Page 29 of Savage Heart

Shit. He hated that he put that uncertainty there. Liz was a good woman; she deserved a man who could give her everything she ever wanted…especially love.

He snorted, reaching up to palm the back of her head. “Because I don’t have a heart, darlin’.”

After all he’d done…his chest was as empty as his list of good deeds.

“Yes, you do,” she said, her voice ringing out without a drop of doubt. He shook his head, and she stopped him with a gentlehand to his cheek. She rubbed against the stubble with her thumb. Her eyes, the color of sapphires, glinted with emotions so striking, his breath caught. “Yes,” she murmured, “you do. A man like you, who has done what he has done, has seen what he has seen, has fought and won and lost…. You didn’t do all of that because it was a job. You did it because, in the deepest parts of you, your heart was in it. You couldn’tnotfight—win or lose, because you were loyal and courageous. Courage and loyalty take heart, Erik.”

His chest burning with the breath still captive in his lungs, he nearly blacked out—but not from the lack of oxygen.

She saw him.

She actually saw him.

She saw through the bullshit, the anger, the fear, and the swagger. She saw through the cloak of humanity and civility that, though in tatters around him, was heavy and thick. She felt him, the real him, and…she was still there.

Still in his arms.

Still holding him, touching him, letting him hold her…touch her.

Love her?

Could he, a man of violence and death, a child of broken and ugly roots, actually know…love?

He gazed down at her…the look in her eyes, the stark and beautiful emotion of her face…and he knew.

He loved her.

But was it enough?

When he looked into his future, when he laid in the silent and judgmental dark, his mind always wondered to the “what ifs.”

What if he hadn’t lied to her and pushed her away? What if he’d stayed with her and they built a life together? What if he just loved her, supported her, letting her stay in Vegas even though her leaving the city was a better option for her future?Would he have been there for Erika’s birth? Her first steps? Her first words? Would they be married, living in a moderately sized house in Henderson, raising their children—another daughter, and two boys?

That thought, that image of a life he didn’t deserve but wanted so fucking badly, slammed into him like an Abrams tank.

The what ifs didn’t matter, because no matter what his past had made him, no matter how his asshole, bastard father shaped him, his time in the service tainted him, his years as the Savage Raiders VP had hardened him, his future had always been with Liz.

It was Liz.

It wouldalwaysbe Liz.

But he’d fucked that up, purposefully tearing apart the best thing that ever happened to him.

For her, so she would leave his ass in Vegas, and set up her future at Stanford.

He remembered, like it was fucking yesterday, the official-looking letter in the pile of mail. A letter welcoming her and congratulating her on her scholarship to attend Stanford University. Before that, Liz was going to attend a second-rate program at UNLV, which couldn’t have been as good as what she’d get at a school like Stanford. But she would stay in Vegas and attend a second-rate school just to be with him. Because she’d loved him. And he loved her…which was why he couldn’t let her do that. So, he did what he had to do; he broke her heart; he brokethem, and she left…just as he’d planned.

Striding from the bedroom he shared with his woman, he pulled his t-shirt on over his head and headed toward the kitchen to grab his keys from the peninsula. He had some shit to do for Odin that day, including heading to the property he was looking at as a potential clubhouse for their newly formed MC. The Savage Raiders MC were newly established in Las Vegas,but even with only six members, they were making a name for themselves. Every single brother in the club was former military or had a background in ass kicking, and every single brother was as loyal and deadly as a motherfucking wolf—which was why he and Odin had designed their club brand with the wolf’s head as the focus.

“Baby, can you put on the coffee pot?” his woman called from the bedroom, her voice never failing to make his cock twitch. It was just the right amount of raspy and yet also mesmerizing. She could speak about the most mundane shit, and he’d sit enraptured. Her voice—and her tits and ass—were the first things that drew him to her. But ocne he sat down with her, talked with her, he’d known she was his. His one. With her shoulder-length wavy blonde hair, her sparkling blue eyes, her peaches and cream skin, and those lips that were made for wrapping around his cock…and kissing with abandon, she’d quickly and easily become his obsession. There wasn’t a second that he wasn’t thinking about her, and that was terrifying as fuck. A man like him, what he’d done in his life, what he’d seen, and what he’d have to do as the VP of the Savage Raiders…he wasn’t the type of man who deserved a gorgeous, intelligent, kind, compassionate, amazing woman like Elizabeth Simpson.

And with every beat of his heart, he was scared shitless that he was going to lose her.

“Yeah, babe,” he called back, remembering she’d asked him to turn on the coffee. He switched on the coffee pot, then turned to head out the door, when his kutte caught on a pile of mail on the counter, knocking it to the floor.

“Shit,” he grumbled, then crouched to pick it up. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Liz swan into the room. She was dressed for comfort, as always, which he didn’t mind. He’d prefer his woman didn’t flash what belonged to him by wearing clothes like the women in the club-owned bar did…orthe women who’d been inducted into the club as the first round of clubwhores—of which he did not partake.

Reaching down, he gathered the mail—and his his gaze caught on a letterhead that made his heart jerk in his chest.

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