Page 79 of Beautiful Secrets

But then she pulled that self-defense shit I always thought was just a way for gyms to make an extra buck and lure in more overweight ladies that would never make it past the first session, and I realized she didn’t need my help.

Not that the urge to crack that fuck’s skull went away.

Not even a little.

But it got my priorities back to where they should have been, and this little Russian kung-fu fighter be damned.

Except…

I keep replaying that moment, and I guess that’s why my chest keeps sending out cardiac arrest false-positives, because something could have happened to her.

She could have gotten hurt.

And that terrifies me.

Derek’s silver Merc slows down. He indicates and crawls up the driveway of one of a dozen cookie-cutter houses, each more adorable than the last.

I let go of Mika’s hand, shaking her off when I realize she was clinging to me too.

Derek said there was a guest bed for her to sleep in. That he’d take her back to Dimitri tomorrow and fetch my cash.

Not that I give a fuck, but I’m sure as shit not letting Dimitri keep my Mi—

I clench my jaw.

His daughterand my money.

I get out, go around to open the door. Derek does the same, like we’ve rehearsed this shit for some weird Broadway production.

Fuck him for making so much sense back there. Or maybe it was just the fact I’d finally gotten my dick wet after five years.

But he’s right about Mika.

I can’t keep her.

She doesn’t belong. Not here, not with me.

No amount of mind-blowing sex is going to change that fact.

And there was the other thing he told me.

How, no matter what I liked to think, the Hendry empire was already ancient history. The Scots giving Dimitri shit weren’t the last vestiges of some far-flung clan I could whip up into a righteous revolt.

They were straight-up fucking Scots who straight-up hated Russians. It would be the same story unto the nth generation.

It all makes so much sense.

Can’t believe it took someone telling me before I put two and two together.

And then that shit in the alley happened.

Now nothing makes sense anymore.

Because I know it’s not normal to feel so violently possessive about a girl I hardly know.

Fuck it—Idon’tknow her. Not a thing. Except what her pussy tastes like, and how her mouth feels around my dick.

We’ve barely said two words that weren’t us cussing at each other.