JUST BREATHE.
He has my eyes.
Rather, I have his.
Just breathe.
Breathing—definitely breathing—I stare out the tinted window of the Chrysler. The national park, the bodies, the fast-forwarded world, a distant orange landscape in the rear-view mirror. But… Dustin Nerrock’s eyes came into the clear with me, reflect at me in the glass.
My dad’s eyes.
I can’t ignore that the man killed tonight shared my blood—not with those eyes. Entirely a different colour to my blue and green, but the position, the shape… I can’t pretend he was merely a stranger.
I want to care more about him…
Guilt bleeds through my clearing confusion.
Guilt that I’m not grieving him.
Guilt that I want to.
Guilt that I defied Clay.
And guilt that I’d do it again.
As Clay navigates the streets of Connolly, his icy mien has not wavered or relented. Is he rolling the word betrayal over in his mind? From me. From Max. Even from Xander.
“Sir?” I think I say aloud.
But maybe I didn’t, as silence is his answer. Loud breath shudders from me.
We drive between the white gates to the estate, and the vision of a pregnant blonde girl standing at the intercom only months earlier comes to me unbidden. She worries her bottom lip. Twists her hair around her finger. And imagines what that man might look like… Now she knows.
I wish I cared more…
I gaze down at the black ash and soot stains covering my jeans, experiencing my body normally. My limbs and heart move at the same time as the outside world. I’m grounded in the present, but it’s bleak.
Frowning, I poke the tip of my finger through a small hole in the fabric. The rocks and twigs must have made it when I was dragged beneath Clay. Sadness is circling relief, and exhaustion is just so overwhelming they both seem muted.
But for the guilt…
The mansion comes into view, lit up by rows of external wall lights. I blink at the figure at the top of the steps. Aurora waits for us with an entourage of soldiers and maids.
When I step from the car, she sighs her relief so hard that even from the foot of the steps I can see her chest fall. ‘Madonna Mia.’ She rushes to me.
Her long arms pull me in, and I wrap mine around her. I think she is my family. For reasons I can’t explain, tears that are not for Dustin or me, not for anyone, fall softly against her shoulder. Tears of leaking exhaustion, of the word betrayal, of guilt, of the still that I am not ready to join.
She strokes my hair down my head. ‘It is over now.’
Clay’s presence behind me sends heat through my spine, and I lift my head to gaze at the lovely dark liquor-coloured eyes of his wife. ‘I met my father,’ I say to her and to myself, reaching for that grief, a moment of mourning him.
Like I should.
Shouldn’t I?
‘I know.’ She nods at something in the distance. ‘Look at the size of your moon, sweet Fawn. It’s so close tonight.’
My lip twitches with a smile, but one doesn’t quite form. She told me that she never looks at the moon.
Gazing at the large glowing orb, I inhale the air. Inhale the grass. The scent of flowers. Inhale the still.
I exhale the fire.
Rushes of light play along the plane of the moon tonight when my back meets Clay’s torso.
I press further into the hard, formidable wall of his body; the lingering smell of smoke and charred wood doesn’t mask the masculine scent that is all his own. He still smells like him. Even if his armour is blocking out his heart tonight. It’s still him.
Sadness and exhaustion deflate me as I realise it is over, the night is over, the fight, the revenge, and I fall further into him as my legs lose a little strength.
He stoops to scoop me up, and I sigh against him, feeling that fatigue hood my eyes. My arms flop around his neck, my lashes slowly batting in front of the moon.
Aurora touches Clay’s cheek. ‘Is everyone safe? Xander? Bronson?’ She pauses. ‘Max? Cassidy called a few minutes ago. They arrived home safely, but he’s hurt. Your father left to check on him. Was he burnt and shot? Is it serious?’
‘He still managed to trek back to his car,” he says, contempt tightly coiled around each word. “I will call Cassidy after Fawn is in bed.”
Is Clay still angry with Max?
He took a bullet for me.
Her hand slides from his cheek. ‘Clay… I will call Cassidy and check in. You need to rest. You’re no good to anyone if you don’t… And I worry.’
“What a waste of your time,” he says to her, his tone cold, closed off. ‘And that is simply not possible. The men need to be debriefed. A cleaning crew needs to remove evidence and stage an accident.’
‘I am more than capable of contacting our cleaner and having him troll the campsite. He knows what to do. I need just approve it,’ she insists.
I add, ‘Let Aurora do it, Sir. Please. Stay with me.”
He hums, his gaze falls to my face briefly, the corner of his mouth twitching. ‘Very well,’ he accepts tightly, and his detached, guarded timbre stirs me.
He strides away, and Aurora heads down the steps to meet the convoy of cars that are now arriving. Distant conversations relay events. And I watch from over Clay’s shoulder as Aurora stands in her element, and the men, they nod respectfully for her.
