Chapter 27 #2
Brody stood thirty feet away, his gun hanging limply at his side.
The playful cockiness he normally wore was covered by the murderous viciousness that contorted his face.
The same as it had done when that pile of garbage PJ had shown up here.
My spirit twined in both regret and praise, sure that he had been the one who’d taken the shot. The one who’d saved Brinley.
Four Crows raced to the sleaze on the ground and hauled him up by both arms.
I barely even registered him fighting them since all my attention was locked on Brinley.
Brinley who was clamoring for me.
I went running her way.
Scooping her off the ground and into my arms.
Relief slammed me so hard I could barely stand.
“I’ve got you. I’ve got you. You’re okay. I’ve got you,” I mumbled into her hair.
A sob hitched from her throat, and she locked her arms around my neck as I carried her back toward the lobby door.
Trevan stood outside it, eyeing me firm and fierce.
I lifted my chin at him.
An unspoken thank you.
Because he fucking knew what was going down in the middle of the mayhem. He knew my men had it covered and would easily take the fucker down without putting anyone in unnecessary danger, when I had let myself lose sight.
Willing to run headlong into the fire.
Without a plan or foresight.
So fucking reckless and wrong.
But that seemed to be exactly what this woman was doing to me.
Making me reckless.
Angling toward things I shouldn’t touch. Wanting things that I sure as hell couldn’t keep.
He gave a quick flick of his head toward the asshole that the guys were dragging in the direction of the clubhouse.
A silent promise that the swine would be ready for me when I was ready to deal with him.
And deal with him I would.
But right then the only thing that mattered was Brinley.
Brinley who was shaking in my hold.
A fist of rage threatened to crush my breastbone, fury and violence still hot on my hands.
Fuck.
What I wouldn’t give to hop on my bike and destroy the beast who had set this into motion. Turn around and end anything or anyone who would threaten to do her harm.
Say fuck it to the whole plan and end him myself.
But I couldn’t let her go, either.
Couldn’t do anything but carry her back into the lobby and around the counter where I carefully settled her onto the desk.
She gasped and choked, hands still clinging to my neck as I inched back so I could take her in.
Almost dropped to my knees when she tipped her face toward me.
Tears soaked her cheeks.
Confusion and dread and terror toiling in those harvest eyes.
I gripped her by each side of the jaw, trying to wipe away the stains like it might be enough to erase the intent that had been perpetuated today.
“Are you hurt? Did he get you anywhere else?” With my thumb, I swept up the trickle of blood from her neck.
“No.” She gulped, and she squeezed her eyes closed for a beat, like she was trying to bring herself back to reality.
Problem was, this was her reality.
I hated it.
Hated that this nightmare was real.
Hated that she had been sucked into her brother’s mess and that I was a twisted part of it.
“You’re okay. You’re okay,” I rumbled again.
Trying to make it true.
Wishing I had the power to take it away.
That I could make it better.
That I could be better.
“Am I?” Brinley basically begged as she gripped onto my wrists. “Am I really okay?”
“Yes. Because I’m here. I’m right fucking here.” It was the only answer I could give.
She gulped. “Who was that?”
“Not sure, but we’ll find out.” Brutality curled out with the words.
“He…he wanted to take me. He knew Dereck.” It tumbled out of her mouth.
I kept running my thumbs over the tears that slipped down her cheeks. “I know.”
“I don’t understand any of this, Silas. I didn’t ask to be a part of it. I don’t want to be a part of it.”
“I don’t want you to be, either, and I’m going to make sure to get you out of it. I promise you.”
I wouldn’t stop until I made it fact.
“That’s why you’re here,” I grated. “You’re here so I can protect you from it.”
Even though we were obviously doing a terrible job.
How the fuck that bastard got in here unnoticed, I didn’t know.
Pearce’s ass was mine, but that was going to have to wait.
Because I was rooted.
Fucking stuck.
Stuck on this woman who was making me want things I had no right to want.
Nothing but a selfish bastard who had nothing to give but pain and grief.
And there I stood, wanting to devour the temptation in front of me.
My grandmother had always urged me to go after the good things in life. To take it when it was presented because we never knew when we would no longer have the chance.
Problem was, the only thing I would do was taint it.
Ruin and spoil and desolate.
“I’m scared, Silas.” Brinley hiccupped as the admission slid between her plush, pouty lips.
Her simple words gripped me in a chokehold.
