Page 107 of Savage Cravings

I tightened my arms around her. She probably thought I was kidding. I fucking wasn’t. And I’d hate to be the poor fucker she let in because she didn’t heed my warning.

“You make this sound so…serious. Like we’re more than just a fling.”

There was that fucking word again. I vowed that I would obliterate that fucking word from her vocabulary, even if it took me a lifetime.

“Does this feel like a fling?” I asked mildly.

She silently shook her head.

And there was her fucking answer, had she been brave enough to see it.

“Let me hold you,” I whispered softly into her hair. “I have to go back and check in with Maverick soon, so I’m going to hold you for as long as possible.”

She let out a small sigh that I felt all the way down to my bones. “Sounds good.”

I shook my head. She was wrong. It wasn’t good. It wasn’t enough. But it was a fucking start.

20

KILLIAN

This was a mistake.

I walked out of the hotel and into the bustling streets of downtown New Orleans, my shadow following me. Not that I cared. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with him, and if he were smart, he’d keep his fucking distance.

I had thought only Silas had his head too far up his ass to see danger even if it stabbed him in the face, but now that Maverick had joined in, what the fuck could I say to that?

Fucking hell.

What was in the water in New Orleans?

We needed to get home. Get back to Chicago and set up a meeting with the Cadorna family.

The Cadorna family was a prominent crime family in Chicago. Not as prominent or big as the Heartless Saints had been, but important enough that Hayes had cut a deal with them to do his transport overseas from out west.

Now that rumors of the club’s demise were quickly spreading, the head of the family was trying to latch his slimy, greasy paws onto us, hoping for the same deal—for us to provide the goods and protection.

I wasn’t too keen on working with any fuckers Hayes had associated with, but that didn’t mean we shouldn’t be heading back to Chicago.

Instead of planning for our swift return, my brothers were… playing in the pool with the little firecracker.

I tried to shake off the foreboding feeling of something heavy in my chest.

I knew I was scowling when most people on the streets gave me a wide berth. That was good. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with any fuckers—innocent or not.

Green-blue eyes came unbidden to my mind.

Fuck, but I could still taste her.

Made me wonder if the innocent, shy look she wore on her face was only an act.

How bold of the little firecracker to kiss me first. I shook my head. I still haven’t told my brothers about that. It wasn’t exactly a secret, but hell, something about sharing that moment with anyone else, especially to those fuckers, almost felt… sacrilegious.

I found a bar as I turned the corner and, without thinking, went inside. It was too early for a drink—barely one in the afternoon—but this felt like a drinking kind of day.

The bar was nearly empty when I went inside. Only one bartender manned the place, and in the corner, a man who seemed to be a regular sat enjoying a glass of what looked like scotch.

I sat on the opposite side of the bar, and the bartender approached me. He looked to be in his fifties. Tan, leathered skin seemed to weigh down dark brown eyes that might have seen a lot of shit in the world. I could barely see his lips through the dark gray-and-black beard covering his face’s lower half.

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