Clay carries me through the house and although I can walk, I’m exhausted enough to appreciate it.
I blink up at Clay. ‘Are you angry with Max, Sir?’ I ask him as we approach our bedroom. “It was my idea.”
‘Not now, sweet girl.”
‘Max took a bullet for me—’
‘That changes nothing!” he spits out before schooling himself again. “I would take a bullet for his fucking dog, but I would never undermine his decisions relating to Cassidy. I would never take her.”
“You undermined his concerns when it came to Xander… though, Sir.” Fuck. I actually said that. I swallow over the lump forming around those words, wishing them back down as the powerful muscles holding me bunch.
I don’t push him further.
Not right now.
In the bathroom, Clay runs the shower. The seclusion of this space, the soft splashing sound, and the strange stillness after such intensity make pin pricks hit the back of my eyes.
Alone now.
Weak. Suddenly so weak I barely want to stand, weighed down by the sorrow of all those lives, the horror, the heat, and how quickly I picked Clay and his family over my own blood. It all splinters me. Creates thin cracks in my soul.
And I picked Clay even as Dustin’s eyes blinked in a kindred way to mine, shifted the same…
I roll the events in my mind, list and sort them. The night I met my dad, he was murdered. That happened. And I stood by. But it wasn’t a murder… A murder is vile, uncalled for. This was revenge. This was an execution.
Thinking about my dad’s eyes, I barely notice when Clay removes our clothes. Stepping from my knickers absently, I wonder whether Dustin had the same ears as me too. Or the same mannerisms.
In the shower, the warm spray falls around my shoulders while Clay stands outside of its warmth. Allowing me all its attention.
He lifts me and sets me on the ledge; our eyes are level. And he starts to wash the ash and dirt from my shoulders and across my chest.
I think I lose focus, staring through the stacks of muscles at his chest and the coils down his forearms, staring at the tattoos he refused to explain the last time I asked him. At the large scar that etches from his shoulder to the dip of his neck. The one he hides with a vine. How many more does he have after tonight? How many do they all have?
Suddenly, he lifts my hand and places it over the scar, having obviously noticed my distant gaze. My eyes jump up to meet the intense blue glowing in his. ‘You asked me once what this was. Would you like to know, sweet girl? Would you like to know the kind of man I really am?”
I know what kind of man you are, Sir.
A dangerous man.
I simply nod, my lips thin, my heart shuddering to scream I don’t care. I accept you. ‘Yes.’
He uses his big hands to caress soap from my fingers over his collarbone down the length of my arm. ‘No one quite understands, sweet girl, that just like you believed in the moon, I believed in the Cosa Nostra. It is—was—my entire life.
“It was what I was born to do. Me. The heir. I had pride in that. I accepted long ago that this was my future… Just this. I wanted it. Was seduced by it. And when you don’t have a choice, your decisions become remarkably clear. Life becomes black and white.”
He continues to wash me as he speaks. ‘When I was your age, I was just out of boarding school, and for the first time in my entire adolescence, I was staying in the family home. As part of my initiation, I was ordered to kill a girl. Jimmy and your father told me it was an honour of mine to finish this job for my family. They were proud when I accepted. I had presumed, as I always did, that by family, they meant my father and my brothers and the Cosa Nostra.”
His brows draw in. ‘She was the daughter of a man who knew too much. So, she knew too much. That is all they told me, and that was enough for me then. I didn’t question it. I accepted their words and orders. Your father went with me that day. She was young. Nine or so. And I put a pillow over her head, and I held it down.’ He pauses, and my throat tightens. ‘And I killed her. For them. That is the man I am.”
Tears stream down my cheeks, meeting the water from the showerhead as they slide together down my trembling lips.
He presses his hand over mine, applying pressure to the scar, holding it, protecting it, as if we can heal it together.
His eyes level on me with an intensity and honesty I have never seen in him before. Not like this. ‘She fought back, little deer.’ He almost smiles. ‘She sliced me with some kind of ornament she had hidden under her pillow. And left me with this scar to remember her by… I should have asked questions. I should have spoken up. I never did.”
An ache moves through my chest for him… not her. What kind of person does that make me?
It’s the truth in his blue eyes, the gravelly aftershock to his timbre, that hurts my heart. A heart only whole and healed, trusting and strong, because he loves it. I can’t see this man as bad when he is my number one good thing. So, I accept, he’s the villain in that girl’s story, but he’ll never be the villain in mine. ‘You were following orders. You—’
‘You cannot make excuses for this, little deer,’ he grounds, wanting my disdain, my shock and horror. ‘I was exactly your age when I blindly followed that order. I was not a child. Why do you think I told you this? Why now?”
“I don’t know.”
“You defied me tonight.”
‘I didn’t want—’
‘You left,’ he cuts me off. ‘You made your own decisions. You knew what the plan was. You heard what I said. Heard my orders. And you put yourself in danger. Why?’
