Page 23 of Vengeful Union

She’s a fighter, I can give her that, because she tries to snap her even teeth on my arm.

I finally pick her up around her waist, throwing her over my shoulder and carrying her the few steps back into the room.

“You need help, Rory?” Oscar calls, and Lara screeches.

I yell over her screams, “No. I’ve got this!”

I shut and lock the door behind me.

Lara scrambles up into a sitting position, back against the window. “What are you going to do to me?”

I groan inwardly. “Nothing. I’m not going to hurt a hair on your head.”

“Then why aren’t you letting me go? You know Bree’s safe.”

“I already told you. My father wouldn’t allow it,” I point out, and she barks out a laugh.

“As if you’d let me go even if he did.”

“Look, here’s the deal,” I say quietly. “You don’t trust me. I don’t trust you.”

“That’s pointing out the obvious.”

She’s funny, I’ll give her that.

And pretty, if I’m honest.

Usually, a woman as thin and tall as her wouldn’t be my type, but she looks elegant in a way, almost swan-like, even dirty and bloody.

She looks like she was born to be royalty. Funny that it’s Irish mob royalty and not the princess kind.

“But like I said, we have to deal with what we have now. You are stuck here with me until I figure out a way to fix this.”

“And you’re not going to hurt me?”

I shake my head. “I’m not. I promise.”

She stands up, walking slowly toward me, and I don’t back away. “Then please let mego.”

I huff out a breath. “How many times do I have to tell you I can’t do that?”

She frowns and then tries to sprint past me.

I groan, reaching out, and I grab her shoulders, pulling her toward me.

She wriggles in my arms, and I do the only thing I can think of to shut her up and calm her down.

I kiss her.

She makes a frustrated noise against my mouth, but then when I part her lips with my tongue, she melts against me, kissing me back hungrily.

She tastes like iron, probably from the blood she’d had trickling into her mouth, but something about the sudden kiss makes goosebumps pop up all over my body.

Lara pushes me away. “What the hell was that?”

“I needed to shut you up,” I growl, and she glares at me, wrenching out of my grasp again.

She rubs at her arms.

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