Page 22 of Savage Cravings

He grunted in response.

I turned to Maverick. An unnamed emotion flickered across his dark blue eyes, but it was gone before I could guess what it might be.

He didn’t say anything when he looked at me, but I didn’t need the words.

I had won this round.

Taking her wouldn’t be a problem.

Making sure shestayedkept was.

But I wasn’t dealing with this alone.

I had my brothers.

Hell, I wouldn’t even mind sharing my new toy. I was a good brother, after all, but it would only be with my brothers. No one else.

No other fuckers were going to touch Mila Hayes.

That was a fucking vow.

5

MILA

My hands brusheddown the black apron I wore.

I was nervous.

Despite trying to put on a brave face in public, I was still nervous.

I was afraid I might fuck up somehow tonight and get fired, or run into trouble and not know how to get out of it, or?—

Whatever the worst-case scenarios might be, I’d thought of them about a million times already.

Being nervous wasn’t a foreign feeling to me.

I was always nervous back at the club?—

Or perhaps, anxious and wary would be the better words to describe it.

But I was good at acting confident.

I had to be.

Had to put on a “don’t fuck with me” face, otherwise, all the men, and even women, there would see it for what it was—a fucking weakness—and pounce.

I’d become so good at faking confidence, I had forgotten it was nothing more than a show, and that inside, there was still a part of me that was so unsure about my footing in the world.

I didn’t know how I was supposed to fake confidence in this totally new environment now.

At least, the club had been familiar.

It had been my life for the past twenty-four years, but this world?

This seemingly normal world…

This unfamiliar world, with a whole new set of people in it and I?—

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