than I can count.

For every moment they’d get on my nerves and nearly drive me to smacking their mouth to get them to shut up, there were good times.

In running, I knew they’d hunt me. That they could never let anyone go, like poor Po.

But without catching me, I could think that deep down inside, they loved me.

They’d never hurt me.

I touch the bandage on my arm, blood welling up from the graze of one of their bullets. Not the Brassicas. Not the cops. The Nightshades. My people. My family.

She stirs in my arms, pulling my focus. What light can slip through the blinds struggles to find her face.

Only a hint of her cheek and nose break through the darkness.

Once she was through making her point on top of me, she’d curled up in my arms. Not the little spoon I could envelop and protect.

No, she met me nose to nose, her little hand pressing to my chest as she slept.

It’s still there, rising with my struggling breaths.

I’m a fucking idiot.

So I saved her. Great.

She’s safe…as long as they never find me. As long as I can manage some modicum of control. As long as we never stop running.

That’s not a life. Not for me, and sure as hell not for her.

I can’t keep doing this. I can’t act like the hero while tucking tail and running.

Scooting closer, I press my lips to her forehead. It’d have been nice to stay, but I want you too much for that. I think I…

“I’m sorry,” tumbles from my lips, and I pull away.

As her palm falls off my chest, a single soft whimper cuts through the air. I freeze. Did she hear that?

Is she waking up?

Sadie tucks her wayward hand under her pillow, falling deeper into sleep. She deserves a real life without a man who could kill her in one money shot. There’s no shaking my resolve. I turn my back on her and reach for my clothes.

A dark shadow darts across the floor. Just as the fuzzy head plows into my shins, I brush my fingers up Astin’s back. “You be a good boy, you here? No more chewing on cables, or that thing where you scale blinds and knock each one off.”

He gives a soft mew, either understanding that this is goodbye or hoping I have some treats in my pockets.

I have to disappoint him on both accounts.

“Keep her safe, okay,” I tell my companion who’s seen me through hell and back. There are no tears. Not for what I have to do.

Okay, there are a couple as Astin starts to purr and scratches his cheek on my wrist. “Be good,” I remind him with one final pet, then my fingers clench around cold metal.

The gun weighs down my heart more than my hand. One more time. One more job.

At the door, I pause.

Walk out.

Leave.

Go.

Astin bats at the blinds like always, shoving a bunch aside. As they fly off, light beams through the window and lands upon her. My sleeping beauty, her naked breasts bathed in the stars.

I don’t take my eyes off of her until the hotel door closes behind me.