Page 13

CHAPTER 13

J ustine started to sneak quietly out of bed the next morning because she didn’t want to wake Khill, but she quickly realized sneaking was unnecessary. He was dead to the world.

Her husband—and, yes, even thinking that word gave her a thrill—was sprawled across his bed (their bed, now, she supposed), face down, blanket hanging precariously onto his left butt check but baring everything else, breathing the kind of deep breath only a man who’d spent the night thoroughly satisfying his wife could breathe.

And, oh, how satisfied she was this morning.

A little sore and dehydrated, too. But that was beside the point.

The point was that while she’d love to kiss him goodbye and let him know she was going to check in on the clinic and make sure all the animals in the kennels were happy, she just didn’t have the heart to wake him.

Plus, he’d need his strength later because she had every intention of riding him like a Palomino when she got home.

She knew they needed to have more conversations, too. They had so many logistics to figure out. She could assume they were going to live in his cottage because her place sucked in comparison, but it wasn’t a sure thing. Should she take his last name? Hell, did he even have a last name? That was something they’d never discussed. What about kids? Did he want kids? She wasn’t even sure if she wanted kids.

These were all things they needed to talk about. Being in love was great, but it wasn’t always enough to keep a couple together. Her parents were proof of that.

But all these things could wait. They especially weren’t worth waking him up for. Poor guy needed his rest after a hard (and she did mean hard ) night’s work.

The only thing that truly mattered now was that she knew what they had together was worth saving. And one of the biggest things she had in common with Khill? Tenacity. Now that they had each other, neither one of them would be letting go without a big fight.

Thoughts of how their last fight had ended made her consider crawling back into bed with him.

But alas, the clinic awaited. And Van Gogh was due for his antibiotic. She’d just sneak over there, take care of the animals, and might even be able to get back into bed before Khill woke up. It was a solid plan.

Too bad her plans always seemed to have a way of falling to fuck .

Because she’d no sooner finished at the clinic and set foot outside before an unyielding hand clamped a sweet-smelling rag over her mouth and nose and she found herself yanked back against an even more unyielding body.

“I tried to tell you it was fate,” her much larger attacker hissed in her ear. “You wouldn’t listen. But you will now .”

Justine realized a couple of things simultaneously at that point. First of all, the sweet-smelling rag was most likely coated with chloroform, which was why she was getting so, so tired all of a sudden. Secondly, if she survived this, she was definitely going to have to think up an alibi for Khill, because he was going to destroy this asshole when he found her.

Finally—and this one really chapped her ass—she owed her ex an apology. She’d assumed he’d been the freak who’d been sending her flowers and weird music snippets about fate. But she’d been wrong.

Because while she didn’t recognize this guy’s voice, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt it wasn’t Jake.

Just. Fucking. Great .

Which was her last thought before she slipped into the darkness.