Page 111 of Ruthless Savage

But she’ll always be in danger from one person or another for the rest of her life. I can’t let that stop me from being with her anymore. I won’t do it. I won’t give her up.

Patrick will have to understand what she means to me. I’ll make him understand.

She draws circles on my bare chest, peering up at me beneath a fan of thick dark lashes. And all I can do is smile down at her, my arm around her back, palm on that perfect arse. She’s in my shirt, but completely bare under it, just the way I want her.

“How did you know I was at the club?” she asks. “Did you follow me each time?”

“Aye. I’m always watching.”

She props herself on her elbow. “Oh my God, are you tracking Karen’s car?”

She’s smart. Of course she is.

I nod. “Been tracking her car since you started being friends with her. Think I was gonna let you drug me again and disappear?”

My palm wraps around her nape and I bring her lips to mine and kiss her once slowly, dragging my tongue around the seam of her mouth.

“I promise not to drug you again,” she husks with feminine laughter.

“That really doesn’t make me feel any better.” My chuckling feels foreign as I flip her beneath me and stare down at this beautiful creature who wants me.

It’s strange, you know, to have someone want you. Need you. I’ve never had that before.

I slide an arm under her and tug her to me, holding her tight, hoping she doesn’t vanish right before my eyes.

I inhale her scent, and it always brings me a sense of peace. It smells like home, a future I was never good enough to have.

“You okay?” she asks sweetly, stealing my heart all over again.

She gently lays her palm over my cheek, and I burrow into it, needing it like a lifeline.

“I am now.”

“Want to talk about it?”

I release a heavy sigh and flip onto my back, taking her against my chest. My attention lands on the ceiling as my fingers slip under the shirt and brush up and down her spine.

“I wasn’t a good person, Eriu, even before I joined Palmer’s crew. I’m still not. But back then, I had a family. A brother, my parents.” I take a momentary pause. “They loved me, you know? Until they didn’t. Until I was more of a burden than a son.”

Her arms clutch around my torso reassuringly, as though saying she doesn’t see me that way. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, because she’s either in denial or she really can accept me the way I am.

I force myself to continue. “I was hurting people back in Ireland. Killing them for unpaid debts, for other things they were doing that went against the people I worked for.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, hating that I’m telling her this shite. But she has to know everything about me before she decides that I’m going to be her husband and the father of her children.

“I killed my first man when I was fifteen. It was scary, but the more I did it, the easier it became, until killing people was just a job I did. It didn’t matter if they had families, kids. If I was told they needed to go, I did it, and I was good at it. Still am.” I glance at her saddened expression, and my heart sinks. “It’s why your father recruited me after I left the gang I was with in California.”

“How long were you there?”

“About two years before your father came calling. I knew who he was, who his dad was back in Ireland. They were powerful, and I needed something new.”

Her fingers drag over my chest as she listens intently.

“Before I came to California with my brother at twenty-one, my mum kicked me out of the house when I turned eighteen. She wasn’t a bad person. Neither was Da. But they had become tired of me. They knew I’d never change. They weren’t wrong. My ma told me I’d never find a proper woman to love me, but I was okay with that. I didn’t need love.”

“Oh, Devlin.” Her eyes shine with tears as she tucks her chin in her palm. “You deserve love. You are loved. I love you! I always have.”

An ache I’ve never felt slams into the center of my chest.

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