Page 82 of Sovereign

I pad barefoot across the room. “I guess I didn’t know.”

He pats his knee once and my stomach flips as I sink down onto it. His palm rubs a slow circle on my lower back before gripping the swell of my ass. I can feel the heat coming off his body and I have to resist sinking against his bare chest. He’s so big and solid and when I’m with him, I don’t mind feeling weak.

That part caught me off guard. I never liked showing weakness before. It made me a target for Clint’s ire. With Gerard, I feel myself reverting to a state of dependency that would have horrified me weeks ago.

It feels natural. He’s got a wild mind and a cold heart, but for me he’s willing to forgo both. The least I can do is not question his authority in the world he built.

“Yeah, I got the liquor before the liquor got me,” he says.

There’s so much about him I don’t know. Never in a million years would I have imagined Gerard Sovereign had weaknesses. I reach out and skim my fingers over his tattooed chest. Does he have more secrets hidden behind his hard front?

“Can you tell me about it?” I ask.

“There’s not much to say. I had some shit happen to me when I was nineteen. I was young and couldn’t hold it together, soI started getting fucked up. Then Westin cleaned me up and I lived with his family. Stayed there a while, got sober. Been sober ever since.”

My brows rise. “You’ve been sober since before you could legally drink.”

He dips his head. “That’s true.”

I shift so I’m facing him. He puts his other hand on me, encircling my waist.

“Can I ask…what happened?”

His lids lower. For a moment, I think I’ve gone too far. But he lets out a slow sigh and I think I feel his walls come down. Just a little bit.

“I was engaged,” he says. “About to get married. Then she died.”

My stomach drops. I wasn’t in love with Clint, so I don’t know what he felt. But I did lose a spouse so I know how disorienting it is to be the one left behind. I know what being suddenly untethered feels like, and it’s not pleasant.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

He looks at the ground. “It was a long time ago, redbird. And I was so young I thought it was the end of the world.”

“And it wasn’t?”

He shakes his head. He raises his eyes to mine and I can’t read them.

“I’m not the same person I was back then.”

“But it still hurt you,” I whisper.

“It…destroyed me,” he says. “But I moved on.”

I try to find the right words, but my brain is still trying to wrap my head around the concept of a nineteen-year-old Gerard. Who was he then? Why was he so alone that there was only Westin to save him from his grief? What had happened to his parents?

I know nothing about the man who has total control over me.

I open my mouth to speak, but he pulls me in by the nape of the neck and kisses me. My stomach curls with heat and my brain goes silent.

From the first time his mouth touched mine, I’ve craved being kissed by him. He’s slow, thorough, and deliberate. Like he’s got nowhere to be and nothing to do but make sure his taste is burned into my lips.

My lower spine arcs. He pulls back an inch and our breath mingles.

“Put your tongue out, redbird,” he says, his voice husky and quiet.

Hesitantly, I obey. He bends in and spits onto it.

“Swallow,” he says.

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