Free Slow Release (Ebony and Ivory Book 1) by Suzanne Steele, Stormy Dawn Weathers

blue-eyed model. I was going to have to hurt him without her knowing I was the one responsible. I couldn’t take a chance that she’d end up hating me because I killed the love of her life.
    My obsession with her had nothing to do with sex. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I had an innate need to protect her from the viper who was Damon. He would hurt her. It might not be today or even tomorrow, but sooner or later, he would hurt her. Damon wasn’t the type of man who would stay with just one woman. No doubt, the newness would eventually wear off, and I would be there when it did to make him pay for his arrogance. This man, who thought he could have any woman he wanted and then toss them away like trash, needed to be taught a lesson, and I was just the person to do it.
    I was going to make him pay for every woman he’d scorned, every account he’d stolen, and every cover he’d wrenched from a model’s hopeful hands. I’ve seen him break hearts and shatter dreams like they were nothing. The pompous bastard needed to recompense for his sins of the past, and I was going to be the one making him pay.
    I wasn’t just obsessed with her; I was just as obsessed with him. With her, it was a need to protect, but with him, it was a deep-seated hatred for everything he stood for. There was nothing I despised more than Damon D’Angelo. Unfortunately, as badly as I didn’t want her getting in my line of fire, if taking her out would hurt him—and I knew it would—then I was prepared to do that. The military had a perfect name for it. She was just another casualty of war . Sometimes, innocent people have to suffer for the greater good. Skye could very well find herself in that position before it was all said and done. Now that I’ve come to have feelings for her, I would try to accomplish my mission without affecting her, but I couldn’t guarantee that would be the outcome. Fate always had an odd way of intervening. It brought her into my life, and in its cruel and twisted way, fate could just as easily take her away.



Chapter Nineteen
    Damon
    As badly as I wanted to lay the blame for the danger Skye was in solely at the crazed stalker’s feet, I couldn’t help but shoulder some of the responsibility.
    In my arrogance, I’d done some pretty shitty things in the past. Though I was always honest about avoiding emotional connections, I should have been aware most women don’t just fuck without forming some kind of bond.
    It was true they were using me too, but now it might be that my past sexual escapades were putting the one woman I do love in danger. It seemed so unfair that Skye should be punished for things I did before I met her. I really believed that this stalker she was being forced to deal with was an enemy of mine, not hers. I couldn’t imagine anyone having that kind of vendetta against a woman who’d just made her debut on the modeling scene. Though models could be vindictive, most just didn’t have the resources to set up this elaborate of a deceptive ruse.
    How fucked up was it that the one time in my life I was willing to settle down with a woman, it was being sabotaged by some crazed stalker? I couldn’t count how many times I had tried to figure out who the perpetrator was. I was ashamed of the number of enemies I had, making it impossible to nail it down to just one. I felt like, because of the viciousness of the letters and packages being sent, that it had to be a woman. When it came to deception and vengeance, women far outmaneuvered men. However, I always came back to the same question. What woman did I know who had the means and resources to pull something off this calculated?
    Part of me was tempted to give Skye an out just to keep her safe. I could always offer her the option of going back to Haiti. I could still take her and her family under my wing from a distance.
    With all my responsibilities here in the states, there was no way I could go with her if she chose to go back though. Was I