Larger Than Life by Alison Kent (read the beginning after the end novel .txt) 📕

"Not really. Not until Candy. I'd forgotten so much until she reminded me." Neva sighed, held tight to his arms, losing herself in all that he offered, everything he made her feel. Safe and secure and protected, and above all else loved. "And I knew then what I had to do. Even if I only helped a few girls. I had to do what I could to get them out of situations that might escalate, and away from their abusers."

"You did a good thing."

She breathed deeply of the fresh air representing her freedom. "I wish I could do more."

She fell silent then and Mick followed suit, doing nothing but holding her. It was all that she wanted. All that she needed. Being here with him forever .. . And then she felt it. A shift in the wind. A murmur of discontent. He stopped rocking her. And he began to talk.

"I've killed men for doing less than abusing women, Neva. I've killed men because they knew something they weren't supposed to know. Because there was the possibility they might talk. Because they opened a door into a room and saw a handshake they shouldn't have seen."

She wasn't sure which of their pulses she felt thundering in her veins. "Do you do that now?"

He shook his head. "Only in self-defense. Or to save an innocent life. If I take a life, there's a reason bigger than being assigned the hit. I work for a man who rights wrongs. I stopped causing them when he took me in."

They stood quietly together for several minutes, her arms holding his where he'd stacked them around her waist. Her head rested on his shoulder. His chin rested on her cheek. She couldn't believe it was the dog bounding through the field in front of them who had brought this man into her life. What he had done was in the past. This was their future. She couldn't wait to wake up to him every morning.

"Did I tell you Liberty's going to be living here and working with Candy? At least until she gets things together enough to go to school."

She felt him shake his head. "Her parents agreed?"

"She gave them a choice. Either they let her leave or she would file for emancipation. There was no way she'd lose a case once we presented the facts of her case to a judge."

"At least a judge not in Holden Wagner's pocket."

"Oh, Mick. I can't believe Holden saved my life." Even now, knowing she was safe, fear boiled in her stomach like a cauldron. "He gave his life for me. I don't know which is harder to live with. That or knowing what Ed did, and why."

"You don't have to live with either of them." He continued to rock her, to soothe her. "None of what happened was your fault. Both men acted on their own."

"Logically, I know that. But having Ed turn on me . .. He was bright, intelligent. Hell, he was brilliant. Yet because I didn't love him, innocent girls died."

"No. Innocent girls died because he was a twisted man. You did your part. You helped the girls. You got them away. They knew the risks."

"They didn't know this risk."

"No one knew this one. No one could." He released her, turned her around, cupped her face in his hands. "Listen to me, Neva. You can't protect anyone from a danger you don't see coming. Life just doesn't work that way."

His eyes were beautiful, a soft dove gray. "And to think I didn't see you coming at all. Yet every time I turn around and need you, you're here."

"I love you. I'm supposed to be here."

She shook her head even as her heart blossomed. "No one comes to Pit Stop unless they're running away from something or have nowhere else to go. Which is it with you?"

"That one's easy," he said, and smiled. "I'm running toward the only place I want to be."

They spent the night upstairs in her bed instead of in the first-floor guest room, because this time he wasn't a guest. He was her lover, her love. He was the man she wanted to walk at her side as she went through the rest of her life.

She'd thought it would be strange to bring him here, to show him as they climbed the stairs which ones creaked and would give him away should he try to sneak up and surprise her. She'd also showed him where she kept her big bad Dirty Harry Colt .45 just in case he did. He'd laughed and added a Browning and a Ruger to her collection, keeping the SIG for himself.

Once she'd promised she felt safer with him than she had at any time in her life—a feeling that had very little to do with their arsenal and everything to do with their love— he'd undressed her and taken a slow journey over her body, tender as he explored the skin he uncovered, erotic as he left her wet and wanting more.

He barely fit in her bed. Her full-size didn't have the length of the guest room's queen. She liked the cozy dimensions when sleeping alone. He told her she wouldn't be sleeping alone again anytime in the near future, and the beds would be switched out first thing. She'd smiled and nodded. It was hard to argue with a pirate.

And then he'd told her the story of his tattoo. Of a woman in Barbados who'd wanted his babies as payment. He'd told her no can do and given her cash. She'd laughed at the idea of him being a father. But only until she'd sobered and thought about being a mother to his child.

They had time for that. Weeks, months, years. Right now was all about each other. Learning and loving. Sharing truths and trust. He wanted to take her to Manhattan, he said, sliding a palm over her belly, his fingers stroking the line of her softly trimmed hair. He wanted