Page 30 of Thorns of Deceit
The concept confused me. Was it even possible to feel so strongly for someone you’d met less than a week ago? I had no fucking clue. My parents’ marriage was hardly something to look up to and I had yet to witness a happy union firsthand.
Raven’s presence in my bed wasn’t something I’d planned nor wanted, but it felt so fucking natural. All we’d done wassleep, and that was a fucking first for me. Not to mention I hadn’t had sex since we’d spoken those ridiculous vows.
Over the course of the past seven days, I’d come to a conclusion: there was a lot more to Raven than met the eye. She was young in a lot of ways, but mature in others. She carried herself like someone who had already seen too much of the world to be easily impressed by it.
And she made me laugh. Not just a polite chuckle kind of laugh either, but the kind that sneaks up on you and leaves you grinning long after the moment’s passed. Like when I tried to teach her how to make coffee and she ended up spilling half the bag of grounds across the counter, declaring it a “sacrifice to the caffeine gods.” There was no mistaking it, she was a disaster in the kitchen.
She was an odd thing, no doubt about it. She could talk about the colors and their shades for hours, then clam up and say nothing about her mom, whom she was clearly very protective of. There was something magnetic about her and the world felt just a little less predictable when she was around.
Life had beaten her down and that part pissed me off more than I liked to admit. It made me want to shake some sense into her mother, Blair Croft, to have her see how much she’d missed out on by turning to the bottle and forcing Raven to fend for herself. Did she even know her barely of-age daughter had been working at a strip club? It made me see red.
And her father was a whole other story. I wanted to hunt him down and kill him, because whatever he’d done to cause his ex-wife and daughter to flee couldn’t have been a small thing.
Yeah, I sounded crazy.
This thing with Raven, whatever the fuck it was, had taken on a life of its own and I didn’t know what to do.
Yes, I wanted to fuck her, but it was so much more than just that. I felt at ease around her, and even my heart rate seemedto slow when I was around her. I barely knew her, but that just motivated me to learneverythingabout her.
Raven shifted in her sleep and mumbled words I didn’t quite catch, dragging me from my thoughts.
Careful not to wake her, I crept out of bed and padded over to the bathroom where I’d laid out workout clothes last night. Once dressed, I gave a long, lingering glance at her sleeping form before I continued into the gym.
An hour on the treadmill and my muscles had managed to loosen, but my mind still whirred. I had a lot of responsibilities—a club to run, territory expansions to oversee, disputes and shipments to settle, and maintaining business relations with law enforcement to ensure they turn a blind eye. Therefore, constantly thinking about my young wife like some teenage schmuck wouldn’t do.
Pulling my sweat-soaked shirt over my head, I finished my cooldown and glanced at the mirror. I jerked in surprise at the sight of Raven in those fuck-me shorts, a camisole that clung to her body like a second skin, and her tousled hair reaching down to her perfectly curved ass.
Fuck, that was the last thing I should be noticing.
I should be more worried about the fact that I hadn’t felt her presence, and in my line of work, anything but total vigilance got you killed.
How in the fuck would I protect her if I was so far deep in my head that I couldn’t even feel her presence at my back?
I stepped off the treadmill and made my way over to her.
“Sorry, hope I’m not disturbing you.” Her cheeks flushed and she licked her lips, letting her gaze travel over my torso. “You’re so… big.”
I couldn’t stop myself from snorting. “It’s every man’s dream to hear those words.”
“But not all men will hear them,” she lobbed back, her eyes twinkling.
I cocked a brow at her, closing the distance between us. “Then I appreciate your words,mo cuishle.”
She brought her hand to rest against my chest, her fingers playing at the dusting of hair there, and I was suddenly conscious of how sweaty I was.
“I need to shower.”
Before I could take a step back, she slid her hand over my abs, her dainty fingers traveling down while I watched her lick her lips.
“There’s something sexy about you all sweaty,” she purred.
Fuck, blue balls, here we come.
“Play with fire,” I warned softly, “and you’ll get burned.”
“Maybe that’s what I need,” was her half-teasing retort, delivered in a husky voice.
Fuck, a man had only so much self-restraint. She wanted to play? Fuck it, let’s ignite together. Everything about her beckoned me, and I realized I was lost to her long before today.
