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Gage breaks. His eyes lift to mine. “It’s already too far.”

My breath catches. “What?” My chest hurts so badly, I can barely force the next words out. “What do you want from me, Gage?”

He starts toward me. This time, I don’t tell him to stop. His hand closes around the wooden shaft. “Not gonna happen, Princess.” He levels me with his gaze.

I fight him for it. “Why?”

Twisting it free, he throws it so hard, it clatters against the opposite wall. I don’t flinch. I don’t blink. I meet him on this battlefield.

Before I can react, his arms are around me, and my back hits the wall. “Why?” I scream again.

“Because I damn well love you!”

Everything stops. Gage’s palms brace against the wall on either side of me. His soaked hair hangs over his forehead. His chest rises against mine while his eyes burn into me with absolutely nowhere left to hide. Unmasked. Unfiltered.

“Because you’re my Princess.” His palm strikes the wall beside my head. “And I fucking love—” Another slap. “Love—” Again. “Love you, Jubilee York.”

Silence crashes down harder than the thunder outside.

My father is dead. Gage killed him. Gage is a serial killer. I am a serial killer’s daughter. There is an underground room full of weapons and a trail of dead predators beneath the property where I have been sleeping.

And somehow, through all of it, one completely deranged thought claws its way to the top.

I grab the front of his wet shirt. “It’s about fucking time, you goddamn loose cannon.”

CHAPTER 26

Gage

I kiss her—hard.

All the pent-up hunger from the months we’ve been together, I pour it into this single kiss. Opening her mouth with mine. Lashing my tongue against hers. Demand and desire tangle in an unrivaled need for her. My dick throbs against her pelvis.

Jubilee answers with the same fury, fists twisted into my shirt, mouth bruising mine like she can’t decide whether she wants to punish me or crawl inside my skin.

“I killed your father,” I breathe against her.

She kisses me again.

“Jubilee.”

Another kiss. I catch her face between my hands. “Tell me to stop. Tell me to fucking stop.”

“No.”

Her hands seize the bottom of my soaked shirt and pull it upward. I let her drag it over my head before I throw it somewhere behind me.

“I’m so angry at you,” she says, kissing me between the words. “I’m messed up. I’m fucked up. I killed a man. You were there. Apparently I’m the daughter of a serial killer, and right now I don’t fucking care.”

“I won’t hate-fuck you, Princess.”

She makes an infuriated sound through clenched teeth. “I don’t hate you. I’m fucking furious with you.”

I stop—just enough. Her wet hair clings to her cheeks, tears still bright in her eyes. “Jubilee.”

“I know you, Gage.” Her hands stay on me, fingertips skidding across my chest muscles. My cock jerks at the action. “I know how you treat me. How you treat your family. I know who you hunt. And I know you didn’t kill Jacob York because he was my father. You killed Jacob Ricketts before you even knew I existed.”

Fuck.