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I may have spent the last six years going soft, but I was raised in the mafia. I was raised not to bow to anyone. Not to give up without a fight. So even though I can feel sticky liquid soaking through the fabric of my dress, I continue to struggle against Hale’s painfully tight grip.
“Stupid girl,” he mutters.
Seconds later, darkness consumes me.
3
Hale
Grace’s weight settles into my arms as her eyes roll back in her head, her body going limp in my grip as pain and blood loss drag her under.
My head spins with the sight of her, the smell of her, the feel of her against my body and in my arms. Everything about her is familiar and foreign at the same damn time, and that strange dichotomy creates a hot rush that goes straight from my head and settles with a dangerous calm in my bones. It takes every ounce of willpower I have to set her down on the seat and not pull her into my lap, to feel more of her, to touch every inch of her.
What the hell? Focus up, asshole.
I grit my teeth, annoyed at my own physical reaction.
I’ve hated Grace with every bone in my body for the past six years—her father is the reason my uncle is rotting in prison for life, and the reason why everything went to shit six years ago.
Still, Grace has always held a power over me, one I’ve never quite understood. She didn’t even know it all those years ago, but she had me on a string. Grace has always been beautiful—even when she was younger, she was intriguing. Stunning. She made my heart flip every time I saw her, sending a confusing mix of emotions rampaging through my chest.
Six years later, and she’s still the same Grace that she’s always been, but there’s something different about her too.
Something even more dangerous than before.
Gone are her girlish looks, replaced with curves that could kill a man, lips that are meant for nothing but sin.
Something I should not touch.
But just like everyone else in this van, even I’m not above lust.
Desire.
I pull myself away from the thoughts that consume me, trying to get my fucking head on straight. To banish thoughts of how those curves would feel under my command. What noises those lips would make. What she would taste like. Feel like.
Those thoughts have no place in my goddamn mind, because they’re dangerous. Grace represents exactly what I don’t need right now.
Weakness.
Focus, Hale. Focus.
I assess her injuries, scanning her body for the source of her wounds. Her ivory dress is stained with blood in multiple places. She’s either bleeding to death underneath the layers of fabric, or she’s covered in someone else’s blood.
Maybe both.
The wound at her side is still pulsing little rivulets of blood in time to the beat of her heart, and I wasn’t kidding about the possibility of her bleeding out. At least now that she’s unconscious, I can take care of her wound without her fighting me.
I reach for a handful of her dress, ripping it from her bodice straight to her waist.
Fuck.
Lust and regret wash over me simultaneously as I realize what a fucking mistake that action was. Of course she’s wearing a fucking set of bridal lingerie, picked out especially for that asshole of a cop she was about to marry.
I try not to look, I really do.
But once I start, I can’t stop.
Straps of ivory frame her waist and hip bones, resting flush against her skin, leaving little to the imagination. Her breasts are no better. Flowers made of delicate lace cover the soft, rosy buds of her nipples, hiding them from view just enough to make my cock twitch.
