Free CAUGHT: A Hitman Romance by Stella Noir Page A

call home, and when the cab driver asks for an address, I give him the new one, the respectable one.
    I haven’t had the place for very long and barely spent a night there, so I’m not surprised to find her confused when she first steps inside.
    “This is your place?” She asks, scanning the barely furnished living area. “Did you just move here?”
    ‘Not yet’ would be the honest answer, but then she would ask about my old and current home—and I sure as hell won’t bring her to that scary dump.
    “Yes,” I say. “I work a lot and don’t spend much time at home, that’s why this whole furnishing process takes longer for me than it would for others.”
    I pause and wink at her. “But I can promise you that there is a comfortable bed.”
    She lowers her eyes and blushes. Whatever sexual tension and attraction there was between us while we were standing on the rooftop is now gone, replaced by an awkward distance.
    I think she might need another drink, and I curse myself for not thinking of that earlier, because there is very little I can offer her here. All I have is an old bottle of whiskey, a leftover from bad habits.
    We walk into my kitchen and she spots the lone bottle before I can even offer it to her.
    “Oh,” she says, beaming and pointing at it. “Could I try that?”
    “It’s the only drink I can offer you anyways,” I reply, fetching a glass from the cabinet. “On the rocks or neat?”
    “Neat,” she says.
    “A true connoisseur, huh.”
    She shakes her head while I pour her drink.
    “No, but I like a good whiskey once in a while,” she says. “It’s good to calm the nerves.”
    “I don’t know if you’d consider this a good one,” I say. “But if your nerves need calming, I’m sure it can do the job.”
    “Thank you.”
    She takes the glass and brings it up to her face, smelling the whiskey before she takes a careful sip.
    I take her in while she is busy enjoying her drink. Her wild mane is a mess, and it looks terribly endearing to me. It was windy on the roof and whatever she did to fix her hair for tonight’s event is now a lost cause. It creates an interesting contrast to her chic clothing. Her lipstick is smeared and has lost its deep and overdone color. She looks so much better without it and I will make sure to remove even the last hint of that annoying goop from her face by the time I am done with her.
    “Better?” I ask after she has taken a few careful sips.
    “Yes,” she says. “This is actually a good one, very sweet and soft.”
    “Soft, huh,” I remark. “I promise you there will be nothing soft about tonight other than that whiskey.”
    It’s a risky move, but when I dart forward to take her, she doesn’t resist one bit. A surprised gasp escapes her lips before I close them with a kiss.

CHAPTER TWELVE

    Nike
     
    His assertive way is new to me. Despite his rather gloomy and mysterious demeanor at the fundraiser event, I didn’t expect him to be like this. So domineering and straight forward.
    He wants me and he lets me know that he does with his actions more than with his words.
    There was a moment when I was weirdly uncomfortable with him on the rooftop. I have no idea what caused it, but something just didn’t seem right. With him. With him and me together. There was a weird familiarity between us after that first kiss, and I suddenly remembered what he had said to me when I first came up to him.
    He thought I was playing some sort of game, and he thought that we had met before. It was just for those first few moments, but he seemed very intense and serious about it.
    Have we met before? Even though I try my best to cast the thoughts aside as he kisses me anew, now in his apartment, I cannot help but wonder.
    What I feel toward him can only be described as confusing. It is not mere attraction but more than that.
    I just wish I knew what it was.
    Suddenly, I can feel his strong hands on my behind. He squeezes my ass through the thin fabric of my