Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 91064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Family is important. Family is everything.
And apart from my mammy, these lads are the only family I’ve got. My brothers. There isn’t a thing I wouldn’t do for them. This is the code that we live by. We are in it together until the end, and there’s nothing that will change that.
I’ve got it in my head though, that I’d like a family of my own someday. A thought only driven home when I see Crow and Mack together. Even Ronan and Sasha. The lads have all reached the age where they are settling down and changing their ways. At least as far as life outside the syndicate is concerned.
I have a good life. I get to do what I’m best at. Hustling and fighting. I spend my days with the lads, fucking shit up, and my nights with whatever hot ride catches my fancy.
But right now, in this pew, hungover and hungry, there is a moment of clarity. This hunger inside of me- this emptiness- is for something more.
I have a vision of myself like that someday. Like Crow is right now, holding his daughter. And when I imagine my wife beside me, there’s only one face that comes to mind. It could only ever be her.
The woman who does my fucking head in.
The woman I haven’t seen in months.
The woman with a suit of armor so goddamn thick I need to bring my entire arsenal just to speak to her for a few moments. Crow likes to give me shite for it. Tells me I only want what I can’t have. But that isn’t it.
When I met Scarlett, I was kidnapping her and holding her at gunpoint… just for a wee bit. Until the dust had settled with the Mack situation, at least. I had no ill intentions against her, but I knew that didn’t matter. That wasn’t my first rodeo. Most women would have crumbled in the situation. Broken down and become hysterical. But not her.
Not only did she fucking stab me- a battle scar which I still carry on my arm- but she didn’t shed a single tear. She was stone cold and hard as fuck. And that’s when I knew, she was a ride or die chick.
The Letty to my Dom.
I came at her hard, and she didn’t cower in my presence. She came back harder.
I made up my mind then and there, this was the woman I needed by my side.
Only problem is Scarlett doesn’t see it that way. She’s a one-woman act, and she’s not about to make room for anyone else on her stage or in her life.
I know this.
But when I catch the soft clip of heels behind me, I’m hyperaware of everything in the room. The weight of someone’s presence beside me on the bench. The soft cloud of honey and caramel and arsenic.
The energy is raw and dark, a force not to be reckoned with. And there’s no doubt in my mind, Satan has just entered the holy land.
My temples throb and my fists grip the wooden pew beneath me.
I want to look, but I know better. She is Medusa, and if I look into her hazel eyes, I’ll be done for all over again.
She’s toxic. Poison.
But I’ve never wanted to taste my own death as much as I want her.
She’s the star of my darkest fantasies. The centerfold on every page of my favorite book. Even now, as I sit here in church, I’m thinking about throwing her down on the floor and eating her out. Bending her over the pew and fucking this insanity out of my system once and for all.
I have a notion that Scarlett would like the depravity of it. Because she’s a whole lot of fucking crazy. But a whole lot of fucking hot too.
Jesus. I don’t want to look. Because I won’t be able to stop myself from staring at her. Which is the last thing she needs from me. And exactly what she wants from me.
She fancies these games.
And it was fun for a while.
Until she got taken by the butcher. It was her association with us that got her into that mess. That got her hurt all over again.
He touched her. Carved up her chest like a pumpkin.
I can’t get that fucking image out of my head. And now I’m simultaneously thinking about fucking her and murdering every last bloke who’s ever touched her too.
I blame myself for what happened, even if she acts like it never did. It’s easy to forget with that Oscar worthy act of hers.
She brings out the bad in me.
But I have a feeling she brings out the bad in a lot of men.
My eyes drift down to the shoes first. Red suede with a thick sole and tiny straps that wrap around her delicate ankle. All balanced out by a dainty stiletto at the back. I’ve no bloody clue how she walks in them, but she knows I have a thing for the heels on her.