The Laughing Assassin [Assassin's Diary] (Siren Publishing Classic) (30 page)

“My bad. It seems like that would have been a question to ask before you stepped foot in here. But, come on in.” She chuckled as he looked around and realized that he had already entered the suite. The sole liberty he hadn’t taken was to shut the door, and when he noticed it was still open wide, he flung the wood hard enough to catch the latch.

“Don’t back away from me now.” His voice was somewhat menacing. The tone almost frightened her. For Jaden that was nearly an impossible feat. It had been too many years to count since she had been afraid of another person. There had been too many years since she had met an adversary she wasn’t sure that she could beat.

“I’m not…”

“Yes, you were. But I think we’ve both had enough of that already. I know I have.” He smirked. “Consider yourself lucky if you get to go to the bathroom alone.”

“You think you’re man enough to hold me hostage,” she asked jokingly.

“That isn’t the question.”

“Then what is?”

He walked forward the gleam in his eyes was territorial and darkly possessive, two things that Jaden had never seen in relation to her before. She felt strangely nervous, and she found her back to the wall opposite the door, and she had nowhere else to go. He continued forward, and she could feel the space between them shrink as if the very air around them was chased away by his presence.

“Actually, I’m not even asking, and there lies the rub.” He dropped to one knee, mere inches from her, and pulled a ring she hadn’t seen from the tip of his finger. Jaden had no idea that it was even there. That was enough to let her know she was shaken as the ring was on the hand that held the phone, and she should have seen that first. He took her left hand, and the fingers that clasped hers were shaky. The quiver made her even more nervous, as anything that would make Jonah shiver was definitely worth a sense of trepidation.

He looked up at her and slid the tiny band onto her finger. She stunned more so than anything, despite the fact that she had heard his intentions a week ago.

“So, Jaden Bishop, what date do you want to get married?”

“You really aren’t going to ask me?”

“It doesn’t matter what you say, Jaden. I know you love me. The way I’m looking at it, you may as well give in.” His face was one of triumph, and she knew that he had her, no matter what she initially thought.

“Fine, Jonah. How about next June?” She liked the idea of a summer wedding. And it would give her the time to get used to being a wife if she couldn’t talk him out of this madness.

“That’s too far away. Try again.”

“Maybe March?” That seemed like nowhere near long enough, but at least she would have enough time to try and change his mind. She had no problem living in sin for a while.

“Nope.” He scratched his head. “Since you seem to have an issue making a decision, how about next week?”

“Jonah, that’s not going to work. It takes much more than a week to plan a wedding!”

“Fine, you can have a month, but that’s as long as I can wait.”

“Jonah!”

“It’s your own fault, Jaden. You couldn’t come up with something reasonable, and now I get to call the shots. Come here.” He stood with open arms. She leaned into his firm chest and wrapped her arms around him.

And she finally looked over at the ring he’d placed on her hand.

The solitary stone was huge, and not a diamond. Instead she saw the perfect glint of an emerald. The stone was huge and unwieldy. The only bonuses to the ostentatious rock were that she could fuck up a couple of faces with one punch, maybe even put an eye or two out, and the fact that she could certainly keep her skills on point when bad guys tried to mug her for the diamond-paved, platinum band.

“I don’t have time to plan a wedding, Jonah. Especially one so close.”

“The only reason for a long engagement is lack of money, or for some mitigating factor. Since I don’t see you hankering to be wed on Valentine’s Day and neither of us hurt for money, the delay is not needed.”

“Maybe I need the time.”

“All you would do with more time is find another way to delay the wedding.”

True. But that didn’t mean that she should be rushed into her nuptials either.

“B–but…”

“Yeah? B–b–but what, Jaden?” His tone deliberately seemed to mock her stutter, and she had the urge to smack him upside the back of his head. Like Gibbs in NCIS. The thought made her laugh, almost uncontrollably.

She looked at him. He seemed far from amused, and she laughed even harder.

“So you think this is funny? A man bares his soul to you, and what do I get for the trouble? Laughter?”

“Well…it’s not my fault. You come in here waving around rings worth enough to fund a small country, and you expect to get your way without a fight. Spoiled ass.”

“Spoiled, huh?” He unbuckled the Italian leather belt at his hips and whipped the length from his belt loops. “Let me show you what spoiled looks like then.”

Jaden couldn’t stop herself from jerking like a skittish horse when he cracked the folded belt loudly. He dropped the leather strap with a smug grin and unfastened his pants. There was never a zipper in human history as noisy as the one Jonah tugged down. Jaden could hear the whisper of each tooth as the metal scraped metal. His shirt was next, and Jaden watched as her mouth watered at the sight of him. He still had a bandage on his arm, yet another scar to add to the collection he already had. When the wound healed, it would be another mark to highlight his raw masculinity.

Even as she watched him hungrily, Jaden knew she was lucky that she could fight. There would be many a disappointed woman itching to get in her face. She licked her lips and thought about how good he would feel inside of her. Jaden tugged the woven cotton holding her robe closed and allowed the heavy fabric to fall behind her with a soft swoosh, then a thud when she was bared of the entire garment.

“Jaden, how could you run from this? From us?” he asked her, but his gaze was so intense on her flesh that she was unsure if the query was rhetorical.

“It’s a long story.”

“I have nothing but time to hear it.”

“I’ve never been able to believe that people will stay with me. Everyone that I love dies, Jonah. It was hard enough to do this with you…” She stilled and didn’t even breathe for a long moment. “Fall in love with you.”

He sucked a deep breath as she told him everything. There was no stone left unturned as she told him the truth about who she really was.