‘Because of Xander.’
‘Yes. But I told everyone that I was taking care of it. Try again,’ he challenges. ‘Say the words.’
I breathe out hard, pushing the truth through my lips. ‘I thought you were making a mistake, Sir.’
‘Good girl,’ he praises. ‘You did.’ He nods slowly as his face tightens in regret. ‘But, little deer, you also decided that I wasn’t reasonable enough to listen to your concerns. You didn’t even try to convince me. You just left me. Tell me the truth now.’
My lips won’t stop vibrating as I admit, ‘Yes. I didn’t think you would listen to me. I thought you’d lock me away.’
A deep sigh leaves him, and he curses before saying, ‘Christ. I’ve failed you.’
I shake my head. ‘No. It’s not—’
‘Yes.’ He cups my cheeks and presses his lips to mine, talking against the water and tears glazing them. ‘You didn’t come to me.’ His voice sounds strange. Strained. As though he is fighting a battle in his throat. ‘I don’t want you to feel as though you must take orders from me blindly. Dammit, Fawn. Question me.’ He kisses me and presses his forehead to mine, rolling it hard as he says, ‘Use your voice, sweet girl. And I will listen to your concerns. I will listen to you, Fawn. Every damn word that comes out of your pretty mouth, I will listen, but I swear to God, if you ever leave me like that again without at least giving me a goddamn chance to—’
‘I won’t.’ I grip the back of his neck, his shoulders are large ridges coiled with taut muscles, and I pull his mouth to mine again. Our kiss is tight, a wince of emotion thinning both of our mouths. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say against his lips. ‘I’m so so sorry.’
‘Swear it to me, sweet girl.’
‘I will never leave you again.’
One of his hands slides back and fists my hair, using his grip to curve my neck so he can drag his lips down the column. I swallow over a lump of nerves, and he ardently licks along the rolling of my throat.
As his fingers twist in my blonde strands, my hair bites at the scalp. I whimper, feeling his darkness fill the room.
His breathing gets heavy and fierce, and his teeth now scrape along my skin. ‘I will kill the next person who tries to take you from me.’ He spreads my thighs and tugs me to the edge of the ledge, swiping two fingers through my slit before forcing me to take his cock in one brutal movement.
A yelp falls from me.
Impaled beautifully in a gasp.
He growls, and I dig my nails into the muscle cording his neck and shoulders. Then he starts to fuck me, powered by the confusion, the vulnerability, the confessions, and the honesty.
‘I would have locked you up,’ he admits darkly, gripping my arse and thigh with one hand and using my pelvis to meet his hard drives. ‘I would have thrown away the damn key. You’re right. I wouldn’t have seen reason. I wouldn’t have taken a chance. Not with your life.’ Deep grunts fall from him with each punch of his hips. ‘Not with you. Never you.’
His lips slide up to my mouth and I gasp into them. He fucks my mouth with his tongue as he ruthlessly thrusts into me. Fucking the truth from himself, the hatred, blame, stoicism, and control.
Breaking off from our bruising kiss, he smothers my small body to his formidable, packed muscles, my head to his chest, held there by his fingers wrapped around my wet blonde strands. His hips never relent, battering me hard, rutting into me without caution.
My arms envelop his waist. I hold on as his powerful muscles roll and tighten beneath my clutching hands.
‘I worship you, Fawn,’ he goes on roughly. ‘I fucking worship you, and I won’t always be reasonable, but give me the damn chance to be! I’ll learn. Give me the damn chance.’
He batters the end of me. I cry out as he opens up to me with his words and his hard inward thrusts that have me accepting him and then missing him so quickly one sensation overlaps with the other.
I can’t keep up.
Holding on.
He groans, his cock thickening inside me. ‘You’ll have to stop me one day. You’ll have to make me see reason when I’m about to tear the world through the middle for you. If you leave me, I’ll do it. I will bleed the streets. Kill them all. Nothing could hurt me more than existing without you.’
The ecstasy of being full of him, of his words, of his raw lovemaking that is a trembling and desperate chase to a climax, fills my chest.
Vulnerable. Utterly open. He clings to my body, hand in my hair, fearful of any distance. He doesn’t just love me. I’m his everything. Like he is mine.
Tears continue to stream down my face as we break through mountains and crumbling walls. As we strip off his cool façade that was no choice of his to create. Armour that protected him from questioning the evil around him. A veil that separated him from the innocent girl that affects him still.
He fucks it all out.
His pristine mannerisms.
His unreadable affections.
All the real fear, pain, and regret shine from him and it is beautiful and chaotic and devastating. And he gifts it all to me as he builds towards his orgasm in such a way that makes me feel like his home, his safe space. My body, his sanctuary. A place of redemption.
My dangerous man.
My Clay Butcher.
My number one.
