Page 64 of Coast

There was a sinking sensation in my stomach at the darkness in his voice, in the faraway look in his eyes.

“Are these people you’ve put in the hospital?” I asked, knowing. I already knew the answer.

“People I’ve put in the ground.”

He folded up and moved away, making me face-plant into the mattress before I could catch myself.

He whipped on his shirt and stabbed his feet into his shoes before making his way to the door.

“Coast,” I called, making him freeze, his hand on the knob.

“Yeah?”

“I’m still not afraid of you.”

His dark gaze flicked to mine.

“Then you need to be more careful. If not for yourself, then for Lil’ Bit,” he said, nodding toward the crib.

With that, he was gone.

The sound of the door closing made a crack move across my heart.

As if having a similar pang, Lainey whimpered in her crib.

I climbed off the bed, slipping into my panties and the top, but not bothering with the buttons before scooping up my baby.

“I know,” I said, looking down at her outraged face. “He’s a bad guy,” I told her. “But I think he might be a really, really good man.”

But he was gone.

And the two of us were just going to have to accept that.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Coast

That post-nut clarity was crystal-fucking-clear in that bed with Zoe, with Lil’ Bit in her playard just a few feet away, sleeping peacefully. Because she had no idea there was a killer in her home.

I’d tried like hell to stay away.

Short of having one of the guys lock me in the stupid-ass, constantly water-filled basement (likely built by some out-of-state builders who didn’t know jack-shit about the water table) with the goddamn water bugs the size of my thumb, there was no way to keep my ass at the club where it belonged.

Not with the memory of Zoe in that tub rolling around in my mind.

The shape of her body under the water.

Her soft sighs as I explored her.

The way her pussy clenched around my fingers as they fucked her.

It was too fucking much.

And I’d never been any good at denying myself the shit I wanted.

Life was too fucking short to miss out on things.

Somehow I knew that not taking the opportunity to be with Zoe would be the biggest mistake of my dumbass life.

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