Speak No Evil_ A Novel - Allison Brennan [131]
She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a loud, wet kiss on the mouth. “Redecorate to your heart’s content,” she said. “Except the bedroom.”
“You mean I have to sleep on pink sheets for the rest of my life?” He looked to the ceiling as if weighing his choices.
She gave a loud, exaggerated sigh. “I might concede on the sheets, but the pillows stay.”
He kissed her and said, “Deal.”
She smiled, relieved and happier than she had ever imagined. There had been that tickle of fear that she’d come here and he’d tell her to take a hike.
“I’ll take my house off the market.”
Nick sobered up, stared at her in disbelief. “You were going to move here? Seriously?”
She nodded, touched his cheeks with her thumbs. “I couldn’t let you walk out of my life. I gave two weeks’ notice this morning as well.”
“You can call your boss, right? Get your job back?”
“Yes.”
“Eight months, two states isn’t going to be easy.”
“Nothing worth having is easily attained.”
Nick kissed her again, then Carina watched as he slid the engagement ring onto her finger. She was not a weepy woman, but she felt tears in her eyes and squeezed them away.
“I love you, Nick Thomas.”
“Let’s go back to my place, Detective Kincaid. So I can show you how much I love you.”
She glanced at his knees and winked. “Are you sure you’re up for it?”
“Let’s go and find out.”
Also by Allison Brennan
The Prey
The Hunt
The Kill
Praise for Allison Brennan
“New arrival Brennan wastes no time proving she’s a talent to be reckoned with.”
—Romantic Times Book Club
“Brennan does murder better than almost everyone writing in the suspense genre.”
—Armchair Interviews
Read on for a special sneak peak at
SEE NO
EVIL
the next chilling book in the Evil Series by Allison Brennan
ONE
HOW WOULD YOU KILL HIM ?
I don’t know.
Think about it. He hurt you. He made you touch him. He humiliated you. You must want him to pay.
Yeah, but . . .
You would never really kill him. I know that. But you need to get over your anger, release the rage. The only way to be free of him is to picture him without any power over you. Visualize the one person you hate the most in the world dead. Can you?
Yes.
What does he look like?
He’s sitting at his desk.
And you walk in . . . what does he say to you?
“Come here. Kneel. Now.”
What do you do?
I go. I have no choice. They’ll send me away . . . I’ve lived on the streets. I’ve been to juvie. It’s worse than sucking his dick.
Picture yourself walking toward the desk. This time, you’re going to say no. This time, you’re going to pay him back for touching you. For making you touch him. How?
I want him to know exactly what it feels like.
And?
I want to cut his dick off and shove it down his throat. Let him suck on it.
Good. Very good. Picture him choking on his penis whenever you get angry or upset. That’s the first step to getting rid of the rage, the anger. To be able to heal and become normal.
I’ll never be normal.
Emily Chandler Montgomery would never be normal.
She sat in her idling Volkswagen bug and stared at the looming house in front of her. She didn’t even want to pull into the garage, as if it would swallow her and she’d never escape. She hated coming home.
Home. What a joke. She had no home. It had disappeared when her father died. All she had was a house of many rooms, none of which welcomed her, except for her tiny sanctuary upstairs.
But where else could she go? She’d run away, and that hadn’t worked. Living on the streets was impossible, especially for a pampered, spoiled rich kid like her.
At least that’s what her shrink had told her.
And in many ways—most ways—it was true. She didn’t want to live on the streets and sell her body. Because out there these were her choices: whore or gutter rat. Emily liked her bedroom, her spa, the Olympic-size swimming pool where she could swim laps until her arms ached and her lungs gasped for air. The clothes, the food, the roof.
If only Victor were gone, she