Energy lashed.
Since the moment I met her, she had always been harsh. Fierce and volatile. A hurricane rushing in to make landfall.
And now she was laying herself bare, allowing vulnerability to come spilling out.
Like she trusted me to hold her insecurities. Hold the things that had shaped her into this little fighter who refused to let anyone get to her.
“I’ll ruin you, baby.”
It was a warning for both of us.
Because I could feel the distinct break that had been made. Something inside of Brinley had shattered apart when that monster had come through the door, same way as it’d done me.
“Why don’t I care? Why do I want you to?” she whispered through the torment.
“Because maybe you’re as reckless as me.”
Wild curls framed her gorgeous, stunning face, tight body clad in another one of those tiny dresses that had been slowly driving me out of my mind.
Cream colored fabric hugging her curves, her trembling legs swinging off the edge of the desk.
A glutton, I slowly wedged myself between them.
There was so much confliction in her gaze, I couldn’t quite make sense of it.
A whirring of convoluted air that spun her into mayhem.
Need and desperation and something that looked far too close to trepidation.
Those wild eyes devouring.
Both eager and afraid.
My chest tightened in a fist, tighter than it ever had, fully aware that she was exposing something that she hadn’t before.
I just couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
A good man would tear himself away. Get the fuck out of there before he crossed a line he couldn’t undo.
But I wasn’t close to one of those, and with her, I’d been crossing them all along.
A captive to the gravity that she emitted.
“I shouldn’t be here like this with you, Brinley. Shouldn’t be touching you at all. But I don’t know how to stop when it comes to you. The way you make me feel…”
Electricity crackled in the air. A connection that burned where I held her on either side of the face.
Her sweet breaths panted into my face.
Apples and almonds and cream.
So delectably sweet that I knew I was touching on some kind of innocence that I hadn’t recognized in her before.
Her lips parted on a rush of desire.
“I’ll ruin you,” I gritted again.
Those eyes were so wide as she begged, “I want to know what that feels like.”
Fuck it.
Fuck the questions and the consequences.
I dove in. Our mouths and souls colliding.
It was a clash of desperation and the pent-up desire that had been working between us since the moment she descended like a storm onto my property.
Full scale combustion.
Tongues and lips and teeth.
All while these wayward specks inside me ached to become something different.
Wishing that I was different than the man I’d become.
A man who’d do anything to be good enough to stand at her side. Good enough to call her mine.
It’s your heart. It’s your heart.
That thought alone should send me running out the door.
Instead, I drove my fingers into her hair, gripping onto the erratic curls, driving the madness higher. Brinley’s lips were so fucking soft, so fucking delicious, that I knew they had to be coated in poison.
Had to be with the way I’d gone delirious.
Caught on a rush of dizziness that took me whole as I pushed the kiss farther, the surging of something massive and overpowering that ballooned in my chest.
Something brighter than I’d ever experienced before.
Needy fingers fisted in the shirt beneath my coveralls that were partially unzipped, and she gasped these short, whimpered breaths into my mouth as I shifted my head from side to side, devouring her mouth and wishing that I could sink all the way inside.
Brinley parted.
Opening to me.
Body, spirit, and soul.
Her head tipped back and the desirous sound that rolled up her throat was nothing but a plea.
Tugging her a little from the desk, I wound myself all the way between her thighs.
A frenzy lit as I pressed my hard, aching cock to the mind-boggling heat that radiated from her pussy.
Far too many clothes divided us to leave either of us satisfied.
I wanted to erase it. Erase every barrier that separated us. Own her the way I needed to.
“Is that what you want, Brinley? You want me to peel you apart? Fuck you so good that the only name you know is mine?”
My tongue swept between her lips at the same time as I rocked against her.
Our tongues stroking and tangling and inciting a mania that spun the room.
Walls whirring at warp speed as I kissed her with everything that I had to give.
Intensity blistered. Scorching our flesh.
Flames licking up from the well of attraction that had me hooked from the moment I saw her.
When I’d somehow known this girl was going to change everything.
Brinley rasped. A mewl of hunger that was bound up with this confusion that rained and battered at our senses.
A hurricane that hit land.
She struggled to get closer, whimpering and whining as she rubbed herself against my raging hard dick.
“Wildfire,” I mumbled at her mouth.
“King.”
How the fuck it sounded like affection sliding off her tongue and onto mine, I didn’t know.