Page 150 of Westin

“Love me,” he says.

His grip is tight. Hands steady, I unfasten his shirt until his chest and stomach are bare. His belt clinks as I pull it open and push his pants aside. He’s hot and hard when I wrap my hand around him and guide his cock between my legs.

We both gasp. Our eyes connect. He’s like magic. One touch, and my body is wide awake.

I wrap my arms around his neck. He buries his face in my shoulder. Our hips rise and fall together, not chasing anything, just trying our best to fix all the broken pieces that surround us. After a while, he carries me upstairs with his cock still inside me, my arms and legs wrapped around him. We fall into bed, and our eyes lock in the dark.

“Whatever I do,” his voice is gruff, sitting deep in his chest, “whoever I become, love me still, darling.”

Deep inside, I know he’s planning to do something terrible. My nails rake gently up his back, touching the scar tissue of his brand, tracing it with my fingertips.

He’s not a good man, but he’s the one I want.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

WESTIN

It’s summer now, and I’m getting married next month.

I can’t wrap my head around how quickly things have changed. For years, I had an empty home and cold bed waiting for me at night. Then, one day, I decided to attend a business meeting concerning some cattle feed, and now, I’m whipped for a little blonde woman who keeps rearranging my house.

I didn’t go down to Carter Farms that day looking for a bride, but here I am, waking up to the prettiest bride-to-be every morning.

“Do you feel like it’s not real?” I ask Sovereign one day as we watch some of the wranglers bring in rogue cattle from the eastern pasture.

Sovereign sits on Shadow, eyes narrowed against the dust. His hat is pulled low, his hands stacked on the saddle horn. He’s more relaxed now that he’s married. It looks good on him.

“What’s that?” He doesn’t take his eyes from the cattle.

“Do you feel like you’ll just wake up and Keira’s not real?”

Between his brows creases. “No. Why would I think that?”

I shake my head. Sometimes I forget that, despite how he’s changed since meeting Keira, he’s still himself. We sit in silence for a while. Last summer and during the winter, we drifted apart, bothconsumed by our own problems. Now, we’re back to how we’ve always been—companionable silence unless something needs saying.

“Did you ever ask Diane what the Garrisons did to her?” Sovereign says after a while.

I nod. “Thomas Garrison beat her. David Carter watched and let him.”

A muscle in Sovereign’s jaw twitches. “What’s your plan then?”

“I can’t think of anything bad enough,” I say. “If I’d known what Thomas did, I would have done a lot worse than what he got. David deserves the worst. I want to catapult that motherfucker off a cliff.”

There’s a long silence. Sovereign clears his throat. “You could…do that,” he says. “It’s a viable option.”

I glance over—he has my interest. “How’s that?”

He shrugs. “I’m not the executioner—you are. But pitching somebody off a cliff at high velocity…that would make it hard to put the pieces together. Literally and figuratively.”

My mind clicks into high gear. I’ve thought over the problem of how to kill David quickly and cleanly without traumatizing Diane. She can’t know what’s happening. He’ll just disappear, and if she asks, I’ll tell her only what she has to know.

For the first time, a plan forms in my head.

Sovereign and I don’t discuss it again. We finish moving the runaway cattle back into the right pasture, and then we head back to the ranch and leave the horses standing by the watering trough in the barn. The lunch bell rings. Sovereign pauses on his way to the house, noticing I’m not following him.

“Not hungry?” he asks.

“I’ve got something to take care of,” I say.

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