They weren’t mine to kill. They were hers.
I’d debated with myself over the decision I’d made, because I’d only just gotten her back. I didn’t want to scar her, to make herturn away from me and be scared, but she also needed to know who I was.
Who Reaper really was.
It scared the shit out of me. A life without her was no life, but I needed to know.
For sure.
That she was mine.
Crouching down beside the bed, I looked over at the photo she was clutching in her hand. I remembered it well. It was the photo I’d jerked off to thousands of times over the years. I pulled it from her grasp, hardly believing that sweet, innocent girl was my little vixen now.
Tossing it on the table, I looked up to see her eyes open, and a slow grin on her face. “Hey.”
“Hey, gorgeous. You get some sleep?”
She nodded. “What time is it?”
I helped her sit up and then stand in front of me, in just one of my shirts and a pair of my jocks, tied at the side. She was fucking gorgeous, and seeing her in my clothes did something primal inside of me that I’d never experienced before.
Rowan’s eyes drifted to the photo, and back up at me. “All this time?”
“Yeah, baby, all this time,” I said, kissing her lips, softly, claiming in a way that wasn’t rushed, wasn’t forced. She deepened the kiss, her arms pulling me closer. I let the kiss overwhelm me for a moment, because in the next ten minutes, we were going to see if she could handle being my ol’ lady.
I was fucking terrified.
“Come on,” I said, taking her hand. “I need you to get dressed.”
“Where are we going?”
“I got something to show you. Cherry gave me those clothes to give to you.”
I pointed to the end of the bed and she grabbed the tight dress Cherry had handed over downstairs. As she de-robed, I took note of her bruised body from the fight with the other chick, and cringed. She’d been mad because of me. She’d stepped into that ring…because of me.
Once she had the dress on, and it clung to every goddamn curve she had, I took her hand again and led her down the stairs of the clubhouse. Everyone was asleep, tired from beating the fuck out of Bryan and Roger. Once we got outside, I hesitated at the door to the shed. Rowan looked at me, with her big doe-like eyes, innocent, but I knew better. She had a darkness in her like no other. I just prayed she fed into it and realised how perfect she was for me.
“Inside is…what I wanted to show you. Being with me isn’t going to be sunshine and roses, baby. I can’t promise you that we won’t fight, but what I can promise you, is I’ll always come home to you. I won’t stray, I will be devoted to you, and you will be to me. No lies, no more secret shit. You want something, you come and tell me. I’ll have shit I can’t tell you. Shit about the club that you don’t need to know about, but just know that I will tell you what I can. I just need you to know…I will always put you first, even above the club.”
She smiled, a sweet little mischievous smile. “You’re not meant to say that.”
I pulled her up to me, wrapping an arm around her waist, and cupping the side of her face. I ran my thumb over her jaw. “I know.”
Kissing her quickly, before I backed out of it, I pulled away to open the shed doors. Motioning for her to enter, she did, a little trepidatiously, but then she was inside.
I waited for her to freak out, but it didn’t come.
“You did this?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Me and the boys,” I answered. “It took everything in me not to finish them off.”
“Why didn’t you?” she asked, turning to me.
“It’s not my kill,” I said, handing her the bat I’d used on them earlier. It was covered in blood. “It’s yours.”
Rowan looked down at the bat, and for a few moments didn’t move. My heart beat fast, and my breath was caught in my throat.
Slowly, she reached out to take it. “You may want to look away, Wyatt. This ain’t gonna be pretty.”
