Page 43 of Devil Inside: Green

“What?”

“Danni—pull the fuck over. Now.”

I click on the blinker, easing over to the shoulder of the highway, and throw the car into park. “What?” I ask.

He unbuckles my seatbelt and lifts me over the center console like I weigh nothing to have me straddle his lap. Green cups my face with his hands and the intensity with the way he stares at me sends my heart racing. He tilts his head, leaning in until he presses his soft, warm lips to mine.

The kiss goes on forever, neither of us willing to be the one to end it. My entire body vibrates from his delicate touches. Finally, with his lips still pressed to mine, he says, “I love you, Danni.” And I suck in a sharp breath. “Never said that to a woman before. Not even Del.”

Holy shit!I’ve been in emotional agony thinking that I’d screwed up by telling him I loved him in the first place—been bracing for the moment he tells me it’s overall while trying to play it cool in hopes of preventing the time clock of our relationship from hitting zero. And he loves me back?Me?

“That’s it…” I whisper. “We need to end this now. I want to use myself as a decoy.” I try to press another kiss to his lips, drunk as I am off the taste of him, but he pushes me back, eyes narrowed.

“You what?”

“We need to end this. I want to draw him out. We go over where he just hit and see if we can’t predict where he’ll strike next. Then, I make myself available using whatever sin is next up.”

“Did you not just hear me?”

“I heard you.”

“You’re the first fucking woman I’ve ever told I love and you think I’m dangling you in front of a psychopath?”

“It’s a good plan.”

“It’s a shit plan—woman, didn’t you see what he did to your mom? What he did to Dela and Rae. I’ll die before I let him near you.”

“And meanwhile, all these other women keep dying and we’re no closer to avenging Dela or my mom. That works for you?”

“If it means keeping you safe, then yeah.”

I feel like he’s socked me in the gut. It’s stupid—I know I should feel elated that he wants to keep me safe, but the whole reason we started this was to get that man off the streets. Dela and my mom need justice. Green and I don’t have a future if he tries to renege on our agreement.

Holding back tears, I climb off his lap to move back over to the driver’s seat. “We need to get back to Middlesboro. There’s not enough time until you have to check in again for us to get to Florida. We’ll go after.”

“Danni—”

It might make me a bitch, but I turn up the radio to drown out whatever he might think to say. The rest of the trip back to Kentucky—or home now, I guess—is uncomfortable, to say the least. We don’t speak. I stop for gas, which he pays for. I pop into the convenience store to grab a burger, chips, and a drink for the both of us, which he pays for, and then we keep driving.

Despite it being summer, the stars are shining bright in the nighttime sky by the time we make it back. I was going to drive us to Middlesboro, but the first words he’s spoken to me in hours, he directs me to take the turn to Bentley. I do, figuring that he wants me to drop him off at the clubhouse.

Even though he’s not a prospect, the brothers have the young guy named Waite on the gate when I pull up. He’s maybe eighteen or nineteen if I had to guess, but ridiculously handsome. He knows it too, exuding that young buck swagger as he throws me a panty-dropping smile. He doesn’t even have to try. The ladies will love him around here. All that thick, dark hair to play with and he has that sort of Mediterranean look about him with the the olive skin and brown eyes. If I wasn’t so in love with the jerkface sitting next to me, I’d have taken him up on that smile. He looks like he could show a girl a good time.

“Hey, Danni.” He tips his chin at me and winks. Then he turns to the jerkface. “Green.”

“Why you on the gate?”

“Rough put me here. Says even if Vlad’s reluctant, I still need to start proving myself. I agreed.”

He opens the gate for us. I smile back at him as I drive through, pulling around the bikes and trucks parked to drop Green off at the door.

“Park,” he orders.

“I’m tired, Green. I want to go get myself a room. Maybe take a bubble bath.”

“Then park. We have a nice tub in our room.”

“Ourroom?”

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