Page 87 of Monster

“Open.”

She looked at the food before returning her eyes to me. I waited for her to refuse, and fuck me, but I could think of some things I could do to help persuade her.

All of them would be so fuckingpleasurable.

I was almost disappointed when she opened her mouth and let me feed her.

I hummed in satisfaction, watching her chew, and took a bite myself.

“Weird fuck,” she muttered.

She grabbed onto my bicep when my chest shook from laughing, trying to keep her balance. She glared up at me once she was sure she wouldn’t fall off.

I fed her another bite of pasta and chicken.

I watched her chew her food, her thoughts running a million miles an hour behind her eyes as she looked at anywhere else but directly at me.

“Did you always want to be a criminal?” she asked bluntly, surprising the hell out of me.

I shook my head, trying to hide my amusement. “What makes you think I’m a criminal?”

She scoffed. “Please. You’re infamous in this city. The King’s Men’s club gets on the local news from time to time. Aren’t you scared the notoriety will catch up to you someday?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just a businessman.”

A very successful one, at that.

The look she shot me told me she didn’t believe me.

Good. She shouldn’t, and had she, I would have wondered just how innocent this girl was.

There wasn’t a person in California who didn’t know the kind of men the brothers of the King’s Men were.

They might not know the extent of our business dealings and with whom we did those dealings, but they probably guessed that owning local businesses was just a small portion of what I did.

“What if it does?”

“Then I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.”

She shook her head. I fed her another bite and took one for myself.

“You’re so arrogant,” she said once she swallowed the food.

“Don’t you find my arrogance charming, wildcat?” I asked, holding up the fork.

She looked at me as she took the chicken.

“No,” she said.

For a moment, I almost forgot what we were talking about.

I forked up some food for myself without saying anything.

We ate in silence for a moment before she broke it. “Don’t you ever want to have a normal life? Get married?”

I had only entertained the idea of marriage once, with Veronica, and that hadn’t been about love. It had been about ensuring my boys grew up in as much of a normal household as I could provide. It was fucking stupid because there was nothing normal or sane about my relationship with Veronica. And it wouldn’t have worked, not only because I didn’t love her, but because I didn’t fucking trust her either.

I wasn’t possessive with her.

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