Page 72 of Whips and Chains
Fang ground his molars, his fists still clenched at his sides. “I strongly disagree.”
I sighed. He was being ridiculous. “If you want to challenge Levi to a duel or something, do it, but not on my behalf. He hasn’t taken anything that I didn’t willingly want to give him. There’s no need to fight for my honor.”
“It’s not about that,” Fang said quietly. “It’s about him dragging you into a life you don’t want. The club…” He screwed up his face. “The club is everything that’s good, and everything that’s bad all at once. You don’t want a life with a biker, Violet. It’ll mean a lifetime of always looking over your shoulder in case one of Reaper’s enemies comes after you. Lockdowns when things get dicey. You’ll never be one-hundred-percent safe.”
I could see the worry in his eyes. Hear the sincerity in his plea.
But Levi had spent the night in my bed, making love to me and whispering words I’d never thought I would hear a man say. He’d washed my hair, stroked my skin, taken care of me like nobody else ever had.
He’d tattooed my freaking name right over his heart.
And he’d told me he loved me.
If Fang thought I would give that up just because he wanted to play big brother now, after all these years when I was a fully grown woman, then he had another think coming.
I leveled him with a stare. “Did you have all these concerns over bringing Rebel into your life?”
“Of course I did!”
“And you went and did it anyway?”
His jaw went tight. “That was different.”
It wasn’t, and we both knew it. I had him.
He blew out a long breath, and his gaze flickered back to Levi. “Fine. But I swear to Hades, if you hurt her I will kill you with my own two hands, with absolutely zero remorse.”
Levi returned a solid gaze. “Brother, I promise you, if I hurt her, I’ll stand there and let you.”
The two of them stared at each other for a long moment, while I tried to find the feminist in me who should probably hate the two of them discussing me like I wasn’t even in the room, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’d never had anyone but Toby care about me, and never in this sort of way. Toby and I didn’t have a “touch her and die” sort of relationship. Toby’s only weapon probably would have been a mascara wand. He could have sung musical soundtracks until my enemies’ ears bled perhaps.
But there was something about a man declaring physical violence that just hit different. Fang’s declarations made me feel young and protected.
Levi’s felt like I really wanted my brother to go away so I could do some things with his best friend that no brother should ever see his sister doing.
Fang seemed to catch the vibe in the air, or maybe he was just satisfied with Levi’s response. But either way, he closed the door,and I went straight back to showing Levi how much I loved the way he’d just fought for me, even if I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the same three little words he’d said to me.
I’d been there with him once. And he’d broken my trust.
I wasn’t quite ready to give it all back to him, no matter how many times his tongue and his lips and his fingers and his cock made me moan his name.
Levi and I slept the morning away. I had no idea what he was supposed to be doing that day, but he’d made zero move to get out of my bed, his big body tucked around mine, his deep breaths rising and falling behind me.
It had been short-lived though, because I had a shift at Clean Sweep that afternoon, where Nyah and I had scrubbed Mrs. Lewersham’s Providence mansion from top to bottom for four hours straight. Nyah had been back to her usual bubbly self, despite the events of the night before.
She’d taken all of that completely in her stride and gone on with her shift like nothing had happened. I’d tried talking to her about it a couple of times, but she’d just laughed it off like it had all been a grand adventure and said I didn’t need to worry. That whatever me and Saint View threw at her, she could handle. That she’d seen and done worse.
She’d said it with such a straight face that I’d had no choice but to believe her.
Her family sounded terrifying. And I was glad she was here now, well away from them.
Which was saying something, considering Saint View didn’t exactly feel too safe these days, if it ever had.
She dropped me off at Psychos on her way home, and I was well aware of X’s ice cream van slowly tailing us, but we both pretended not to notice it.
If he was going to stalk people, he really needed to get a more inconspicuous ride.
I eyed the man sitting on the door at the entrance and stopped in front of him, cocking my head to one side, studying his expression. “Vincent,” I finally determined, though really, it was an educated guess based on the fact the man just quietly stared at me, rather than jabbering a mile a minute or giving me a smug grin and cracking a joke about my little sexcapades the night before like Scythe would have.
