Page 59 of Reluctantly His

Without warning, my arm snapped out as I grabbed his throat.

My fingers squeezed as I lifted him up against the wall until his feet were dangling in the air, kicking. “It’s all part of your fight-or-flight response, and you have no idea how badly I want you to be stupid enough to fight.”

I barely registered his feet hitting my shins. His pale face pinkened as his thin lips turned blue. A high-pitched shriek pierced the room as he called out, “Help! Help me! He’s going to kill me!”

He had struck Charlotte. My Charlotte.

While I wasn’t stupid enough to kill the man, I would make sure he left this room on a fucking stretcher. He needed to know how it felt to have someone bigger than him, stronger than him, hit him in the face.

I savored the fear in his eyes as I lifted my hand and pulled it back slowly.

I hadn’t even hit him yet, and he was crying, his fingers trying in vain to pry my other hand from his throat as he stared at the fist I had cocked back. “Not the face! Not the face!”

Jesus Christ, what a piece of shit.

My fist slammed into his face with punishing force.

His cry of fear turned into a scream of shock and pain.

The blood spraying from his nose to stain his crisp white, way-overpriced shirt was satisfying, but not enough.

I didn’t give him a moment to recover. I didn’t even leave enough time for the pain to fully register before I hit him again with the same intensity in the exact same place.

Each hit was more and more satisfying, but it was still not enough.

He’d dared to touch Charlotte, my princess.

I didn’t give a fuck what her father had planned… she was mine.

If Lucian Manwarring thought his family had connections, he hadn’t met mine yet.

I’d go toe-to-toe with him any day, even if it meant reconnecting with my own, estranged father. Charlotte was worth it.

Romney wasn’t good enough for her. No mortal man would be, not even me.

But at least I was willing to spend my life fighting to deserve her.

Unlike this bastard, who seemed to think he deserved her simply because of his title.

How could he?

This flaccid little runt couldn’t take care of her. He couldn’t even take care of himself.

This was the man her father thought could protect Charlotte against the Irish mob?

The more I thought about it, the harder I punched over and over, hitting his face, then moving down to work his body, hitting his kidneys a few times hard enough that I was sure he would be pissing blood for the foreseeable future.

“Reid,” a soft voice started to cut through my haze of rage.

I kept punching even after he went limp in my arms and stopped making the piggish squealing sounds.

“Reid,” the voice came again. “Reid, please.”

The second her delicate, perfect little hand landed on my shoulder, the fog of rage lifted, and my tunnel vision vanished, allowing me to drop the useless man at my feet.

He made a vague gurgling sound that told me he wasn’t dead.

It was really a shame.

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