Jonah didn’t seem surprised. He didn’t blink an eye as he heard about her father and mother’s passing. He just listened at first, and as her voice broke when she described the visage of her mother’s body, he prodded her to lie next to him in bed. He still remained silent, but he gave her his strength to tell him all of it with his embrace as he cradled her. “I was so afraid of caring about another person that I had to make myself help Kris. But even it took a year for her to worm her way in totally. For me to admit that I loved her. And here you are, able to break my walls down within six months.”

“Not quite six months.” His face was a study in smugness. “I have waited forever to hear you say that.”

She knew he had wanted to hear the words from her mouth, and yet, she selfishly held that from him, too. As if keeping the love she felt quiet would make the hurt less, later on when he was no longer around.

“I know, Jonah. I do love you. With everything I have. When I thought that you were dead, that everything I had done was for nothing? It was as if every misgiving that I had ever had was made valid. As if I had gotten the one thing I’d prayed never to get. Because I couldn’t handle losing that much.”

“I know. But we all stand the risk of loss, Jaden. There are no guarantees in life. But I will love you forever, whether I have you or not. So being the logical man that I am”—he chuckled—“I may as well spend whatever time I have on Earth with the one woman who makes my heart beat faster.”

“Stop it, you’re making me blush.”

He chuckled. “Not yet, but give me a few minutes.”

It only took him two.

* * * *

When Jaden left, Jonah was irritated, but he had never imagined that the spirited woman running away would make his cock hard. Every time he thought about it, he rose to the occasion. Jonah had never spent so much time rubbing his cock as he had the week Jaden was gone. And most of the team had the good sense to not even say Jaden’s name after her disappearance became common knowledge.

All but his resident crazy lady. Anatta seemed to take pleasure in pouring salt in his wounds when she blamed him for Jaden’s departure.

Not even two days after Jaden left, Anatta was on his back.

“She left you, huh? Makes me curious as to what a virile man like you could have done to run her away. Is it because you like that freaky shit Stein likes?”

But he could tell that Anatta wanted him to go after her. That Jaden had earned her respect and admiration. Whether or not Jonah liked it, he had to wait. The rescue mission to locate Jewel was paramount. He finally found out the identity of her purchaser, and he sent Stein to recover the “Crown Jewel” from the person foolish enough to buy her. Stein knew Jonah was in bad shape when he allowed the other man to make the plan without his input.

“You need to get Jewel. The sooner, the better. And you’re on the clock, no more than a week from yesterday.”

“I can do that. Who’s my partner?”

“You choose.” Stein’s eyebrow went up, but the man said nothing to the contrary.

“All right then, what’s the plan?”

“Your choice, you’re heading this one. I have to locate the rest of the sold women.”

He knew where Jaden was the night she left him. Or rather, he knew where she was headed. It took a moment, but he pulled down several books and flipped the pages. But none of those were the book he sought. There were hundreds of books that spanned the shelves, and he had read all of them personally at one time or another.

Which one would catch her eye?

It was then he noticed the spine of one book protruded past the others on the highest shelf nearby and walked over.

It was a thin bound volume of Shakespeare, complete with illustrations. The book was worth at least a thousand, but not much more than that, as the reproduction was turn of the century and just under a hundred years old.

When he tugged the book away he noticed the title.
The Merchant of Venice
. He would bet his entire fortune that was where she was headed. It took him two days before he could get everything settled enough to leave. He didn’t know where she was staying. His woman had decided to make his search a bit more difficult when she opted to use a third faux identity to book her stay in the country.

But black women were well appreciated in Italy, so he was easily able to find several people who had seen a woman matching her description. There were more men than not that described her to him as he wandered the floating city. He finally found her earlier that day as he saw her hail a gondola for a ride from the dock at beside a canal side hotel.

She must have gone into a market, as when she returned there were several bags with her. He watched as the gondolier refused to let her carry her own parcels, and she made several denials before she relented. The male carried the bags into the lobby to Jonah’s ire. But he was satisfied when the man crossed over the threshold Jaden refused to allow him to carry her belongings any further.

Good
.

Jaden was his woman, and every Italian man on Earth could try her, but they would have her over his dead body.

She was his, and once she was back inside her own room, he contacted his hotel to have his luggage brought over by messenger. Anything of value was already on his person. The concierge at the hotel seemed perturbed at the fact he was cutting his stay short, but he hadn’t planned on being there but another day or so anyway. Jonah had to reassure the man that everything was fine with his stay and that there were no complaints about the quality of his room or services provided.

Then he went upstairs, and he heard the water run through the pipes even from where he was in the hallway. He called the room and waited for Jaden to answer. When her voice confirmed that he was in front of the right door, he slipped the ring onto his middle finger and knocked.

Jaden seemed…happy to see him, albeit surprised. He knew she assumed it would take him much longer than it had. She had forgotten who she was dealing with. He was no mere boy masquerading as a man. He was the real deal, and she was about to find that out. Again.

He had the entire proposal planned out, down to what he was going to say. He initially wanted to propose to her on the gondola. But when he heard her voice, Jonah no longer found that he had the patience to wait even long enough for that to have concrete proof that she was his.

But when he knelt at her feet, all of his practiced speech flew from his head, and his hands shook. There was a part of him that knew that she wasn’t the marrying kind. But he hoped that if she loved as much as he was certain she did that she would be willing to take the risk of matrimony with him.

She was one of a kind, and like a wild lioness, she would take care of the man in her life, but she was still untamed and half-wild even with the domestication.