“I told him I didn’t know anything about him, which was crazy since I’d knownhim for so long, and he told me to go and look through it for my answers.”
Viper handed the photo back to me and offered me a tight smile. “It wasn’t a nice place. It was where kids went that had no one to help them, where the government stuck you when you were a nuisance with no hope of being adopted.”
“I’m sorry,” I said to him. Viper was such a fun loving and sweet man, even if he pretended not to be. I’d known he and Savage were darker, rougher around the edges than most of the boys here, but I felt safe with both of them. I knew they weren’t bad eggs. I hated that they’d had a rough upbringing with no one around to love them.
“Savage wasn’t truly an orphan. His mum did a lot of things to get him in there so he could be protected from his dad. She died protecting him, and it’s a sore spot for him. What we endured in that place was worse than the streets. When we were sixteen, we ran and became street urchins until Bear found us when we were eighteen and pushed us into cleaning our shit up.”
“He has a shit dad?” I asked.
“That you’ll need to ask him yourself,” Viper said. “I know how much he likes you Shona, and if you’re here asking about him, I know you like him too. The past is the past. All you need to know is what he wants you to know now.”
I could tell Viper knew more about his dad than he let on, but I also wanted Savage to be the one to tell me…if he wanted me to know. He trusted me with his prized possessions after all, so maybe he would let me know about his past. Hell, I was no innocent bunny. I had a past too, one I really didn’t want anyone to know, so I should leave well enough alone.
“Thanks,” I said to Viper and got up and headed back to Savage’s room. I was putting the photos back when I saw a mini photo in the back of the box. I picked it up, realising it was a photo of a few of us girls from years ago. He’d ripped the other people off and kept the photo of me. The breath left me suddenly, and I sat down on his bed. He didn’t seem like the type to have photos of anyone, his mother I understood, but me?
I found that I liked that he had one of me in here.
I didn’t even have one photo of him. He never stuck around long enough to get a photo with anyone. I desperately wanted one. I don’t know what I’d do with it, but I wanted a photo of Savage for myself, just like he had one of me.
I took a photo of it with my phone and packed the photos away in his box, relocking it and putting it away. Sitting back on his bed, I could smell his manly scent on his pillows and I took a big inhale.
If I closed my eyes, I could imagine he was here with me.
Fuck.
I had it bad.
I sat up and opened up the photo, sending it to him with a message.
SHONA
Creeper. I didn’t even know you had this. I want one of you though. Send me one.
His response was immediate.
SAVAGE
Are you still in my room?
SHONA
Yes.
My phone lit up with an incoming video call. I gasped when I accepted the call and his face appeared. He was laying down on a bed, shirtless, and he had a lazy grin on his face.
“Hey you,” he said, his voice all smoky and sexy. “Find anything interesting?”
“Many things,” I replied. “Including a picture of me.”
“So? I’m allowed to have a photo of the woman I want to look at everyday.”
The air got sucked out of my lungs, and I saw his smirk creep up on his face.
“Then I can have one of you.”
“Nope,” he replied with a shrug of his shoulders. “You can have a photo of me, but you have to be in it, and it’ll be on the day you let me make you Shona Gleason.”
Was it hot in here? I felt my cheeks turn hot, my chest panting. “I’m not marrying you, Savage.”
