Page 57 of Butcher

That seemed to irritate Butcher. “Alright. Thanks for the help, now get the fuck out.”

“Claim?” I asked as Priest walked toward the door.

He smirked over at Butcher. “I’ll let you explain that one to her.”

“Thanks a lot, asshole,” Butcher told him, giving him a shove out the door. He looked over his shoulder at me. “You grab the cat. I’ll get her water and litter box. We’ll get everything else tomorrow.”

Clutching Murder to my chest, I followed him out the door and into the new apartment. It was a lot bigger, like the other women had, with a kitchen and three bedrooms.

“What did Priest mean?” I asked as we walked into the master bedroom and I set Murder down to explore.

Butcher groaned. “He was just being a dick. He likes to play matchmaker now that he’s got his old lady.”

I frowned at that. “Why did you keep me those first few days?”

He took sheets, blankets, and pillows from the bedroom closet and placed them on top of the dresser, then handed me half the bottom sheet.

A strange emotion welled up in my chest as we made the bed together so that we could go to sleep. It was so…ordinary. Something neither of us was.

“I liked you.” I arched a brow at him and he shrugged. “Still do.”

But not enough to claim me. At least that was the feeling I wasgetting since he couldn’t shove Priest out the door fast enough. I was going to have to ask the other women about it because Butcher had clammed up so fast I knew I wasn’t getting anything else out of him. I could guess, of course, claiming kind of defined itself, but I wasn’t sure what it meant for bikers. And I was curious.

And maybe a little hopeful. Which was dumb. This man wasn’t the type to get married and settle down. Neither was I, if I was being honest. Besides, I was supposed to be guarding my heart, not hoping he’d want to keep it forever.

As we climbed into bed and he pulled me back into his arms, his favorite way to sleep apparently, I tried to talk my heart off the ledge. The last thing I needed was to fall in love with Butcher. I had a life to go back to after this. Of course, it wasn’t much of a life. I wasn’t sure who was going to hire an assassin who’d turned against her client, killed a ton of other assassins, and shacked up with the mark.

But that was a problem for another day. At least with us taking out most of my competition there might be a great enough demand that I could get back to business as usual once all this was over. I’d figure something out, but it wasn’t going to include a sexy, hazel-eyed, biker.

CHAPTER 20

Butcher

Icame downstairs the next morning and saw Daryl sitting there with a steaming cup of coffee in front of him. It was only him and Scarlett this time of morning. The rest of the men were either still sleeping off their hangovers or with their families doing the breakfast routine.

“She’d let you have a bit of fun,” I said as I sat down across the table from Daryl. When he looked up, I nodded over at Scarlett. “You probably wouldn’t even need to ask.”

Daryl shot the bunny a smile then looked away. “Don’t need fun at my age. Shit, it’d probably kill me at this point.”

That had my eyebrows raising. “Please tell me we don’t lose interest in sex at your age. What the fuck else is there by then?”

He chuckled. “You won’t. Not now that you have your woman.”

I frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

“Once you’ve found your person it doesn’t matter what happens, you just want to be with them.” He met my gaze. “In all the ways. Asoften as you can. Doubt that goes away with age, especially with all the pills and shit they have nowadays.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled as Scarlett dropped a cup of coffee off in front of me then walked away. She put an extra sway in her hips as she went, unaware of the fact that the man she was trying to seduce wasn’t interested. I thought about what Daryl had just said about finding your person. Was that Isla? Was I even capable of having a person? Priest seemed to think so, since he’d mentioned me claiming her last night. “I don’t know,” I finally admitted.

That caught Daryl’s attention and he studied me as I picked up the mug and swallowed some of the bitter liquid inside the cup. I wasn’t really a coffee guy. I didn’t drink much except alcohol really.

“You don’t know about what, Son?”

I sighed and looked over at him. Opening up wasn’t exactly easy for me. Most of the time I didn’t even know what I was feeling, so how the hell was I supposed to talk about it? “How did you know that Ellie was your person?”

Daryl leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. He was still in good shape for an old man. It was all the work on the ranch. Vince, Cynic’s older brother, caught him chucking hay bales last month and ended up calling Toxic in a rage. I’d heard him yelling over the phone about Toxic talking to Daryl, telling him he needed to tell his father to take it easy so he didn’t die of a heart attack. The man was capable of more than most twenty-year olds these days. I’d told Toxic to leave the fucker alone. If he wanted to throw bales of dead grass around, let him.

“I couldn’t get her out of my mind,” Daryl finally said. “She was all I thought about when I was going to sleep, when I woke up, and every moment in between.”

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