Six Guns: Volume Two by Sara V. Zook Page A

making me lose more sleep.” He frowned and pulled me in tight against his chest. I could feel his heart beating madly, matching my own crazy rhythm. My hands were pressed against him. I buried my nose in his bare skin, sucking in a breath as I breathed in the scent of him. “Am I monster to you now? Because believe me when I say everyone else is starting to see me as creature hiding under their bed at night. And if they don’t see me as that, I intend to push on until I’m the epitome of their deepest, darkest fears.”
    “Why would you say something like that?” My face was still buried in his chest, tears now streaming down my cheeks as I continued to listen to the madness pouring from his mouth.
    His hands slid up my back, his warm skin burning through the thin fabric of my silk shirt. “It’s the only way to survive. If they don’t fear you, they’ll kill you.”
    I wiped my nose with the back of my hand.
    “I want to be with you, Lilah. I want to love you. I’m just not sure if I can do all that right now until all this other stuff has worked itself out.” He lifted the bottom of my chin with his fingers, forcing me to look up into those eyes again. The wild flames that had been dancing in them moments earlier seemed to have dulled back down. “The way I see it, we both have things to do. I have Carmine’s business to tend to, you have your clothing store. Distractions to get us through. I still want to be with you, Lilah. I want to come home from my distractions and use you as another kind of distraction. I need you, but I want you to be here with me out of your own free will. I trust you or I wouldn’t have told you those things, but I don’t want to come home and see fear in your eyes after dealing with it all day. I want to hear you say it, Lilah. Say what you’re thinking about me. I need to know.”
    I closed my eyes as more tears escaped from them. I wasn’t sure if I could tell him the truth. He didn’t want me to be afraid of him, but I thought—no, I knew—that a part of me really did feel a certain unease around him. Everything had changed. I’d leaned against him for security after Mark. He’d taken me in and given me so much, more than I could’ve ever dreamed including the finances to build my boutique. But now I knew that my life was going to be built with dirty money. And head of the mob? How could I contend with that? “Is my life going to be in danger?”
    “I’m going to protect you,” he promised, his voice now soft and full of a smoldering heat that I felt through the very core of me. “I don’t want you to worry about those things. Part of becoming a demon is that those around me, those I love, will be included in an untouchable circle. If that circle is touched, they know I’ll destroy them.”
    “The way you’re talking, Nicky—a monster…a demon…”
    He nodded then, his chin digging into the top of my head as he rested it against me. “How others view me, remember? Not how I want you to view me. You still haven’t told me. I’m waiting to hear it, Lilah.”
    “I’m scared, Nicky,” I whispered against his skin. “But not of you.” The words had left my mouth, the first lie I’d ever told Nicky Cain. “I’m more scared of not being with you. Without you, I don’t think I could breathe.” Though that was the truth. I did need Nicky in more ways than one. He was my savior. He helped me get my life back together when it was in the lowest possible depths.
    “Good girl.” He peered down at me. He wanted me—needed me. There was no mistaking that look. “I’m here now, Lilah. I’m here, and I’m yours.”
    I felt the wet spot from the water go through my shirt as Nicky laid me down against the bed. He crawled on top of me, his prey now in the position he wanted it, captured and helpless against him. I leaned up and pressed my lips to his, needing to feel the human side of Nicky Cain as he needed to feel me as a release against the torments that