“I love you, butterfly,” he said. “I love you so bloody much.”
Her hands were everywhere, gentle and tender, caressing his back, cupping his face. “I love you too.”
“Thank you for tonight,” he said, stroking her hair as he gazed at her lovely face. “Thank you for finding me, for healing me, for making me whole.”
“Oh, my darling man,” she whispered, shadows passing in her eyes for a moment before they were gone, “it is I who must be grateful to you. You owe me nothing.”
“I owe you everything, Caro.” He kissed her lingeringly, until they were both breathless, and his heart was alive with the endless possibility of the love blossoming between them. “But for now, all I have to offer you is my heart.”
Chapter 10
He woke to sunlight.
To a warm, feminine form curled against him.
To the sweet, floral scent of Caro Sutton teasing his senses.
And memories.
He woke to hisname.
Gavin Winter.
And that was it. After so many weeks of wondering, of agonizing, of scouring his mind for something more than the mists inhabiting it since he had been beaten and shot and left for dead, his answers returned to him. The flow of remembrance was slow at first. His siblings—Gen, Demon, Devil, Dom, Blade, Dev, Bea, Grace, Pru, Eugie, and Christabella. The interior of the rooms he kept—spare and small, nothing but a bed and a place to shave in a seedy part of the rookery where a chap would as soon pick your pocket as bid you good day.
Then more. His favorite food: pigeon pie with lemon pudding for dessert. His favorite poison: arrack. And hell, the nights he had recently spent with his brother Demon, drinking himself to oblivion in preparation for his fight…
Fight.
His hands flexed into fists.
He was a prizefighter.
Suddenly, all the flashes of violence, the understanding of what it felt like to hit a man—he understood them. He had spent the last few years of his life building his reputation as one of the best damned prizefighters in London. And his body had taken a beating over those years.
Worse, cumulatively, than the beating he had received…
As remembrance rained down on him, like a sudden storm on a clear day, he found himself immobile, stiffer than a statue in Caro’s bed. Searing pain, the likes of which he had not suffered since the early days of his recovery, shot through his head. It was almost as if the memories were too much, too fast, rushing at him, arsey varsey.
He clutched his head in his hands, closing his eyes tight against the sunlight, but the memories kept coming. He remembered being surrounded by men. Five of them. Defending himself as best he could, but he had been outnumbered. Just flashes of remembrance, this. But he recalled the crack of the pistol, the crash of something over his skull, the darkness that had claimed him. The faces of the bastards responsible remained indistinct.
Fucking hell.
Had he known them? Who had attacked him, and why?
A moan tore from him as his head continued to ache. Slowly, he became aware of something beyond his inner torment. Of a soothing hand on his brow, of a soft, dulcet voice laced with concern.
“What is the matter? Are you unwell?”
Gavin struggled to form words, but the overwhelming return of his memories seemed to have rendered his tongue numb. Or mayhap the connection from his knowledge box to his mouth had been severed. Whatever the case, he could not speak.
Could scarcely manage to turn his head and meet her beloved hazel gaze.
Beloved.
Bloody hell.
He had fallen in love with a Sutton. With Caro Sutton. Their families had been enemies for far longer than they had been in a reluctant truce.
