Page 94 of Sovereign

“No, I stopped loving her a long time ago. Young love only stays if it has a chance to turn into something more,” he says finally.

Bacon spits in the pan, leftover from the morning. I turn, leaning on the counter and grip the edge so hard it bends my nails. My heart picks up.

“When did you start falling for me?” I whisper.

He doesn’t look up for a moment. Then he finally lifts his azure gaze to mine and my breath hitches. For the first time there’s something there that looks like peace.

His jaw works. “When I saw you in your husband’s office.”

Deep inside, I knew this already. He upturned our world for no reason. He could have taken revenge on Clint at any point, but he chose the day after I confessed I was scared. He opened the gates of his fortress and let me into his bed despite how deeply he’d been hurt before.

I bite my lip, worrying it hard.

He picks me up and sets me on the counter. It should bother me the way he likes to move me around whenever he likes, but it doesn’t.

“Do you love me?” he asks.

I don’t know the answer to that yet. “I’m falling for you,” I whisper.

His mouth thins. He takes my chin between his finger and thumb. I reluctantly shift my eyes up to meet his piercing gaze.

“You might not love me yet, redbird, but you will.”

“Do I have a choice, sir?” I sigh.

“No.” He kisses my forehead and I close my eyes.

“What are you going to do about the Garrison brothers?” I ask.

He rumbles, like he’s laughing somewhere in his chest, and pulls back. “You let that up to me. I know if their parents were still alive, I’d skin them slowly before I took mercy on them and put a bullet between their eyes.”

My jaw goes slack. “What did his parents do to you?”

“That’s an ugly story.”

“I want to hear it.”

“My parents were tenants on their land, back when my family had nothing,” he says. He’s using the same flat tone he used when he talked about his fiancée’s death. “Abel Garrison tried to rape my mother and my father defended her. After that, the Garrisons evicted them. They had nothing. My father started drinking…my mother got cancer and passed away. My father died of hypothermia. Drank too much, it was winter, he fell asleep in a ditch and never woke up.”

My entire body tingles with shock. When he said he had a dark and bloody history with the Garrisons, I’d expected a feud over land.

“How old were you when your father passed?” I whisper.

“Sixteen.” He lifts his chin. “After that, I went to Colorado to train. During the summer, back in Montana, I thought it wouldbe a good idea to go after Avery Garrison at a bar one night. He shot me in the leg.”

“He shot you?” My voice rises.

He releases me and unfastens his belt, pushing his pants down enough to expose his upper thigh. I didn’t notice it before, but there’s a faint scar there. Round and silvery. He pulls his pants up, but leaves his belt hanging.

“I told you, redbird, you and I, our interests aligned.”

I touch his cheek, his short beard coarse under the heel of my palm. His skin is so warm with a little bit of roughness from being tanned in the Montana sun. His lids fall halfway and he leans into my touch. Like he’s starved for it.

“Maybe we were destined to be tied together by all of this,” I say quietly.

“No,” he says firmly. “I chose you and made you mine. Despite you having that son of a bitch for your husband.”

“Does it bother you that I slept with him?” I whisper.

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