Page 85 of The Hitman's Prince

“Where is he?” I shifted my hand low around his base, tightening my fingers around his erection like a vise. My only regret was that my hand was in his pants and Icouldn’t watch his shaft change color from a gorgeous and soft pink to a painful, strangled, purple.

“Went for his father,” Orion croaked, entire body shuddering.

“And you let him?”

“I’d already left for you.” He whimpered. He fuckingwhimperedand it sounded as much like love as anything he’d said to me ever had. “I needed to make sure you were safe and then…”

I unfurled my fingers from around his shaft and two breaths later, he arched off the bed and groaned through an orgasm neither of us had planned for.

“Naughty thing,” I said, tucking him back into his underwear and fastening his belt.

Orion’s chest heaved with every breath, but he kept his eyes open and on me the whole time. Blown pupils tracking each movement.

“You didn’t charm out any snakes,” he said, using his elbows to slide halfway upright on the bed. His holster was still unsnapped, gun at the ready.

“Not yet, no.” My mouth twitched up in the corner, understanding all the reasons my plan hadn’t failed, but instead turned into something far more dangerous. “But my dog did get loose, and that’s better than anything I could have asked for, isn’t it?”

Chapter 63

Caspian

Even with Bellamy hovering like a watchdog, I was going stir crazy at the house. Vince had been kidnapped, Orion was on a suicide mission, and if Jake hadn’t learned that our fathers didn’t care if we lived or died, he was about to learn a very hard and permanent lesson.

“Thank you for lunch,” I said, pushing away from the table.

“You’re welcome,” Fletcher said, arm stretched out beneath the table to rest on Gideon’s leg.

“Thank you for letting me stay here,” I said next.

“That’s Daren.”

I glanced at the man in question, who looked so much like Jake and nothing like him at the same time.

“Can we talk?” I asked him. “Alone?”

“I don’t keep secrets from any of them,” Daren said.

I huffed. “I’d be shocked if you did. You can tell them after, I just…”

“I get it,” Bellamy said gently from beside me. “It’s a lot sometimes.”

“We can talk on the porch,” Daren said.

I nodded gratefully, standing up and following him through the house to the porch. Their house was an old Victorian monstrosity with a wraparound porch and half a dozen rocking chairs scattered on either side of the door. I sank down into one, startling at how fast it began to rock, and Daren sat down beside me, reaching over to stop the motion as if it was something he’d done a hundred times before.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Tell me about what he was like as a kid.”

Down the hill, the Rose Hill University campus sprawled out like it was trying to get its claws into every inch of the town. I found myself suddenly faced with the urge to burn the whole thing down, though I’d never really do it. I didn’t have it in me. I wasn’t born ready to pull the trigger as readily as the men I’d surrounded myself with. In hindsight, I had no idea what I’d been thinking when I thought I could take this job with Vanessa, kill Vince Angelini, and save a legacy that was never meant to be mine. I’d been too foolish, too sheltered. But not anymore. My eyes were open, and I was more alert and understanding than I’d ever been before.

“He was a force of nature,” Daren answered, slowlyuncurling his fingers from the arm of my chair. “He wasn’t scared of anything.”

“What changed?”

Daren arched a brow. “What do you think he’s scared of now?”

“He was hiding in a church when I met him,” I said.