Read Online Safe at Last (Slow Burn #3) by Maya Banks - Free Book Online Page A

devastatingly handsome Zack Covington. If anything, he was more handsome. Gone was the boyish charm and easy smile and in its stead was a much harder looking man, one that appeared as damaged as she was herself.
    She’d thought she’d felt pain over the years. Grief. Regret. She didn’t think it could get any worse than what she’d already been dealt.
    She was wrong.
    Because never in that time had she faced Zack. Never since that night. No amount of imagining or mental preparation could have possibly prepared her for the reality of seeing him, when she’d made certain they would never again cross paths. Apparently fate wasn’t on her side. Also apparent was that fate evidently didn’t think she’d already suffered enough heartbreak for a lifetime.
    Wade turned, sliding his arms around her in a comforting gesture. He gathered her to him tightly, hugging and soothing her with a low-pitched voice.
    “He’s gone now, Anna-Grace. He can’t hurt you. I won’t let him hurt you ever again.”
    His words seared through the chaotic tumble of her thoughts and through the numb that had settled over her body, paralyzing her. She shoved away from Wade sharply, catching her footing when she would have fallen again.
    “I have to go,” she babbled, searching desperately for an escape route.
    She couldn’t go out the front. What if he was out there waiting for her? What if he followed her? What if he found out where she lived? What if he already knew?
    Oh God, he had to know where she was. How hard could it really be to find her despite the lengths she’d gone to over the years to ensure her privacy and make it so no one would ever discover her?
    “I have to get out of here, Wade,” she said, hysteria rising in her voice. “Please, you have to help me. I have to go now . But where? I have to think of someplace he can’t find me. I can never come back here. I have to leave. I have to go. Tonight. Before he shows up at my apartment!”
    She knew she was making no sense. She didn’t care. She also knew that she was allowing irrational fear to override all else. But her sense of self-preservation had firmly taken over and she was content to let it do its thing. She hadn’t survived this long by ignoring it.
    Wade’s hands slid up her arms and gently but firmly grasped her shoulders, holding her, forcing her to look at him. His expression was hard and anger glittered in his dark eyes. He wore that dangerous look that would scare the holy hell out of anyone else, but she’d learned that despite it, despite his appearance and the fact that there were things about him she didn’t know—preferred not to know—that he was no threat to her.
    “Anna-Grace, look at me,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.
    Her eyelids fluttered and she lifted her gaze to meet his, desperately trying to keep the mind-numbing terror at bay.
    He framed her face in his hands and gently stroked his thumb over her bottom lip.
    “You will not allow him to control your life any longer,” he said, soft reprimand in his voice. “You’ve allowed him too much control for too long. That’s over with. He can’t hurt you now. I swear to you, I’ll never let him hurt you. Do you trust me?”
    She bit into her lip, because God, that wasn’t an easy question for someone like her. Someone who trusted no one. Who had no reason to trust anyone. And yet she’d already admitted that she did trust Wade. They’d established that point. One he was calling her on again. But before they’d been just words. Now they meant something.
    She reluctantly nodded and he relaxed the slightest bit, almost as if he were afraid she’d deny it and run from him just as she’d run from everything else in her life for the last twelve years.
    “You are not that frightened young girl any longer,” Wade said gently. “You’re strong. You’ve built a life for yourself. A career. A very promising career. You’re talented. Far more talented than many of the big