Prologue

The pre-dawn sunlight peeks through the window, and faintly, I can hear the train rolling through town though the tracks are miles away.

I sit on the edge of the bed, my mind whirling and my back to the cause of my breakdown.

Will you, or won’t you?

It’s not that simple, though. When I’d accepted this job, I hadn’t known the possibilities, couldn’t have anticipated what was going to happen.

I hadn’t planned on her beauty, her full lips puffed out as she softly snores, her head turned sideways on the pillow and her face so innocent.

I hadn’t planned on the way her hair spreads out on the pillow, rich chocolate waves that, even in her sleep, flow around her like a messy halo. I curl my hand to stop myself from reaching out to stroke them, feel their silken threads against my rough palm.

Looking over my shoulder, I watch her, hating that I’ve been forced from the warm paradise of her embrace by nightmares of who I am, of what I’ve done. Of what I’m supposed to do.

I’m chased by the monster I’ve become.

If you’re a monster, then why not be a monster? Why not do what you were hired to do? You’ve done it so easily before, time after time.

But I’m not sure if I can do it any longer.

I can’t help myself as I slowly peel the sheet back so as not to disturb her. I need to see her, need to commit every curve and angle to memory. Because one way or another, I will lose her. I know that already.

She’s an angel. A sleeping beauty whose glamour pulls me toward her, regardless of the dangers she represents.

Then why are you continuing to stay here? Why not just walk away?

Because I know if I walk away, then someone else will do the job, and I can’t let that happen.

Unable to wait any longer, I reach out to see if she’s real or just a hallucination caused by my own tortured conscience finally snapping.

She doesn’t stir as I run my fingertips over her shoulders, brushing a stray lock of hair away from her cheek and allowing me to see the graceful swan-like curve of her neck.

My fingers keep going, tracing the light knobs of her spine as I descend, my own arousal growing with every inch of flawless skin I touch.

Somehow, despite all the years of hard work and struggle she’s faced, her skin’s still silky soft and flawless.

It’s lightly tanned just enough to tease at the naughty side of my mind because I want to trace those tan lines with my tongue, revel in being the only one to see the natural creamy paleness of her breasts and ass.

I find the tiny dimples at the base of her spine and the tattoo she’s got there. She calls it her tramp stamp, but she couldn’t be anything further from that.

She has this daintiness and dignity that can only come from a well of great inner strength. A strength I admire, a well I wish I could tap into to find some fortitude of my own.

I leave the sheet over her hip, tracing back up her body as my cock rages in my boxers, but she doesn’t move, doesn’t stir as I feast on her curves with my touch, holding back on my desire to roughly take her.

That’s the other side of me. The ugly side that wants to be purged, to violate her purity with my darkness.

To do your damn job.

But despite my nature, I want to treat her the way she deserves to be treated, like a queen.

Perhaps that alone shows that this ugliness is not my nature, but rather a depravity I’ve nurtured and let bloom inside my soul.

But this is no pretty flower, more like a weed that refuses to die and instead grows mightier each day, changing me, weighing me down, and strangling any attempts I might make to be better or do differently.

She hums, and a small smile forms on the pink bow of her lips. “Lower.”

She doesn’t open her eyes as my hand strokes lower, pulling away to slide under the sheet by her ankles and run up the outside of her legs. I find the swell of her hip, and she sighs softly, a breeze on the air that tells me that she’s enjoying this.

I run my fingers inward and am rewarded by the warmth of her cleft, already wet and waiting for me. “Were you having a good dream?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she whispers, gasping lightly as I slide a finger into her. Warm, slick velvet envelops me, and I slide deep inside her, pulling out just enough to find the nubby ridge of her inner spot and massage it.

She loves it, lifting herself and arching her back, all the while keeping her eyes closed as she playfully pretends to still just be waking up.

That stops, though, when my thumb finds her clit and her dark brown eyes fly open, already alight with arousal as she gasps.

“Oh, my God.”

“Shh... just let me,” I whisper, my fingers and thumb rubbing all the right places inside her.

But she can’t seem to stay quiet now. “Yes... oh, fuck, yes. Right there, Gabe,” she says.

She’s moaning my name over and over, her hips pushing back to meet my plunging fingers as I fill her deeper and deeper.

“Do you want to come?” I ask, and she shakes her head.

She knows what she wants, and she lies flat on the bed, arching her back to lift her ass tantalizingly in the air, trusting me to give it to her.

But I don’t deserve it, even if she does trust me. I shouldn’t be this attached to her.

Somehow, in the weird alchemy of the universe, I’ve found the one I’m meant to protect and keep safe for the rest of her life.

But how am I supposed to protect her... when I’m the one who was hired to kill her?

The question floats away as I hover over her, holding my weight off her. Lining up my rock-hard cock with her slit, I push into her, slow and easy.

Letting her heat envelop me.

Letting her honey anoint me.

Letting her pussy absolve me.

But I can’t be saved, not even by her. As she clenches around me, I wonder if the reverse is true. Can I save her, even from myself?